In the midst of a nationwide campaign to restructure their board and a contentious fight at the bargaining table, the members of the REI Union were dismayed to learn that REI’s culture of union busting and worker exploitation extended deep into their supply chain. Released in December 2024, a comprehensive report compiled instances of reported human rights and labor abuses at multiple Southeast Asian and Central American factories that REI contracted with. Workers at REI’s US retailers, represented by United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) and the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union (RWDSU), are resolved to make lasting change at the popular co-op, both at the bargaining table and within the board room, and the report’s release underscores the importance of that fight. 

‘Beneath REI’s Green Sheen’: Bombshell report exposes human rights abuses in REI’s supply chain

In early December, a report on REI’s relationships with their suppliers rocked the outdoor world. Students for International Labor Solidarity (SILS) teamed up with researchers at UMass-Amherst’s College of Social and Behavioral Sciences Labor Center to dig into REI’s relationships with factories along their supply chain. The resulting report, ‘Beneath REI’s Green Sheen,’ pulled the bulk of its information from publicly available documents, international reporting, and worker interviews to form a clearer picture of the conditions that international workers labor under in the factories that REI has contracted with. The report found that REI’s use of co-op language “serves to bolster its brand image as a socially and ecologically-minded democratic organization, and helps to mask its corporate ownership structure,” and that “REI’s partnerships for “responsible sourcing and fair labor” offer minimal public transparency and lack enforceable obligations on REI to address identified violations.”

In El Salvador in 2017, union workers were fired en masse after a legal increase in the country’s minimum wage was implemented at Textiles Opico, a garment manufacturer that REI has contracted with for over a decade. According to the report, SITRASACOSI, the Salvadoran garment union, alleged that “union members were targeted in part to punish them for pressing management to fulfill its labor rights obligations,” which was independently investigated and found to have merit by the Salvadoran Ministry of Labor. In the wake of those findings, Textiles Opico reportedly refused to reinstate the fired workers until international pressure pushed the factory to remedy the situation. According to independent labor monitor Workers Rights Consortium (WRC), REI did nothing to contribute to the international pressure campaign, and as of December 2024, continues to buy from the factory.

In Taiwan, migrant workers at Giant Manufacturing, which supplied bicycles to REI from 2021 to 2024, were ensnared in expensive recruitment schemes, where they were required to pay exorbitant fees to recruiters in order to secure employment. As a result, many workers were forced to take out high interest loans, leaving them in severe debt. In order to pay those debts, and in some cases pay monthly fees to labor brokers, workers were obliged to work extreme overtime hours and housed in overcrowded, unsanitary dormitories on factory grounds. As the report suggests, “these abuses amount to at least five indicators of forced labor: abuse of vulnerability, intimidation and threats, debt bondage, abusive working and living conditions, and excessive overtime.” The report also finds that although REI no longer contracts with Giant Manufacturing, the brand maintained a relationship with the factory at the same time that workers were testifying about their appalling work and living conditions.

The report also elaborates on a number of other cases, including: workers who were disciplined by being forced to sit outdoors on searing concrete in triple digit heat; using short-term contract schemes to deny workers legally protected bargaining rights; discrimination and intimidation against migrant workers; weaponizing the courts against union organizers; and discriminatory firings of union workers at various REI suppliers across primarily Southeast Asia and Central America.

REI’s messaging states that it adheres to a comprehensive internal code of conduct relating to its partnerships with factories farther down the supply chain. The tenets laid forth in its Factory Code of Conduct include such items as “Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining,” where employers respect the legal rights of employees to form unions and collectively bargain; “Voluntary Employment,” where employers will not use forced labor in any form in their factories; and harassment policies which state that employers that they work with “will not use physical or psychological disciplinary tactics” upon their workforce. Researchers found that REI contracted with factories in multiple countries over a period of over 10 years where conditions did not meet those standards. 

Additionally, researchers found that REI “does not prioritize long-term relationships with its suppliers,” preferring instead to switch out suppliers dozens of times over less than a decade, “potentially impacting as many as 100,000 workers.” As the report suggests, frequent supplier hopping “is the opposite of a sustainable approach to supply chain management.”

“It is extraordinary that our limited research identified so many violations at REI supplier factories, especially when workers are generally terrified to report publicly on rights violations they experience for fear of being retaliated against by their employer,” the report said. “It is therefore reasonable to assume that the violations described in this report are only a very small portion of the actual extent of labor abuses in REI’s global supply chain.”

In the report’s conclusion, researchers underscored the gravity of the situation regarding REI’s relationship with their suppliers. “Ultimately, we found a yawning gap between REI’s pretensions to social responsibility and the evidence provided by the workers who make its outdoor gear,” the report said. “Unless REI takes immediate and meaningful action to address these failings, its claims of social responsibility will continue to ring hollow.”

Katie Nguyen, national organizer for SILS and co-author of the report, explained the importance of the research, saying, “We knew that there was this ongoing union fight with REI, and so we wanted to connect our two struggles of ‘what are workers facing in REI’s global supply chain and how can we act in solidarity with US retail workers who are also organizing on [sic] REI?’” SILS’s primary focus is mobilizing students to organize in solidarity with garment workers in the global garment industry. 

Nguyen drew attention to REI’s messaging around environmental sustainability and conscious consumer culture as a key factor in shining more of a spotlight on the brand’s production. “Any time a brand promotes itself as sustainable and really progressive, that raises flags about whether that’s really a reality, especially as you go deeper into the supply chain and it gets farther away from a US or Western consumer base.” 

Upon learning of the abuses suffered by workers in REI’s supply chain, US workers were shocked. “I’m extremely concerned and dismayed and horrified that I work for a company that has this sort of public face where we want everyone to get access to the natural world or outdoor life, when there are people that they effectively employ who are living in squalor and intimidation of losing their livelihood at all times–this sort of fly-by-night factory usage, where they bounce from facility to facility to get the lower rates for production of fast fashion garments,” said Andy Trebing, worker at one of REI’s Chicago locations.

Upending the Board, with a Vote

As the board campaign swings into its final weeks, workers have split their focus with ongoing contract negotiations across their 11 unionized shops. REI refused to negotiate at a national table, so workers are forced to bargain shop by shop. According to Megan Shan, bargaining committee member for the Durham, North Carolina, shop, proposals are similar across the board and bargaining has been coordinated via national calls in order to present a united front to the company. “For all of our union stores, and probably the non-union stores too, we have a lot of the same issues regarding scheduling, hours, safety,” she said. “It’s all pretty universal.” Workers hope that REI’s new CEO, Mary Beth Laughton, will be more willing to work with them in securing a contract.

For some union workers, who have struggled for years to win a first contract, the board campaign embodies an earnest effort to engage in international solidarity with fellow workers who are experiencing the same exploitation farther down the supply chain. “We all as workers came to REI because we believe in the values that they claim publicly, and we do want to hold them accountable,” Shan said, “So I think it’s up to us to raise our voices in this fight.”

REI is a consumer co-op, meaning that any consumer can pay a one-time membership fee to join. Members are then able to elect a governing board, who are responsible for decision-making for the brand. According to REI’s own board website, “REI’s board is legally responsible for the overall direction of the affairs and the performance of REI. The board carries out this legal responsibility by establishing broad policy and ensuring REI management is operating within the framework of these policy guidelines.” 

Years of union busting at their US locations and the increasingly corporate structure of the board led union workers from REI stores across the United States to seek out candidates who might bring a better voice to the board’s current corporate makeup. As Davie Jamieson reported for HuffPost in January 2025, “Allegations that REI is no longer a co-op in spirit predate the union campaign by at least a couple of decades. A 2003 Seattle Weekly story portrayed a profit-driven and opaque corporation that wouldn’t divulge its then-chief executive’s compensation. “Who Owns REI?” the story asked. “It can’t be the members.” (REI now makes executive pay public. [Former CEO Eric] Artz made $2.7 million in 2023 and topped $4 million in previous years.)”

According to REI’s bylaws, any member in good standing can submit an application to be nominated for their governing board. Co-op members will then vote for the nominee that they believe will govern the co-op effectively. The position requires significant business and management experience, but according to the board website, “all self-nominated candidates are considered during the selection process.” Ahead of this year’s board election, union members approached Tefere Gebre and Shemona Moreno to submit an application for the ballot. Both candidates work in the environmental justice movement, with experience running large climate-focused nonprofits. Gebre is the former executive vice president of the AFL-CIO and current chief program officer at Greenpeace.

Moreno is the executive director of 350 Seattle, a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to the struggle for climate justice. Their organizing has focused on what Moreno calls “‘No’ Fights” and “‘Yes’ Fights,” where organizers have waged campaigns against increased fossil fuel infrastructure (pipelines, for instance), as well as worked within communities to create more green initiatives, as well as advocating for the Green New Deal. When the union approached Moreno with an idea to run for REI’s board, she was enthusiastic. “They’re like, ‘Shemona, we have an idea, this great idea. Would you be interested? We think you’d be great,’ and my response was like, ‘Hell yeah, I’d love to! I didn’t know that was an option, but I’m totally down to do it!’”

After they verified her membership as still valid, Moreno put together the application to the board and submitted the materials before the deadline. For weeks, Moreno didn’t hear anything back from the board. It wasn’t until she began doing press interviews about her candidacy that she was notified that she never submitted an application, despite having screenshots of the application being submitted before the deadline. “I was kind of shocked by that,” she said. “I thought for sure they would just kind of respond like ‘well, you don’t meet our qualifications; you don’t have enough business experience,’— I thought that would be the way they would go, but to straight out lie was pretty shocking for me.”

Ultimately, the candidates that REI submitted to their membership did not include any of the proposed nominees that were backed by the union. In response, the union waged a national campaign to urge members to vote “Withhold” on the proposed slate in hopes of sending a message that the current makeup of the board is too corporate and has strayed too far from the values that the co-op purports to embody (To give a sense of just how corporate the board has become, one need only look at the resumes of their current members: Chairman of United Airlines, former exec at Nike, former Exxon-Mobile marketing director, to name a few). The publication of UMass Amherst’s report added extra urgency to the campaign.

REI’s official social media channels are inundated with comments from members who are outraged at the board’s treatment of US retail workers and workers abroad, as well as their endorsement (and subsequent retraction of said endorsement) of Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, who has stated publicly that he would like to strip the national parks of their resources in order to increase energy production in the US, and oversaw the firing of thousands of National Park Service employees. 

For Trebing, international solidarity with workers is an indelible part of the package. “I feel like the moment you know that someone else is being exploited and you don’t do something about it, or try to do something about it, you’re complicit,” he said. “I think if we are to honor the work and sacrifice that organizers have done before us in trying to protect the working class here and across the globe—if we don’t honor that, then why are we doing any of this?” 

The voting period for the board will conclude on May 1.

On March 31, also known as Cesar Chavez Day, unions and workers from across California converged on Delano, home of the historic Delano Grape Strike that began the struggle of the United Farm Workers. The Real News reports from the ground, speaking with union and community leaders who say workers are coming together across sectors to oppose Trump’s attacks on immigrants and the federal workforce.

Production: Mel Buer
Post-Production: Cameron Granadino
Additional Footage: Bucky Gonzalez
Additional Sound: Tom Pieczkolon

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Mel Buer:

On March 31st, 2025, thousands of workers from all over the state of California met in Delano, California to celebrate the life and legacy of Cesar Chavez, and stand in solidarity with immigrant workers across the United States. One in every three workers in the state of California are immigrants. And raids by ICE and border patrol agencies on immigrant communities have intensified in the months following Donald Trump’s inauguration in mid-January. In California, all across the state, immigrant workers have been detained and deported. Some of the most harrowing experiences have been in Kern County, in California’s Central Valley, where ICE raids have terrorized the immigrant community and left workers uncertain about their future in the country. In a show of solidarity, union workers from all over the state traveled to Delano to remind the country and each other that these attacks on immigrant workers won’t go unchallenged.

David Huerta:

Today’s also, not only a recognition of that, but also really standing united against the attacks against working people and the most particularly, immigrant workers, right? And so I think we stand today in the sense of saying that we stand shoulder to shoulder with one another, all workers for every worker. Doesn’t matter your status, doesn’t matter what language you speak, doesn’t matter. We have to stand united as working people at this moment in time, as we see this president continuous attacks against working people, and most particularly, against the immigrant community.

Mel Buer:

The Real News joined a caravan from Los Angeles to Delano, organized by the Service Employees International Union-United Service Workers West. Dozens of workers from all over Los Angeles met early in the morning, shared breakfast together, and then made the two and a half hour journey to Delano to march. When asked about the importance of organized labor coming together in support of each other, SEIU President David Huerta had this to say.

David Huerta:

This is the moment in time that as every fight, working people have to stand united. Whether you’re a farm worker, a janitor, a hotel worker, a state worker, a nurse, all of us have to stand together because really with this administration, their attack right now is against federal employees. But that attack against federal employees is just a precursor to what he’s trying to do to the rest of the labor movement, and that’s dismantling. And we cannot allow that to happen because the labor movement is the last line of defense for working people in this country.

Mel Buer:

After arriving in Delano, workers gathered for opening speeches in Memorial Park before beginning the three-mile march to Forty Acres, owned by the United Farm Workers. Members of CWA, the Teamsters, UAW, SEIU, UNITE HERE, and other unions were represented in a massive show of solidarity with immigrant workers in California and the U.S.

Speaker 3:

So I think when we think about what Trump is doing on immigration, it’s an attack on the working class. And not just immigrant workers, the entire working class. When one group of workers is so afraid of getting deported that they’re not willing to talk about wage theft or unsafe working conditions, obviously, that’s bad for them, but that’s also bad for every other worker in that industry. So we’re looking at construction, agriculture, home care, kitchens, janitors, right? If you’re an American worker in those jobs, when undocumented workers who are essential to those industries are in those same battles, they’re afraid to speak out, that’s bad for everyone. So I think it’s literally true that an attack on any worker pushes wages and working conditions down for every worker. And so it’s so important that labor defend immigrant workers. If for no other reason then, we cannot have a labor movement in this country if the immigrant working class, which is such a large and literally essential portion of that working class, is afraid for their very life.

Mel Buer:

For members of the Chavez family, the continuation of their father’s legacy and activism as founder and leader of the United Farm Workers in modern day movements has been a high point of the Cesar Chavez Day in California and beyond.

Paul Chavez:

It’s heartwarming to see that his legacy continues to inspire whole new generations of workers and activists. My dad had commented that it would’ve been a terrible waste of a lot of hard work and sacrifice if his work ended with his life. And the fact that we’re here with people from all walks of life that have come from the many places, and a lot of times from places far away, would put a smile on the face because I think he would say that his work continues even after his passing.

Speaker 5:

And this is a great opportunity for us to do that as a community, as people, especially, people who know the struggles of the people who actually have this country moving forward, those immigrants that at times are abused or do not have the recognition that they should as people that they are. May this moment for all of us be an empowering moment so that we might remember our commitment as Christians to uphold the dignity of those who are voiceless. May we be an inspiration to others to do the same in every aspect of their lives.

Mel Buer:

Reporting from California for The Real News Network, I’m Mel Buer.

As we’ve mentioned many times before on the show, movements today are a part of a legacy of extraordinary actions taken by ordinary people. Tapping into our own labor history provides us with a blueprint for action in today’s turbulent world.

On March 25th, 1911, a fire began in the scrap bins under a cutter’s table on the 8th floor of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City. Within minutes, the entire floor was engulfed in flames, spreading to the ninth floor and 10th floors–where 200+ workers were just finishing up to go home for the night. By the time workers were alerted to the conflagration, options for escaping the fire were few. By the time the fire was brought under control, 146 workers were dead. New York City saw sweeping reforms in the aftermath of the fire, catapulting some pro-reform lobbyists like Francis Perkins all the way to the highest halls of government with the introduction of the New Deal 20 years later. 

Near the 114th anniversary of this tragedy, Mel sat down with labor historian Dr. Erik Loomis, professor at the University of Rhode Island and author of his forthcoming book, Organizing America: Stories of Americans Who Fought for Justice to talk about the struggle for better working conditions in the garment industry in New York City, the fire itself and the reforms enacted afterwards, and why it’s important to learn from our own labor history in this current moment.

Additional links/info:

• Cornell University – ILR School: Remembering the 1911 Triangle Factory Fire
• Dr. Erik Loomis on Bluesky
• More information about Dr. Loomis’s forthcoming book, Organizing America

Permanent links below…

• Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!
• Labor Radio / Podcast Network website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• In These Times website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• The Real News Network website, YouTube channel, podcast feeds, Facebook page, and Twitter page

Featured Music…

• Jules Taylor, “Working People” Theme Song

Studio Production: Mel Buer
Post-Production: Jules Taylor

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Mel Buer:

Welcome everyone to Working People, a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class today. Working People is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network and is brought to you in partnership within these Times Magazine and the Real News Network. This show is produced by Jules Taylor and made possible by the support of listeners like you. My name is Mel Buer and I’ve been your host for the month of March. Next week, max will be back at the helm for the month of April, bringing you more stories from the working class today for the last episode of this month, we’re taking a moment to train an eye on the past. As I’ve mentioned many times before, movements today are part of a legacy of extraordinary actions taken by ordinary people. Tapping into our own labor history provides us with a blueprint for action in today’s turbulent world.

With that in mind, we’re talking about the triangle shirt, waist Factory fire. Today on March 25th, 1911, a fire began in the scrap bins under a cutter’s table on the eighth floor of the Triangle Shirt Waist Factory in New York City. Within minutes, the entire floor was engulfed in flames spreading to the ninth and 10th floors where 200 plus workers were just finishing up to go home for the night. By the time workers were alerted to the conflagration options for escaping the fire were few, by the time the fire was brought under control, 146 workers were dead. New York City saw sweeping reforms in the aftermath of the fire, even catapulting some pro reform lobbyists like Francis Perkins all the way to the highest halls of government. With the introduction of the New Deal, 20 years later near the a hundred and 14th anniversary of this tragedy, I’m sitting down with labor historian Dr. Erik Loomis, professor at the University of Rhode Island, an author of his forthcoming book, organizing America Stories of Americans who Fought for Justice to talk about the struggle for better working conditions in the garment industry in New York City, the fire itself and the reforms enacted afterwards, and why it’s important to learn from our own labor history in this current moment. Thanks for coming on the show, Dr. Loomis. I really appreciate you taking some time this morning to talk about a very important piece of our labor history.

Erik Loomis:

Thanks for having me. I’m very happy to be here.

Mel Buer:

To start off this conversation, I just want to give our listeners a little bit of a chance to get to know you and who you are. So who are you, where do you teach? What kind of work do you do?

Erik Loomis:

Sure. So my name is Erik Loomis. I am a history professor at the University of Rhode Island. I focus on labor history. I’m also environmental history, so I teach a lot of courses at my university. I kind of cover a lot of ground in US history that people don’t necessarily otherwise would be able to take. So I try to offer things that students need or want, but I make sure I teach a lot of labor history. I’m teaching labor history right now and super awesome, a great group of students, and so that’s been a lot of fun. And then I write about these issues in any number of different ways. Everything from I write at the liberal blog, lawyers, guns of Money, a lot of that’s about labor history. I have this day labor history series that I started there that I also syndicate do threads on Blue Sky to give a lesson almost every day. Not quite every day, but almost every day I have a lesson about labor history that’s out there. So yeah, so I do what I can to publicize our labor history basically.

Mel Buer:

Yeah, I think that’s actually a good place to start with our conversation. One thing that I like to do when I am hosting this podcast is sort of pull back the curtain on what it means to organize within the labor movement and to kind of give folks a sense of the nuts and bolts of what that looks like, but also to really help our listeners tap into the legacy of organizing in the United States, which is long storied, often violent, and really important to ground ourselves in this space. So to start this conversation, let’s just talk about what it means to learn about our own labor and movement history. And as a historian, why is it important to pay attention to and learn about this?

Erik Loomis:

Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts about that and this book have coming out in the fall or I guess late summer Organizing America kind of gets into this a lot because I am very interested in sort of like what do we do with our past? Every American, everybody probably in the world tell stories about the past for themselves, and those stories often reflect what they need in the present. So why do we could tell all of these different stories about all of these different moments in time, and that includes in our labor history. So triangle is a horrible fire, one of the worst things that have ever happened. Of course, we’re going to get into this, but it’s far from the only mass death incident in American labor history. Why do we tell that story? So I’m really interested in why do we tell these stories that we tell and what do they do for us?

And for me anyway as a labor historian, and I think different historians would have different answers for this question. I don’t represent the historical community on this. For me, there’s a combination of things. Some of it’s inspiration, and I think that would be something a lot of people would say, right? We could be inspired by these movements in the past. And I agree with that. But I also think, and maybe we’ll get into this as we talk about triangle, that sometimes when we tell stories that are strictly inspirational, we actually lose something that I have this idea of our movement history and the way we teach it is a Mount Rushmore sort of thing, which in my world is not a compliment. It’s like I know how I have a great idea how to represent the past. Let’s blow some faces into a mountain in South Dakota.

What a great idea. And everybody could come gaze, and I’m like, oh, it George Washington. Oh, he’s so wonderful. But we kind of do that with our movement history. We sort of gaze up as Malcolm and King and Chavez and Rosa and Debs, and we kind of look up. It was like, wow, if only we could have those leaders today. And I would try to counter that a little bit because if you get into the details of what they were doing, they didn’t really know what they were doing at the time either. And I think in some ways learning our labor history is really useful to sort of ground ourselves not only in what they achieved, but the fact that we’re not really that different than them. We can be them. We can become that person. And I think that’s a really important piece of it that I really try to emphasize is the humanity, the mistakes and the realization that there’s not that big of a difference between our struggles and the struggles that they had.

Mel Buer:

And we’ll talk about this a little bit later in the conversation, but I read David Re’s Triangle in preparation of this episode and beyond the book, the book itself is kind of a monumental achievement in really kind of laying out the conditions leading up to the fire, the minute by minute details of the fire, which are harrowing and horrifying, and the reform movement that was born out of the fire plus the manslaughter trial. And we’ll talk all about this here in a moment, but the thing that strikes me the most about reading these books, and this is something that I come across often when I read labor history, is that good historians, good journalists through their archive work, resurrect these people in a way that makes them far more real than just a photo on a labor website or a story about these monumental achievements.

As you say, these are human beings who could have at another time been my neighbor or I could have been sitting next to them at a factory table, and their lives are full of the same sort of quiet dignity and indignities that we suffer and enjoy as working class people today. So I feel my background is in, I have a master’s degree and in literature, I did a lot of work within archives for my own work research when I was in grad school. And I’m always struck by the ability to take what is just a little short newspaper clipping or a receipt or some sort of bit of detritus that makes its way forward into our current moment and to really kind of build life from it and depth from it and memory and to sort of share in that humanity. And so I agree, I think that especially with labor history, not only does it provide the playbook for how to potentially tackle some of these similar problems that we are experiencing with Triangle and with the shirt, waist Factory workers strike that happened a year prior to the fire, they’re going up against the same sort of political machine that we have now.

They’re going up against the same sort of exploitation and indignities that workers are experiencing now. And you can learn a lot from the ways in which they organized and often their failures to be able to have a sense of what you can do in this moment.

Erik Loomis:

Yeah, and I think it’s also worth noting, while you don’t want to overdraw the lessons from the past, I mean the past and the present are not exactly the same thing, but within, we live just thinking here of American labor history, we live in a society that is shaped by a series of political and economic constructs, and by looking at our labor history, we can also get a sense of in our present debates around anything from the relationship of labor unions to democratic party or issues of democratic unionism or strikes or whatever it may be, a really deep dive examination into our labor history can really do a lot to suggest the potentials or limits of various contemporary issues that we’re talking about. Again, not that the past necessarily is a restriction on what’s possible in the present, but the basic structure of our economy and government has not changed a lot over the centuries. And even with Trumpism, I mean, everything that’s happening right now is basically a return to the conditions of the Triangle fire that we’re talking about. And some of those strategies used back then may become more valuable again with the destruction of labor law and the other horrible things that are happening right now. So I think that those deeper dives into our labor history, real discussions of our labor history as opposed to just snippets, but really help us move conversations at the contemporary labor and movement building world forward in some very concrete and useful ways.

Mel Buer:

Right. Well, I think that’s a good segue into getting into the meat of the discussion today, which is to talk about the triangle shirt, waste Factory Fire, which happened on March 25th, 1911. First, I kind of want to put it in a bit of wider context about what was going on in New York City at the time. So in the early 20th century, garment production was the largest manufacturing business in America. In the decades leading up to the early 20th century, there was this popularization of standardized off the rack fashion during the Industrial Revolution. It meant that instead of making clothing at home or via various sort of cottage industries, the Industrial Revolution standardized that entire process and turned it into the ability to walk into a clothing store like Nordstrom’s or something and to pull a sized garment off the rack. And prior to more mechanized processes that didn’t require as many hands in the process, these garment production factories were staffed by hundreds and thousands of workers. And the largest piece of that was in New York City, in the east end of the city. So just to give our readers, our listeners a sense here, what do these conditions look like for workers at the time who worked in specifically the garment industry in New York?

Erik Loomis:

Sure. Yeah, it’s rough work. You had a mostly immigrant workforce, particularly Jewish immigrants, some Italians as well. And that was working in clothing was something that quite a few of these immigrants had brought over from particularly Russia where there had been a lot of tailors and cutters and things like this. They enter into a growing American garment workforce that you accurately described, and that is happening at a moment in the late 19th and into the early 20th century. We’re beginning to see a shift so that a lot of the early sweatshop industry in New York was home-based. Basically, this contractor would move things out through these subcontracting systems and put things in people’s homes. And so you think about a tiny little New York apartment on say the Lower East side where a lot of this was taking place and people might complain today of their studio apartment, how small it’s, but there could be 10 to 15 people living in that at the time.

And then during the day, they’re working in it right there. They’re basically moving, what they have is for furniture to the side and putting the sewing machines in there. By the 1905 or so, that’s beginning to shift pretty heavily to what we would think of more of as a modern sweatshop, that it becomes more efficient for contractors to have the work in a particular place such as the location of the factory that would become notable for the triangle fire. And that was a very exploitative workforce. They hired mostly women thinking that they could control ’em. Work weeks could be 65 to 75 hours a week, but also tremendously unstable. And so you’d be working those 65, 75 hours a week if there was work, but then if the orders dried up, you went to nothing. So rather than have a consistent 40 hour week or even more than that, but consistent, it was either all the time or nothing at all. The women worked basically between three to $10 a week for all of these hours, which was poverty wages, even at that higher level. And factory owners really tried to control workers’ movements. Locking doors was super common. Fear of these workers stealing cloth and things like that would lead to searches requesting permission to use very unsanitary and disgusting bathrooms, fines all the time at work being required, supply your own supplies such as needles and things like this. Sexual harassment of these workers was a real problem. It’s a rough way to work,

Mel Buer:

And I kind of want to draw a parallel. It’s not a one-to-one, but I do want to draw a parallel from these sort of sweat up conditions that lead into this sort of wider factories that come through in the mid 19 aughts to sort of gig work that we see in some industries today where it is truly a race to the bottom in terms of payment wages and conditions and in these sort of sweatshop conditions. Absolutely. You would find that these contractors were a dime a dozen, and if you were the type of person who wanted to ask more for more wages for what you were working, they could throw you out and find someone within 15 minutes by walking to a market down the street. We see these conditions a lot in the sort of gig economy, certainly in some of the white collar industries like writing or things of that nature where people are making pennies on the dollar for some of the work that they do. And you can sort of see those parallels. And it didn’t just because these factories then establish themselves within a garment district and start employing 500 to a thousand workers per factory or what have you, doesn’t necessarily mean that those conditions improved much.

Erik Loomis:

Oh, absolutely not. I mean, in many cases they became worse. I mean, homework is not a great thing by any stretch of the imagination, but you had a certain control over your, no one’s sexually harassing you, no one’s locking the door, no one’s saying you can’t go to the bathroom. So conditions were probably even worse. I mean, the whole point of centralizing it is of course to maximize profit and you are continuing to maximize profit by exploiting this very frankly, easily exploited workforce for the reason that you discuss in that you have masses and masses of people coming to the United States at this time. And there was a lot of people desperate for work.

Mel Buer:

I think I read a statistic that was like Ellis Island was processing upwards of like 5,000 people a week at the height of peak of that piece of immigration. So you can imagine streams of individuals coming in after spending a week in the bow of a ship, making it through the sort of gauntlet that is Ellis Island and then ending up in the streets of New York and wanting to engage in some sort of employment that they can have skills for.

Erik Loomis:

And a lot of times part of the reason they’re willing to accept these horrible wages other than not having a whole lot of other options is that the first thing they’re trying to do is get their families over.

And so the more people that are working even in exploitative conditions, the more money they can save to get the cousins over or get, A lot of times a father would go first, save money, get their family over, and then they’d kind of collectively get that extended family over. And given that these were Jewish immigrants in Russia at this time, a lot of that is desperately escaping the state sponsored antisemitism that’s going on at that time. So there was very real reasons for these workers to sacrifice a lot, even knowing that they’re working in a terrible job because they had higher calling at that point.

Mel Buer:

Right. Well, and this kind of brings us to a remarkable sort of labor action that happened in 1909. So we have at this point 20 to 40,000 garment workers in New York City who are working in various factories, the triangle fame factory, I think they had what four other locations that were making various items. They’re called shirt waste. They’re, or essentially blouses varying sort of degrees of fashion with lace and other things. But there were also factories all over the lower East side and the east side of New York that were doing some of the same stuff. And in 1909, in response to worsening conditions, there was a massive strike in the garment district that lasted close to a year, I believe, that was led primarily by women over 20,000 garment workers took to the streets and they walked out of dozens of factories in the garment district on strike.

And something that kind of gets missed a little bit in history, maybe this is just me loving a good name for it, but they called it the uprising of the 20,000 and it was considered an opening salvo and a new struggle for better working conditions in the industrialized sort of industries in New York City. So maybe we can kind of start with the strike itself and really kind of underscore how revolutionary it was to see a militant fighting union of primarily women leading this particular labor action and sort of how those impacts reverberated into the following years and decades.

Erik Loomis:

The union they had that was in that industry, it was called the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, or the ILG as it’s commonly known. But ironically, the leadership of the union was basically all men and men had taken over that union, and a lot of these men were skilled cutters and things like this. And even despite the name, they weren’t really that comfortable with masses of women in the workforce. I mean, they brought over gender ideologies as well. And so in New York, you have in those weeks and months leading up to this strike, which begins in November of 1909, you have young organizers, again, mostly Jewish women, some of whom who will become pretty famous in the future, Clara Lemick, Roche Schneiderman, Pauly Newman, all of which will become pretty famous names in American labor and reform history are organizing and the factories to say, we don’t have to live this way.

It’s not necessary that our conditions are so exploitative. Some of them came from families who had brought radical politics with them, which was a growing thing in the Jewish communities in Eastern Europe at the time through the Jewish fund. Others did not. Lelet came from quite politically conservative families who were outraged that their daughter was engaging in such radical activities. But it all begins to come to a head that fall. And there’s a big meeting in New York, I think a Cooper Union. And the point of the meeting in part is for labor leaders to try to cut the strike off. So the ILG member, the president’s there and other leading figures are there, American Federation of Labor Head, Samuel GOPer shows up and basically urges caution. And you have these, you can almost imagine it, it’s like two hours of these guys getting up and talking and going on and on and trying to kill time and trying to really undermine what they saw as a rebellion of low skilled workers that they feared would undermine the very limited gains that they had made in other parts of the garment industry.

And finally, after listening to this Lemick, who is this very small woman, the very tiny young woman gets up and basically marches up to the stage. And in Yiddish says, and I’m going to quote what she says here, I am a working girl, one of those who are on strike against intolerable conditions. I am tired of listening to speakers. You talk in general terms, what we are here to decide is whether we shall or shall not strike. I offer a resolution that a general strike be declared now. And she simply overwhelmed all those men on the stage. The workers walked out the day

Mel Buer:

Right standing ovation for that, the whole place just, and they had overflow for that as well. It was a very, very large meeting of workers, I think. And Clara Lemick specifically is unique in that she is probably in my reading over the last couple of years of labor history, a really solid example of what happens when you can successfully salt workplaces. She would hop from factory to factory, get hired on and salt the crap out of the workplace, organize those workers and bring them out on strike. And inevitably for some reason, she would either leave the job or get fired from the job and she would move on to the next one. And her organizing was so dangerous to the factory owners that they actually had her followed and she got the crap beaten out of her in the street and the next day and for the following weeks, you could see her on street corners displaying the bruises on her face. And using that as a rhetorical sort of example to say, we’re onto something, join us. And I dunno, as a woman in the labor movement, I find those examples to be really meaningful to anyone who’s listening to these sort of stories is that you may not even know who Clara Le is, but she is truly a revolutionary spirit in the labor movement.

Erik Loomis:

And I think that learning about people like that, I think there’s this whole, people like to say history repeats itself, which it doesn’t. Don’t ever say that to a historian, but there is these lessons out there. There are these people out there that you can be like, wow, they really did this amazing work and they suffered for it. I mean, getting the shit beat out of you is not a great story. That sucks. And she will be during the strike itself, lime Lake is beaten by a cop and suffer six broken ribs. She’s arrested 17 times during the strike. So it’s not, and these stories from the past, it’s not great. But I think that in a moment in which I think you see a lot of activism out there, or the beginnings of whatever we’re trying to do to stop Trump and all this horrible stuff. And there seems to me to be a lot of, I want something to happen, but I don’t actually want anything to happen to me.

I’m scared of something happening to me. And the reality is things are probably going to be happening to us. And learning that you can take that and build from it, I think is a critically important thing. It is a little bit of a side note, but I was just, yesterday in my labor history class, we were reading oral history from Harry Bridges, the great organizer of the longshoreman. And my students were struck because he talks in this oral history. He’s like, yeah, every day the cops would beat the shit out of us, and then the next day we would just come back and keep doing the same thing. And it blew their mind that you could do that. And I think these are the things that are important to understand, to bring from that past to the present. Lelet can be very inspiring this way.

Mel Buer:

So what was the outcome of the strike? So they were on strike for quite some time. A lot of these young women were arrested, sent to the workhouse for a brief period of time. You had some really interesting cross class solidarity and fundraising. Even JP Morgan’s own daughter was fundraising for the strike at one point. Funnily enough, they kind of moved away from support of the strike after some pretty hefty socialism and socialist rhetoric entered the sort of demand structure of the strike. But what was the outcome? What happened to these workers?

Erik Loomis:

Yeah, I mean, the answer is in a sense, it is both a win and a lush. I mean, the cross class stuff is fascinating. These wealthy women come out, some of which would be big players in the future. I mean Francis Perkins, we’ll get into later is one of them, right? And this is a moment, this progressive era is a moment in which middle and upper class, particularly younger people are looking at society and they’re saying the things our fathers created in this era of uncontrolled capitalism, they’re just way out of control. And maybe these workers have a point. So there’d be these tentative alliances, which as you described, it’s one of the things that happen. What will happen to the strike itself is that by and large, the owners very much including the men who would own the triangle fire, were definitely there to resist as much as they could.

And after about 11 weeks, workers begin to, they start trickling back. I mean, because the international, the ILG, they still didn’t really support the strike, and they didn’t have the ability to have a big strike fund or anything like that anyway, so they don’t win a union shop. They don’t win a lot of workplace safety gains. But the manufacturers do agree to some real concessions. The work week drops to 52 hours in most of these factories that were four paid holidays a year. You don’t have to buy your own work materials anymore. And there’s kind of a vague agreement to negotiate pay rates, which is not really followed that much in the aftermath, but there were real material wins. What there was not were material wins about the conditions of work, which will be a huge problem going forward for the union, though that ILG local, local 25 really expands to become a big power player in New York for the next several years. And so the workers themselves feel very empowered by what happened to them. It’s a victory,

Mel Buer:

Right? And many of these workers who picketed outside the Triangle Factory are some of the ones who walked into work on March 25th, the 1911 and did not come out. And now on to sort of the hard conversation here. So this is a year after the strike workers have gone back to work. March 25th, 1911 workers walk into the ASH building, the Lower East Side. They took the elevators up to the upper floors to the triangle shirt, waist factory, which occupies the eighth, ninth, and 10th floors of the Ash building, which is now owned by cuny, right? It’s a science building, university science building.

Erik Loomis:

I think it’s N-Y-U-N-Y-U,

Mel Buer:

Yeah,

Erik Loomis:

NYU.

Mel Buer:

Yeah. So as I said earlier, I read Triangle, which is a very good book that kind of digs into the conditions of the garment workers, and it gives a minute by minute accounting of the triangle fire itself. I’d never really taken the time to learn the details of the fire. I found that there’s those sections of the book to be frankly harrowing, openly crying while reading it. It is, I don’t want to get into really the hardcore details of it because it is really upsetting and maybe for a lot of folks, but suffice to say, so the conditions in these couple of floors, eight and nine are floors where the factory work is being done. The 10th floor is kind of where the owners sit. They have a showroom. There is some tables for packaging and shipping the items that are put together, but the vast majority of materials are being worked on on those two lower floors.

So the fire begins right around the time of the closing bell. Folks were getting up to leave right around what 5:00 PM And something to note about these particular setups is that the cutters who are the ones who do the sort of precision cutting of the materials that are then sewn together in a sort of assembly line style at various parts in the factory are dropping scraps of highly flammable cotton materials into a bin underneath their cutting tables. And we learn later during the manslaughter trial that those bins are only emptied like four times a year. And so you can imagine that what’s underneath these tables is tons and tons of extremely flammable cotton and lace materials that just pile up. And obviously there’s a no smoking sign in every floor because this is a highly flammable workplace environment. Some of these cutters still smoked at the tables. And on the evening of March 25th, we’re not quite sure exactly what got thrown into the bucket, but it was probably a still lit match or a cigarette butt or a cigar butt that gets thrown into one of the buckets under the table and it lights a fire within what, I think it’s like less than 10 minutes. That entire floor is on fire.

Erik Loomis:

Yeah, I mean, so it starts on the eighth floor

And everybody on the eighth floor gets out. They call up to the 10th floor as you point out that the office or the owners are, and those guys are all able to get out. You have those close New York buildings and you can kind of hot from building to building in that area, but in the panic sort of people forgot to call the ninth floor. And within just a few minutes, you have this raging fire on the eighth floor smoke coming up to the ninth, and the doors are locked to get out and there’s an elevator and some workers do get out via the elevator. About a hundred are able to get out in those few minutes before the elevator becomes non-functional. But then you have 146 workers still stuck up there and there’s nothing that they can do. They try to open the door, they’re looking for the key, nobody can find it, and they end up facing a choice of burning the death or jumping from the ninth floor,

And then they all die. So you have 146 dead workers. This was not particularly uncommon. I mean the numbers were high, but you had more workers than that die in coal mines pretty frequently. And you also had other garment fires that were hardly uncommon. There had just been one the year before in Newark, across the bay from New York, but no one sees that. The thing about these sweatshops is that it’s a very low capital industry. All you really need is some sewing machines and a few other things. So you can set these up anywhere. So as you pointed out, it’s an afternoon. It is a nice day. We’re in March right now, and there’s been a couple of nice days, and everyone including myself is like, oh my God, I’m so happy to be outside. It’s sunny, including I look outside the day. It’s a beautiful day here in Rhode Island. And so that’s how people were, right? And so it’s late afternoon. People are strolling around. It’s the lower East side, but it’s kind of on the border of more prosperous areas. So people are just walking around and all of a sudden plumes of smoke will rise up and all these people head over to see what’s up and what’s up is a mass death incident.

And what made this different was honestly for our American history is not the numbers, it’s the fact that this became a public event. People saw this, people saw the people making their clothes die, and that makes an enormous difference in the response of a nation that had traditionally been quite indifferent to workplace death.

Mel Buer:

And there were a number of things that might have made this less of a mass casualty sort of incident. The owners of the Triangle Factory could have at any time updated their factories with fire suppression systems. This was not something that was particularly new. Fire safe factories had been a thing for a number of decades prior to this horrible tragedy. There is an interesting note in Von Dre’s book that suggests that perhaps the two owners were setting fire to their previous, trying to essentially commit insurance fraud in order to get rid of some of their previous stock in previous years. There’s no indication that this was anything other than accident. I want to make that clear. But the way that the building was designed was not designed very well for escape. There were no fire drills that were happening with any sort of regularity that would’ve made it easier for workers to have a direction to go.

And yes, there is. There were two exits, two doors. One door was kept locked in order to reduce the amount of stealing that was happening. Whether that’s true or not, doesn’t really matter. Folks had to go through essentially a carousel at the other door in order to get their things searched before they could leave, which obviously is leading to serious bottlenecking in times of panic. And even the fire escape didn’t really have, it wasn’t really a fire escape. It wasn’t quite rated for the amount of people to run down the steps, and it did not lead to anywhere. There was no clear egress to the street at the bottom of the fire escape. And unfortunately, it was just a rickety thing and it collapsed. And 35 people died plunging to their desks because the fire escape collapsed. So we have all of these things, these things that contributed to a really horrendous workplace accident.

And you’re right, tens of thousands of folks were on the streets watching on buildings nearby. There’s dozens and dozens of sort of accounts of the fire. And even Francis Perkins, who figures a little bit later was standing on the street watching this happen, and they’re watching workers hold each other outside of the windows of the ninth floor and drop their friends onto the concrete, and they’re seeing others who are flying out of the windows on fire. This is a really horrendous thing for a lot of people to witness. And to your point, there is a testament to how affecting it was for folks to witness this and hear about this happening in the days after the event when they lined the victims up for identification at the pier, sort of a coroner’s warehouse. There were tens of thousands of people there who were thousands of people who just wanted to walk through and potentially pay their respects, but also family members who were trying to find their loved ones. And even in the days afterward during these funeral processions, you have folks standing out for hours in the rain watching these funeral processions as folks are identified and then taken to various cemeteries around the city. So we can kind of start there in terms of just beyond the real sort of impact of this and how this moved into answering the question, what are we going to do about this in the years leading after the tragedy?

Erik Loomis:

Yeah. Well, it’s a mixed bag. I mean, first as you point out, the owners blanket Harris were incredibly negligent. They had been really the most anti-union of all of the major garment worker owners or garment factory owners in the uprising. They really don’t get any serious legal punishment for it. In fact, they just, what? They kind of disappeared from the record, but we know that they at least attempt to open up another factory. They don’t even seem to care after all these workers die. They’re really indifferent. But part of the legacy of Triangle, we’re moving in that direction. And it is interesting because it kind of shifts from a worker story to a middle class performer story

Because Perkins is there and she’s already involved in some of these issues, but she gets really motivated to become a much more active labor reformer, and of course later will become the first female cabinet member Secretary of Labor under FDR for his 12 years. And really a truly remarkable human being. But the changes that come are not really about workplace activism. What happens is that Perkins, Robert Wagner, who’s a rising politician in the New York legislature who will later be the sponsor of the National Labor Relations Act, that creates the system of labor negotiation that we sort of still have today, although it’s probably disappearing soon, thanks to our lovely Supreme Court. But the union election process is something that kind of has some things that come out of this. But in the immediate aftermath, there’s serious investigations that happen. And what it leads to are important things around fire safety, building safety, things like this.

So the New York Fire Department could only really handle fires up to the seventh floor of a building. This starts on the eighth floor. There’s changes around that. There’s changes around the kinds of conditions that are allowed in a workplace around issues of flammability, for instance. And these are truly important advances. And New York becomes a leader in creating a safer workplace. But the flip side of that is that at almost the very same time that’s happening, the textile industry begins to leave places like New York, and so they don’t have to deal with Claral LEC anymore. They begin to move to North Carolina, to Alabama, to Tennessee. And you have a whole nother generation of, because again, I mean part of the reason that people like Blank and Harris don’t hardly care where you had other industries that are taking these issues more seriously is that the capital investment needed to open a sweatshop is so they’re not protecting a serious level of investment. And so you could recreate these factories in east Tennessee and Western North Carolina and avoid immigrants, avoid socialists, avoid any union traditions. And so by the twenties and thirties, that’s all shifted down there and you have a new generation of labor organizing that takes place down there, new generations of violence in a industry that proves quite resistant to changing its fundamental ways that it operates, including to the present.

Mel Buer:

Right. So I mean, what’s the sort of antidote to that? I mean, I know that particularly with Francis Perkins and the sort of committees that were born out of the Triangle Fire, they didn’t just stop with garment factories is my understanding. They spent a lot of time, energy, and they had the political will because Tammany’s political machine sort of backed this as they’re moving into the mid-teens to really sort of begin to look at places like candy factories and bakeries and the various sort of industrial places that are also in need of reform. And so we see this sort of new decade or so of real, the political will is there essentially to support these sort of this reform movement that then brings us into what ultimately becomes FDRs new deal and things of that nature. But I guess my question is if the political will didn’t exist, if Tammany wasn’t willing to back these sort of plays because they are sort of seeing the writing on the wall, they’re seeing that there is enormous among voters, enormous need and want for increased oversight things, more progressive working conditions, things of that nature, would we have the same sort of, I guess you could call them policy wins within the labor movement?

Erik Loomis:

Probably not. I mean, I think the political atmosphere is very, very important. And I think that we sometimes ignore that in our contemporary conversations too, our peril. It really is a matter of kind of a combination of worker activism and a particular moment in time in which the politics are ready to act, in which people who have more access to power are willing to do what workers want them to do, either because they support it genuinely or they’re afraid of the worker power.

And this really leads into the New Deal. I mean, these things, the rise of Perkins and the creation of National Labor Relations Act and all of this is a part of two decades, really 25 years by that point, consistent working class struggle to try to pressure the political world to create these changes. Tammany needed to do it because Tammany was relying on working class voters as its core. They had a heavy, they were very heavily involved in the immigrant communities and providing services and things like that. And if those people weren’t going to come out and vote for Tammany politicians, then Tammany was potentially going to lose out. It was in their interest to see this through. New York had a far from universal, but it had a lot of capital, progressive politicians like these middle class people who saw needs for legitimate reform. And that begins to, of course, then influence the Democratic Party.

The Republican party remains tremendously hostile to almost all of this and create, thanks to the Great Depression and other conditions, the ability of this to go relatively national in 1930s, the rise of Perkins, the rise of Wagner, the passage of the National Labor Relations Act, all of that stuff is super critical. So yes, I mean the political side of it is real. And this is the thing is you see other worker struggles. It’s not like when these factories say textiles move to Tennessee and North Carolina that all workers acquiesce to this system, they struggle too. But the problem there is that the governors are just willing to call the National Guard to shoot them, and there’s not the political will there. And that is still a problem that we see in when we’re talking even before we get into issues of globalization, which if we’re talking about this industry, we have to talk about the reality is that the United States, even today, the politics of New York or the politics of Tennessee, let’s just say they’re a little different, and workers have a lot more power in a place like New York City in part because politicians will listen to them. We’re in Tennessee where I used to live as well and was working in labor issues. They don’t care what you have to say.

Mel Buer:

How do you get folks to have such, to have a heel turn on that? How do you start to begin to pull those threats in service of the labor movement? What are some ways in your experience that workers can kind of with a clear eye see as a sort of pathway towards really engendering more political will for better worker legislation?

Erik Loomis:

Honestly, I think a lot of it has to, I think there needs to be a lot more internal political organizing within unions. I think this is a serious problem in the contemporary framework is that a lot of unions are not really doing a lot of political education in their rank and file. And we see this in the kinds of the ways in which Trump has made inroads in the working class and things like this. At the time back then you had the level of political education. If you read union newsletters just as an example, they’re engaging. It could be even relatively conservative unions like say the Carpenter’s Union.

They’re engaging in very significant political education, like helping workers understand their position in society, helping them figure out how they’re going, what their proper action is. As a carpenter or as a wobbly or as a member of a communist union later, it really goes across the political spectrum. What is your role as a worker in this society? And that was in states where those conditions kind of lent themselves to that could lead to serious political action supporting candidates. And that’s going to become really crucial. So if we’re thinking if we move forward to the thirties and we think about the Flint Sitdown strike, a big reason why the Flint Sitdown Strike Succeeds is that the governor of Michigan, Frank Murphy, has been elected by workers and had pledged as part of his platform to never use the national guard against workers. So workers had elected this person who then does what he says he’s going to do, will not forcibly evict these sit down strikers from that GM plant in Flynn and in GM at that point has no other options. They were relying on state power to crush those workers, which had been the standard way of the past.

And so that stuff can make just an enormous serious difference. But in some ways, it has to start with unions doing the work themselves to be like, we are going to engage in a serious political education aspect for our members. And that does not just mean showing up two weeks before the election and telling you who to vote for, but actually building worker power by getting an everyday person who’s a busy person, who’s got kids and soccer practice or wants to hang out at the bar or whatever they want to do to get them to take that time that they don’t really have and to understand their position in society. And I think that’s really critical.

Mel Buer:

I think as we kind of round out this conversation, I think also are living in a time where there’s like what 9% union density we are and have been for quite some time sort of fighting this rear guard battle against the interests of capital and the exploitation of the workforce. And rightfully, I think a lot of unions have spent a lot of their time and energy and money on trying to continue to bring in new organizing is a way to stop the slow bleed that is union organizing in this country. The problem is it feels like this needs to be, this is becoming or has always been a sort of multi-front fight struggle here. And in the last couple of years, especially as I’ve been working as a labor reporter, I’ve been feeling pretty heartened by the amount of new independent organizing that has been happening. And I really hope that it’ll continue and there’s ways in which we can kind of maybe begin to become more militant in a new generation and to allow these more militant, younger folks to really kind of push forward policy and education that they’re bringing into as the sort of shot in the arm to the labor movement. But yeah, we have an uphill battle quite a bit.

Erik Loomis:

Well, I think it’s worth noting Claire Lemick had an uphill battle too, right? I mean, what you’re describing is a lot of what Lemick and Newman and Schneiderman and these other leaders were facing, right? A union leadership that was pretty fat and happy with what they had. They were really nervous about young people coming and taking over the movement and they didn’t really support them when they did, and it just didn’t matter, right? Lemlich did it anyway, and she spent the rest of her life as this incredible organizer doing all sorts of things, ending her life, actually helping the nursing home workers out in California where she was by the time she was an older woman, helping them organize into their own union and forcing the nursing home to honor the United Farm workers. Great boycott. So she continued organizing forever, but never really, actually never with the support of the international lady garment workers union leadership, I mean, she had to fight for a pension from them in the fifties and they were like, oh no, it’s that woman again.

I think it’s important to understand for younger organizers that the idea that the power structure, even within the labor movement’s just going to roll over for you. They’re not going to do that. You just do it anyway. They just create a scenario where they don’t actually matter anymore. And I think that’s important. And we’ve seen that to some extent. I mean, some of the things that say that the Starbucks workers have done, for example, which is regenerated a lot of energy, but at the same time, because of these larger political conditions, has not led to a growth in the actual overall labor movement, which is part of our story too.

Mel Buer:

Yeah. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show, Eric. We’re going to have to end it here. Please come back on anytime to talk about your forthcoming book, come back anytime to talk about history. I mean, I’ll be doing some history episodes when I come back here to host in May and hoping to do one on the Memorial Day massacre here in Chicago and hopefully something about Mayday. So if you’d like to come back on and chat about that, I’d love to have you.

Erik Loomis:

I’m always happy to chat about labor history, so anytime you want.

Mel Buer:

Great. Thank you so much.

Erik Loomis:

Hey, thank you.

Mel Buer:

That’s it for us here at Working People. We’ll see you back here next week for another episode, and if you can’t wait that long, then go explore all the great work we’re doing at the Real News Network where we do grassroots journalism, lifting up the voices and stories from the front lines of struggle. Sign up for the Real News newsletter so you never miss a story and help us do more work like this by going to the real news.com/donate and becoming a supporter today. It really makes a difference. I’m Mel Buer and thanks so much for sticking around. We’ll see you next time.

This week, we’re taking a more national focus, and checking in with the National Association of Letter Carriers, who have been embroiled in a years-long contract negotiation with the US Postal Service.

In our episode today, I’m sitting down with Melissa Rakestraw, member of the National Association of Letter Carriers, Branch 825 in Chicago, IL, to discuss the state of negotiations with our nation’s letter carriers, the unprecedented rejection of the recent Tentative Agreement and what happens next, and what would happen if the US Postal Service was privatized.

As a short editorial note before we begin, the interest arbitration process between USPS and the Letter Carriers began on March 17th, with Dennis R. Nolan set as the neutral arbitrator. This episode was recorded at the end of February, before those dates had been set.

Postal workers are also set to hit the streets this weekend–“Fight Like Hell!” rallies are scheduled for March 23 across the country to protest the proposed privatization of the US Postal Service.

Additional links/info:

• March 13, 2025: NALC statement on DeJoy’s agreement with DOGE
• “Fight like hell! Say ‘Hell No!’ to a privatized USPS!” – Find a Rally Near You
• Joe Demanuelle-Hall: “Federal Workers Organize Against Billionaire Power Grab”

Permanent links below…

• Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!
• Labor Radio / Podcast Network website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• In These Times website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• The Real News Network website, YouTube channel, podcast feeds, Facebook page, and Twitter page

Featured Music…

• Jules Taylor, “Working People” Theme Song

Studio Production: Mel Buer
Post-Production: Jules Taylor

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Mel Buer:

I got work. Welcome everyone to Working People, a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class today. Working People is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network and is brought to you in partnership within these Times Magazine and the Real News Network. This show is produced by Jules Taylor and made possible by the support of listeners like you. My name is Mel Er and I’m your host for the month of March. Continue to stay tuned this month as we share the mic with workers from all over this country and discuss pressing issues central to today’s labor movement. In these last two weeks, we’ve spoken with workers at multiple unions in Southern California who are working diligently on breaking Deadlocks in their own negotiations. If you haven’t checked those out, you can find those episodes@therealnews.com under our podcast page. This week we’re taking a more national focus and checking in with the National Association of Letter Carriers who have themselves been embroiled in a year’s long contract negotiation with United States Postal Service.

In our episode today, I’m sitting down with Melissa Rakestraw, member of the National Association of Letter Carriers Branch 8 2 5 in Chicago, Illinois, and we’re discussing the state of negotiations with our nation’s letter carriers, the unprecedented rejection of the recent tentative agreement and what happens next and what would happen if the US Postal Service was privatized. As a short editorial note before we begin, this episode was recorded at the end of February before interest arbitration dates had been set. Those interest arbitration dates began on March 17th with Dennis R. Nolan set as the neutral arbitrator in this situation with me today to discuss their current negotiations and the threat of a privatized postal service is Melissa Rastro, member of the National Association of Letter Carriers Branch 8 2 5 in Chicago, Illinois. Thanks for coming on, Melissa.

Melissa Rakestraw:

Thanks a lot. I appreciate you having me.

Mel Buer:

I’m glad you’re here. I’d like to kick off this conversation first by giving our listeners a chance to get to know a bit more about you, your work, your organizing, and your union. So what is na? The Association of Letter Carriers, right? National Association of Letter Carriers and who do they represent? How many members do you have, that kind of stuff.

Melissa Rakestraw:

Right. So the NALC is a national association of letter carriers. We’ve existed since the 1890s. We didn’t have collective bargaining rights with the post office until after the great postal strike of 1970 largest wildcat strike in US history. And at that point too, that’s when they moved the post office out of the cabinet and into its own organization. The NALC. I personally have carried mail since 1995. I’m a letter carrier. The last two years I’ve been a full-time officer for my local branch 8 25. We have a lot of offices that we represent all throughout Chicago suburbs. We also represent some smaller offices throughout the state of Illinois. We represent around 1800 active letter carriers and we have around 3000 members total in our branch. So I’m also on the executive council for the Illinois State Association of Letter Carriers. We represent all letter carriers throughout the state of Illinois in our region within the NALC, there’s 15 regions and we’re one of 15.

Mel Buer:

How many members nationally do you have whereabouts?

Melissa Rakestraw:

Yeah, I think it’s around 200,000 in that range. It varies. It might be 189,000, but it does vary. And then around 60% of that would be active carriers because we have a large pool of retirees

Mel Buer:

And these are the folks who are outside of the mail handling post office who are delivering your mail to on route to your house every day.

Melissa Rakestraw:

So yeah, we’re the people that everybody sees as their mailman, the person in the truck in funny little truck where we drive on the wrong side and we’re coming to your doorstep hopefully every day to deliver your mail Monday through Saturday and we are one of the most beloved group of workers out there. Most people love their mailman. We call ourselves letter carriers, but I don’t have any problem with the term mailman myself again and again in pollings you see that the American public is very happy with their letter carrier and their mail service. Over the last few years we’ve seen some of that get deteriorated because of a postmaster general who was slowing down service and increasing rates. But letter carriers are out there every day watching kids grow up, checking on elderly residents who greet them at their mailbox every day. I’ve worked with people who have saved people from burning homes who have donated kidneys to their customers on their route. We are embedded in our communities. We aren’t just out there to do a job. We are out there to look out for the people who live on our routes.

Mel Buer:

I mean, I just certainly in my lifetime have had numerous friendships with letter carriers on the various routes that I’ve lived on, and so I definitely see that. One thing that I would like to kind of draw in our listeners’ attention to is you’ve been in the midst of bargaining a national contract for quite some time, a couple of years at this point, and just recently members voted to reject a tentative agreement with the postal service. For the benefit of our listeners, can you give us a bit of an overview about these negotiations, what’s been going on, what’s at stake and what the demands are for where members across the country, and then maybe we can kind of discuss why this tentative agreement was rejected.

Melissa Rakestraw:

Sure. So right before covid hit, we negotiated a contract and it was set to expire in May of 2023. Throughout covid letter carriers kept working every day. We made sure our customers got all the things that they needed to order online because they couldn’t go to stores. We delivered testing kits for covid, we delivered everything. We kept the economy running in a lot of senses. We were told we were essential workers. We were not paid hazard pay, we were not paid anything extra. We were told by our national leadership that we would get our pay and we would get what we deserve for being so crucial to the US public. When our contract expired, our contract expired in May of 2023. Our national president has pretty much full control over bargaining. He doesn’t have to include any of the rest of the elected officers, so he runs it.

He was negotiating with the postal service throughout the summer. He was giving us updates at different wrap sessions saying that he was planning on seeing seven to 9% salary increases for us year wage wise, our wages were the worst of any. If you look up wages with the rate of inflation, the letter carrier or postal workers’ wages suffered the worst in comparison to inflation over the last five years. So even though we actually have cost of living allowance adjustments, we don’t get full call. So our national president was telling us he’s trying to get seven to 9% increases and people expected that We’re seeing UPS, which we feel is comparable to us, same industry. They don’t actually have to walk house to house like we do, and their top of scale is $49 an hour. Right now our top of scale is under $37 an hour.

So it’s a huge gap and the law actually says that the postal service is supposed to pay us wages that are comparable to the private sector. We are nowhere near that, nowhere close to it. It takes 13 years for letter carrier to get to the top of the pay scale, which is interminably too long. We’ve had problems staffing post offices ever since Covid because the starting pay and the conditions are too low, the conditions are terrible, people are abused by management, they have low wages and we can’t keep people. And so we’re having very high expectations out of this contract to get considerable pay increases and to address poor working conditions, management’s refusal to comply with the contract, violating the same things over and over, forced mandatory overtime all across the country. Here in Chicago, the post office has paid out millions of dollars to the local NALC branch for not complying with contract settlements.

Now it is ludicrous if you think that them just failing to abide by the agreements they’ve already signed, that alone is costing them millions of dollars. Nobody in management does anything about it. We wanted some resolutions through our contract to force management to comply with our settlements, to give carriers the right to say, when I’m done with my shift, I can go home. You can’t keep me here. 12, 13, 14, 15 hours. You’re seeing people forced to work 16 hours. And it’s so dangerous because our jobs are mainly on the street all day. You’re dealing with traffic, you’re dealing with so many unknown things. We’ve seen crimes against letter carriers skyrocket at one point every day in Chicago, there were numerous robberies of letter carriers out on their route. We’re like sitting ducks out there and nobody’s doing anything to help us. So we had such high expectations of this contract.

We finally were handed tentative agreement in October of 2024, well past 500 days, and it was 1.3% increase per year. A pitance and insult, quite frankly, no protections around the mandatory overtime for people who don’t want to work overtime, no protections in regards to enforcing our contract and management compliance with our contract. And we actually had giveaways where we were agreeing to lower our fixed office time. We have certain things we have to do every morning and they give us credit for that amount of time and they were trying to take back some of that time arbitrarily.

It wasn’t just that the monetary amount of 1.3% was so insulting, which it was also the fact that we’re getting work rules that don’t make sense for us either and make our jobs worse and harder and more difficult, which should not be the goal of a collective bargaining situation. So there were a record amount of people who voted in the vote for the tentative agreement. We at least have that right to vote it up or down. It was rejected by two thirds of the people who voted, which was also something that was historic. A tentative agreement hasn’t been voted down in the NALC since the early eighties, and we organized a vote no campaign. It went across the country. There were folks that started kind of a caucus that you call Build a Fighting NALC, that originated up in Minnesota that was talking about open bargaining and letting the membership know exactly what’s going on during bargaining because our national president wasn’t letting us know that there have been other groups too that have formed around these demands for open bargaining so we know what’s being bargained for and we can hold our leadership accountable.

And these same groups that had fought for open bargaining, like Build A Fighting NALC, the Care for President campaign and the concerned letter carriers group all said when we got this tentative agreement, well now this is an insult and we’re going to have to build a vote no campaign, which was very successful and it was a relief to see that the membership said, this is not sufficient. We will not accept this. You have to do better.

Mel Buer:

Right. I want to take a moment to talk about the historic nature of this vote no campaign. As you said, a contract hasn’t been voted down since the eighties, and there have been a number of labor reporters in the last couple of weeks who have really kind of underscored the sort of unprecedented nature of that. Does that sort of speak to the ways in which conditions either under this current postmaster, general Louis Dejo who may be leaving soon or the sort of deterioration of these conditions and what it means to work as a letter carrier, which historically has been a pretty stable career position? Right,

Melissa Rakestraw:

Right. Yeah, absolutely. So when people take a job in the post office, historically it was looked at as a career. It was looked as something that you’re working towards a pension, particularly with letter carriers. After we reach a minimum retirement age of around 57 and we have 30 years in, we can retire. And by that point your body’s been through enough that you really can’t, in a lot of cases work longer than that. We have the highest rate of injury of any federal worker just because of the physical nature of our job. So people’s expectations with this contract coming out of Covid, seeing what’s going on around us with other unions having historic wins with UPS, with UAW and their standup strikes, it was so invigorating to see those victories and what those workers were able to win. And then feeling like, Hey, it’s our turn now and we were made this promise that you are going to be rewarded for sticking with it, for sticking through covid, for putting up with all the mandatory overtime and now is your time.

That’s how letter carriers felt like now is our time. And when we saw this tentative agreement, it felt like it was an insult from management. Number one, they’ve just given themselves raises. And then it was also an insult from our national president that he would think this was an acceptable deal to try to get us to accept. He went around and campaigned for this deal all over the country and had wrap sessions where he would tell people how wonderful it was and when we’re like, no, it’s not wonderful. We’re not stupid. Don’t try to force feed us this nonsense. And he did everything he could to try to get it to be accepted and people still said no. And that’s not been over the last four decades since the early eighties. It’s not been the type of union where leadership was opposed and leadership was seen as not having fought for us for a very long time. Our national president was one of the people that had led the wildcat stripe, then Sobrato out of New York City, and he was a fighter and he won a lot of advances for letter carriers and we maybe slept on that tradition and got to a point where it was just a business unionist approach that the head of our union thought he could sit down with the head of management and they could figure out a deal and it would be fair and it was anything but

Mel Buer:

Right. Well now you’ve reached the tentative agreement has been rejected and the executive council voted unanimously on February 19th not to agree to terms with a postal service that would’ve given you a modified tentative agreement to vote on. So now technically we’ve reached the point where US Postal Service officials have been notified that they are at impasse, which for the benefit of our listeners really means that there is a stalemate that cannot really be sort of adjudicated between the two parties. They need to bring in a third party to kind of talk about this. And so coming up, this is being recorded on February 28th, likely we will hear dates about hearings that will be coming up in the coming weeks and months in what’s called an interest arbitration process. The proposals on both sides will be considered by a three person panel and then hopefully that means that there will be an agreement that can be reached through this arbitration process. My question for you, watching all of this, being a part of this vote no campaign and hearing from membership over the last months and really years, how do you feel about this development? Do you feel like this is moving in a positive direction? Is it something that is frustrating because you wish it hadn’t gotten to this point? How do you feel?

Melissa Rakestraw:

Well, it’s very frustrating because it’s been over 600 days now since our contract expired, and that means no raises for anybody, no cost of living increases, nothing flat, stagnant wages that we’re already behind. So that’s extremely frustrating. The other aspect of it that’s really frustrating is the union could have forced this negotiation to go into interest arbitration in the fall of 2023. Our national president could have said, then listen, you guys are not anywhere near offering us what we deserve. We’re sending it to the interest arbitration panel and we’ll take our chances. We feel like we have a good argument. And that didn’t happen. He allowed management to drop the plow and slow negotiations and not, and draw this out to the point that where we’re at now and this interest arbitration process, normally both sides will present briefs and witnesses and go through all aspects of the contract.

We present economic issues, work related issues, all of that. But now with the threat of the postal service being moved in the Department of Commerce, having our independent authority taken away, not being run by the Board of Governors anymore, realizing that we may not have anyone in management to negotiate with if those things happen, the union has decided to agree with management to go to an expedited process wherein the union is only going to present economic issues or pay scale management is entitled to put forward what they would like, but the union will put forward our issues. We are not going to be doing briefs, so the membership isn’t going to know after the fact what was asked for on our side, which is very disappointing and it’s a process that lacks transparency and quite frankly needs to be changed. So we’re going to put forward our economic proposals to the arbitrator.

The arbitration panel is three arbitrators, one picked by the union, one picked by management, and then one who we both agree on who’s the tiebreaker. And it sounds to me like in the expedited process, we basically play our case out to the mutually agreed upon arbitrator. He’ll go back and forth and talk to both sides and try to make an expedited ruling. We’re not putting forward as many things as we normally would. Now our national president is telling us that he wants to keep some of the work rules that they agreed on with management. He thinks they’re good even though the membership didn’t just vote down the contract because of the economic issues. People aren’t happy with the work rule issues either. He seems to think they’re a quote win so he can agree to memos with management to put a lot of these work issues into the contract. People are trying to push back on that in the union and say, Hey, let’s leave the work rules how they are right now in the current contract, extend that out and just simply deal with the pay because we know we can work with the current rules we have and how to navigate those,

But we think that your new work rules are not going to be helpful to us. So that fight now is playing itself out as well. And the threats, it’s not existential. I guess it’s an actual real threat from this current administration to attack and get the postal service and invalidate our collective bargaining agreements. So we’ve waited over 600 days for a raise and the longer this plays out, the worse we feel it will be for us. So

Mel Buer:

Yeah, it sounds like to me you waited till the house was on fire before you turned on the hose. And now with these threat, we will talk more when we come back from the break specifically about privatizing the postal service and what that would do to both workers and consumers. But it seems like at this point there’s not enough runway left to be able to get a decent contract out of this current contract period. And again, I want to underscore here that the contract expired in May of 2023. So the contract that is currently being negotiated to a stalemate at this point is supposed to run from 2023 to 2026. And we ran into this with the railroad unions a couple of years back where two and a half years of contract negotiations, we almost went to a national rail strike. The real news reported on this at the time, by the time that it was all said and done and the ink was dry, they were two and a half months out from negotiating the next contract because the periods expire. And so there’s this bottlenecking here that seems to be pretty pronounced, particularly in the NALC that is making it difficult for workers to get paid and also to plan for a much more uncertain future.

Melissa Rakestraw:

And it’s not always been standard that it takes over 600 days for us to negotiate a contract.

There have been some that we might not get an agreement until maybe a year after the contract has expired, but it’s been particularly exacerbated in this process. And after the tentative agreement was voted down, the union went into a 15 day period with management where they could try to renegotiate some of the specifics. Management offered 1.3% and 1.4% and 1.7% increases, which our executive counsel said, no, that’s not sufficient either. We’re not even going to send it back out to the membership for another vote because it’s so paltry at that point. Due to the NALC constitution, our national president does have the authority to call a work stoppage. Now it’s illegal. We have a no strike clause in our expired contract that we agree to abide by. And part of the reason it goes before this arbitration process is that the arbitrator is supposed to give us something that’s halfway decent to keep us happy, so we don’t want to strike. And it really undercuts the rights of the workers to be able to get a decent wage, which we’re not getting, and we also can’t strike or walk off the job and in this current, and we don’t want to have to do that. We don’t want to have to hurt the communities we serve and our customers. It’s not what we want to do, but it also puts our backs against the wall. There aren’t a lot of options open to us, quite frankly.

Mel Buer:

Right, and this is a common theme among many, many collective bargaining agreements and unions across this country. It’s sort of a thorn in the side of most organizers is that these no strike clauses are often very standard in contracts, which removes really the sort of the one real bargaining chip that you have to withhold your labor in order to forced through an agreement that is actually beneficial to workers. I want to turn now to developments at the federal level where the current administration seems to be laying the groundwork for total privatization of the US Postal Service. In February, multiple media outlets reported on the plan saying, president Donald Trump plans to disband the US Postal Services Board of Governors and place the agency under direct control of the Commerce Department and Secretary Howard Lutnick. Can you, Melissa, can you just give us a sense for listeners who really aren’t quite sure what this means, what would this plan look like the postal service as it is now and how it would be changed?

Melissa Rakestraw:

So the plan is a bad deal for customers and for workers. It’s not going to be good for the American public or the postal worker, either one. It’s going to create an environment if the privatization is able to move forward the way that they’ve planned it, where they could sell off access to your mailbox to private companies right now, for security reasons and a lot of reasons, the only people that have the legal right to access your mailbox is your letter carrier. Other people can’t be coming around digging around in there, seeing what’s in there, taking things out, messing with your mailbox. It’s a federal crime, so there is that protection. They want to sell off mailbox access to private companies so that they can have their own low wage workforce delivering items into people’s mailboxes. In addition to that, it would put it in, if the post office is privatized and you don’t have that lower rate universal service that the postal service provides, it’s not going to have, well, what’s going to happen is private companies are going to be able to raise their prices through the roof.

UPS FedEx, Amazon is not going to have the competition of the efficient postal service delivery standards where you can get things fairly quickly and at a very affordable rate once you don’t have the post office’s lower rates there, those private companies are going to have an even bigger monopoly than they already do. For instance, for some things, the same exact package sent through the post office might be $30 and it’s going to cost you a hundred to send it through UPS. And it’s the same exact service. Local businesses and especially people who run businesses out of their homes and send things through the mail service, if they had to send everything through UPS or FedEx, they would go out of business. It’s just that simple. And the other process of this is too, it’s already started to happen where they’re slowing down the mail service and the customers, it’s hard for them to rely upon timely delivery, which was intentional by postal management.

The Trump appointed postmaster, general Louis DeJoy who prioritized just the delivery of packages, he was consolidating sorting centers. There’s a huge backup. They’re not hiring enough people to timely sort the mail. So you create a situation to make customers less reliant upon the postal service, then you say, well, now we’re going to sell off these services to the highest bidder, right? So that’s going to crush small businesses, independent people who rely on the postal service to send out whatever products they sell, and the consumer, so many people, it is part of their process now to order everything online and the post office is the only delivery service that’s really affordable, quite frankly, and the competition we provide there. The other huge aspect of this is they want to invalidate our collective bargaining agreements. If they’re able to move us into commerce, they want to make it illegal to even have a union.

It would be the way things were pre 1970, pre Wildcat strike where the workers weren’t allowed to organize. They had to go to Congress to beg for wage increases and benefits. It was a very unfair system, quite frankly. There were people that had to live on public assistance to get by. And we’re actually seeing a situation now where even though we are unionized workforce, our new hires have such a low wage scale that a lot of them are getting public assistance as well. They’re finding themselves in situations they can’t afford rent in the communities where they work. A lot of cities where there’s a high cost of San Francisco, for example, they can’t find letter carriers to work in those cities because nobody can afford to live near where they work. That’s going to be deteriorated even further under the plan that’s being put forward.

This plan was put out in 2018 by then Secretary Treasury, Steve Mnuchin, talking about their ideas of making the post office a privatized entity, getting rid of the pensions that we receive, making the people who are already locked into a pension have a longer term before they can qualify. Right now, we can retire after 30 years and believe me, your body is ready after carrying mail for 30 years. They want to make it so that doesn’t matter anymore. Of course, we have a social security gap payment. I could retire when I’m 57 and between 57 and 62 when I can collect social security, I’d receive a gap payment to make up for the fact that I can’t get social security yet. They would get rid of that. They want us to pay a higher percentage of our wages into our pensions, of course a higher percentage of our wages into our healthcare. And they claim that, well, this is justified because the private sector doesn’t necessarily have the same sort of pension benefits. And my answer to that would be, well, that’s because of 40 years of union busting and destroying unions in this country, and the private sector deserves those benefits too. Allowing them to come in and attack our unions and take those things away would be a huge hit for the entire working class, not just for letter carriers. We should be fighting for these same benefits in all unions

As opposed to saying, well, you shouldn’t be getting it because private sector workers may not have it.

Mel Buer:

So what’s the recourse then? Let’s spend some time on this because we’ve talked a little bit about if we see a privatized US Postal service and we see these sort of collective bargaining agreements become null and void, it dovetails into the conversation that I think a lot of folks in union organizing are having about what happens when they remove the rest of the teeth from the NLRA and what recourse do unions have to begin organizing. Now, my personal opinion as a union journalist should have happened, should have started maybe like a year or a couple or five, 10 years ago. The minute that we started seeing these flashing red lights that this is what they were trying to dismantle, especially with the SpaceX case and what’s going on with Elon Musk’s companies and Google and Waffle House of all places suing to make parts of the NLRA and Noll and void. What does that look like for workers in this country and especially for letter carriers in your own context? Right,

Melissa Rakestraw:

Right. So let me backtrack a little bit because something you talked about there. At first when we’re talking about how the attacks on the postal workers affect our communities and other folks, we do the last mile of delivery for other companies. We go where they don’t go. There’s a lot of inner city neighborhoods, the Amazon UPS, they opt out, they’re not going there. Rural areas, we’re not going there. We’ll give it to the post office, let them deliver it. Those folks aren’t going to have a service or what service they may get is going to be terrible and very high priced. So that kind of attack on our jobs attacks our communities as well. And when we talk about moving forward, what’s it look like? That’s why I’m so adamant that we have settled for a terrible contract and that we have to fight these privatization efforts because we are the largest unionized workforce in a civilian workforce outside of the federal government directly.

Anything that they can do and attack us and our unions, they can do to anybody else, if not worse. And if you’re talking about having, they want to create a workplace non-unionized, take us back. We should be going the opposite direction with trying to unionize the places that aren’t unionized, whether it be the Amazon delivery drivers, Amazon warehouses, all of these networks going forward. We’ve seen some gains in non-unionized workplaces unionizing, and at the same token, you’ve seen unionized workers attacked as well. So I truly believe our only way forward is through solidarity. It’s what has sustained the labor movement from day one and the birth of the labor movement came out of the Great Depression. And then we see the robber Baron era. I think we’re looking at a modern robber baron era where you’re allowing someone, the richest man in the world who is a union buster, who has done everything he can to keep unions out of his workplaces now come into our realm and say, I’m going after the big dogs.

I’m going after these folks who’ve been unionized for decades and are implanted across the whole entire country. So it’s time that all of us have to stick together and fight back. And I’ve seen this across the federal workforce as well. When you see people attacked in the national parks, even in the IRS Social Security Administration, his attacks on the OPM and the Social Security Administration are going to impact all of us who rely upon the services of those departments. Like right now, OPM administers our pensions. They deal with a lot of the administration of our healthcare plans. It’s whenever you have an issue, it already takes forever to find someone to help you with your problem, and it’s going to be even worse and even more exacerbated now that those folks’ jobs are going to be cut and these are people that actually provide a worthwhile service to workers, to the American public at large. And all of us have to step forward and demand better because no one’s coming to save us. The courts aren’t going to save us. No elected officials are going to save us. It’s going to be our own fight back that wins this.

It’s the only thing that’s ever won anything significant for workers in the past, and we have to get back to that one-on-one organizing with their coworkers and within our unions, within our branches than in our communities, in other unions, in our communities, and we’re all in this together. The attacks that have gone on on the immigrant community, on the trans community, L-G-B-T-Q community, it’s all related. We can’t step back and say, well, maybe I’m not in that community or does it impact me directly? So it’s not my fight well wrong, it is our fight and we’ve got to figure out how not to let them divide us because there’s more of us than there are of them, and solidarity is our way forward.

Mel Buer:

If there’s one thing that even a sort of half-hearted study of labor history can teach you is that we’ve been here before and we were very successful as American activists, as folks who have inherited the legacy of the labor movement of the feminist movement, of the civil rights movement, that we’ve been through much worse conditions and we won everything that we have today because of the work that we as members of the working class have done in this country, which is an amazing thing to think about and internalize when if any of my listeners are sitting here absolutely overwhelmed by the last two and a half months, two months of really intense not great things coming out of this administration, there is a way forward, as some of my friends like to say, we’re not cooked yet. There is a space for us to be able to organize, and especially in the federal workforce, what we’re seeing is the boss is the best organizer because a lot of people are joining unions when they previously didn’t think they needed to or decided not to.

And this is kind of a radicalizing moment for a lot of folks. And so it’s a reminder to just be where your hands are at and do something that will help you feel less helpless if you can get out of your house to kind of engage in something that’s going to help you. And that really kind of takes me to my last question here, which is something to do as we are experiencing threats against the postal service and NALC has recently put out a call to all branches of the union to organize rallies in opposition to this privatization. They are to be scheduled for March 23rd. This episode will be out on March 19th to say hell no to a private postal service. So just want to read a little bit from a statement by NALC President Brian Renfro who said these local rallies nationwide will bring together NALC members and the public to show their support for letter carriers, all postal employees and the postal service at a crucial time. This is an opportunity to educate our customers about everything at stake if the postal service is privatized or restructured. So really I want to give us a moment to talk about what are these things that you’re hoping to communicate to the American public with these rallies and how can our listeners show support for letter carriers and to get more engaged in through these rallies and other various actions that they can take?

Melissa Rakestraw:

Right. So one of the things I would suggest is look for the rallies in your communities on March 23rd. Ask your letter carrier, Hey, where’s the local rally that you guys are having? Because most likely every branch in the country is going to be organizing something. So I would encourage folks to ask their letter carrier, what is your local planning? And I’d like to show up with your sign that says, I love my post office and hands off hell no to dismantling the postal service. I think that kind of support with four letter carriers and seeing our community support us is so invigorating and gives us the kind of energy to realize we are not alone in this fight. That’s one thing I’ve tried to express with my membership is that we have a huge fight on our hands. Don’t underestimate it. However, we are not helpless and we are not going to be anybody’s victim because we can fight this and we can win.

And like you said, the blueprints are there from the labor movement of the past. So I’m going to love to see customers come out and support us. Talk to your letter carrier about what’s going on, ask them questions to educate yourself too of what you can do to help out. We run the largest food drive in the country is run by the letter carriers union every Saturday before the second Saturday in May. And we take what we gather from every door that we deliver to and we deliver it to our local food banks because we know that there’s need this need in our communities. We’ve done this for over 30 years and it’s something that we take very seriously. We take a lot of pride in and when we see the customers then appreciating us, showing up to our rallies, honking when they drive by one of our protests, it makes us realize that they appreciate us too.

They appreciate what we do for them, that they appreciate us being there. They appreciate us checking on their elderly neighbor if she or he hasn’t picked up their mail for a couple days and finding out what’s going on and also knowing that we aren’t alone. We can get together with other folks in our community who are also wanting to fight back. I was really encouraged because last Saturday here in a suburban area outside Chicago, the town’s called Lyle, Illinois, there’s a Tesla dealership and there were over 400 people who showed up outside of it to protest just random people from the community. And this is not a hotbed of activism, right? In the city of Chicago, you expect to see a lot of protests and that kind of thing out in the suburban areas. Not so much usually, but it showed me that people want to fight. People do not want to take this line down. People know that there’s a lot at stake here and that they are coming after all of us. The entire working class is under attack here. It’s not just this group or that group. It’s all of us.

Mel Buer:

Agreed, agreed. And again, really to underscore this last couple of minutes, really just to remind folks that are listening to this that are feeling dismayed by how things are going for us, and it’s been kind of a precipitous drop. It’s been going pretty bad for a while. Certainly through the last couple of administrations we’ve been feeling this kind of squeeze, especially since 2008, but it is getting, I dunno, I suppose I could say it has to get worse before it gets better. But the thing is is that this is also allowing folks to kind of reach a place where they can reach into these movements in a way that maybe they didn’t feel they had a way to before. And to engage in a very simple act of solidarity is a very radicalizing thing and a very positive thing. There’s nothing quite like it really.

And being able to kind of remind yourself that, especially with the letter carriers, these are members of your community that come to your house every day that know you, your family, your neighbors, and are often neighbors themselves. So these are the things to think about is that if you’re feeling like there’s just too much going on, then this is a really important piece where you can just get out of the house and in Chicago it’ll be nicer than it has been in terms of weather for the last couple of weeks. Be able to stand out in the warmth and get to know the folks that you see driving around your neighborhood every day. Before I let you go though, I just want to ask if you have any final parting thoughts for the folks listening either to continue to show support for letter carriers or how to feel more connected to their community or if you have some thoughts about folks who are looking to organize and don’t know where to start, what are some things to keep in mind for anyone who’s getting into this and who’s new to it?

Melissa Rakestraw:

So I think one of the things would be if you’re aware of something going on, go to it. Go to an organizing meeting, go introduce yourself. Say, Hey, I’ve never done this before, but I want to get involved because the people who have been organizing for years, upon years upon years, love to see new people come to the door and say, Hey, what can I do to help? You mentioned that the feeling that people get when you engage in a collective action, it’s really hard to explain if you haven’t done it. I can remember in 2012 when the CTU Chicago Teachers Union went on strike and the odds were pitted against them with Rah Emanuel being the mayor of the 1% trying to crush their union quite frankly, and when we surrounded city hall on every side, it’s a huge block in downtown Chicago and it was just a sea of red and thousands of people and you’re all on the same wavelength and realize we all want the same thing and they’re going to have to give it to us and just sporadic things that happen of that nature.

We’ve seen starting from Occupy even before that in Wisconsin when public workers fought back the Black Lives Matter movement where people took to the streets and said, this is not okay and we deserve better and we’re not in the prep with it anymore. The Standing Rock show down that went on and I think over the last few years we haven’t seen as much of people in the streets and fighting back and we’re going to have to get back into that and not just being on the streets, but being organized off the streets and getting into organizing meetings, getting into spaces, whether it be in our unions, our community groups where we can discuss strategy and a path forward and what are our demands and what can we all agree on. There’s a lot of things we can agree on and we should put those as our things that we all want to bring us together in our union.

Yeah, we have been fighting for a better contract for ourselves and now we realize we have to take that fight out into the community for the very survival of the post office itself. The US’ oldest institution that predates the Constitution that Benjamin Franklin founded before the signing of the Constitution of this country that established an infrastructure in this country literally was established through the post office. The history is incredible and this is the history that belongs to the working people of the us. It’s not something that we can allow the oligarchs and the billionaires to come in and take away from us and dismantle and destroy because once they’ve crushed it, it’s going to be a lot harder to build it back. So we have to meet them and show them we aren’t backing down, that we’re all willing to fight for it and there’s more of us than there are of them. We always have to keep that in mind and you’re going to lose every battle you don’t fight. The only way we can win is to fight and when we fight, we win.

Mel Buer:

Well said. Melissa, thank you so much for coming on the show today. I really appreciate it. Thanks

Melissa Rakestraw:

A lot for having me.

Mel Buer:

That’s it for us here at Working People. We’ll see you back here next week for another episode and if you can’t wait that long, then go explore all the great work we’re doing at the Real News Network where we do grassroots journalism, lifting up the voices and stories from the front lines of struggle. Sign up for the Real News newsletter so you never miss a story and help us do more work like this by going to the real news.com/donate and becoming a supporter today. It really makes a difference. I’m Mel er and thanks so much for sticking around. We’ll see you next time.

This week, we’re staying in Southern California, where the workers of Touchstone Climbing Gym in Los Angeles have been negotiating their first contract with their employer. Touchstone Climbing, a regional climbing gym with over a dozen locations in California, experienced a wave of unionization in its Los Angeles locations early last year. The successful campaign with Workers United created a wall-to-wall union at each of the company’s five locations in the Los Angeles area. Members of the LA-based gym are often themselves union members, and the response from the climbing community has been overwhelmingly positive.

However, workers have been navigating a frustrating negotiation in order to reach an agreement on a first contract. Chief among workers’ demands is better communications, higher safety standards, and better pay. 

With me today to discuss their unionization, and their negotiations are Ryan Barkauskas, PT desk staff at the Post in Pasadena and Jess Kim, former desk staff at the Post in Pasadena, now FT Workers United organizer. 

Additional links/info: 

• Touchstone Workers United Instagram
• Climbing Business Journal – “Touchstone Workers United Win Union Election – First Southern California Climbing Gyms to Unionize”
• Eaton Fire Gofundme for Sam, 10+ year Yoga Instructor
• Eaton Fire Gofundme for Martell, Front Desk Worker at The Post in Pasadena

Permanent links below…

• Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!
• Labor Radio / Podcast Network website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• In These Times website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• The Real News Network website, YouTube channel, podcast feeds, Facebook page, and Twitter page

Featured Music…

• Jules Taylor, “Working People” Theme Song

Studio Production: Mel Buer
Post-Production: Jules Taylor

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Mel Buer:

I got work. Welcome everyone to Working People, a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class today. Working People is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network and is brought to you in partnership within these Times Magazine and the Real News Network. This show is produced by Jules Taylor and made possible by the support of listeners like you. My name is Mel Buer and I’m your host for the month of March. Stay tuned this month as we share the mic with workers from all over this country and discuss pressing issues central to today’s labor movement. Last week we checked in with behavioral healthcare workers in Southern California as they entered their 20th week on strike. If you haven’t checked out that episode, be sure to head on over to our channels and take a listen. This week, we’re staying in Southern California where the workers of Touchstone climbing gym in Los Angeles have been negotiating their first contract with their employer.

Touchstone Climbing, a regional climbing gym with over a dozen locations in California experienced a wave of unionization in its Los Angeles locations. Early last year, successful campaign with Workers United created a wall to Wall Union at each of the company’s five locations in the Los Angeles area. And members of the LA based gym are often themselves union members, and the response from the climbing community has been overwhelmingly positive. However, workers have been navigating a frustrating negotiation in order to reach an agreement on a first contract. Chief among workers demands is better communication, higher safety standards, and better pay with me today to discuss their unionization. Their negotiations are Ryan Markowski, part-time desk staff at the Post in Pasadena, and Jess Kim, former desk staff at the Post in Pasadena, and now full-time Workers United organizer. Welcome to the show guys. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for having us.

Ryan Barkauskas:

Yeah, thank you.

Mel Buer:

Yeah. Okay, so to kick things off, we got a lot to talk about. I really kind of just wanted to start by giving our listeners a bit of background on this current struggle that you’re engaged in. Jess, if you would like just to start this conversation, can you tell me a little bit about the climbing gyms that you used to work at, that the bargaining unit works at? How many locations does Touchstone own in California, in Los Angeles? What is the sort of makeup of this particular shop?

Jess Kim:

Yeah, of course. So there’s Touchstone Climbing, which is where our story originated. They are a chain just in California that’s fairly large. They have five locations in the Los Angeles area. They have Burbank, Hollywood, Pasadena, Culver City, and downtown. And last year they opened one in Torrance as well, so it five are in our bargaining unit because that’s when we organized. And there’s one more in Torrance Class five that has not been added. And then up north they have another big clump of gyms, especially around the Bay Area. I think it’s about 10 more gyms, Ryan, I think, and then they’re opening a couple more this year up there.

Mel Buer:

How big is the bargaining unit? How many employees?

Jess Kim:

It’s about 170 employees inside the unit. We did organize wall to wall, which means everyone inside of the building who is not a supervisor is included, so that’s disc staff, route setters, safety staff coaches, yoga instructors, janitorial and maintenance employees.

Mel Buer:

Ryan, what are the sort of jobs that folks are doing at a climbing gym? For our listeners who maybe aren’t in the climbing community, they may have never set foot inside of a climbing gym, don’t even know what it looks like or what the sort of space is. Could you kind of clue us in on what that is?

Ryan Barkauskas:

Absolutely. There’s a lot of kind of guest relations because it is a gym that requires servicing and some customer facing. So me personally, being a desk staff, I greet people, I check them in. I assist people with their memberships. I do instruction as well. And besides just the general maintenance and the upkeep of the gym, a large part of our responsibility is the interaction with the community. There’s additional roles such as safety staff that largely their position is meant to just facilitate those lessons, get people first acclimated with climbing, and then be keeping everybody safe. But something that’s usually encouraged and that we really appreciate about the job is walking the floor, being there with the climbers, letting them know about community events, how to be active in this great community, but really, yeah, again, that’s just a couple of the small roles. There’s coaches, there are youth teams that we foster. There are yoga instructors, separate fitness instructors past that, and just as Jess said, there’s janitorial, there’s maintenance, there’s everything that requires this building to continue to function.

Mel Buer:

Would you say, Jess, that these gyms are sort of situated and interfacing really well with the community, just as Ryan has said, but give us an idea of what the climbing community looks like in Los Angeles or in the United States? What does it feel like to you?

Jess Kim:

Yeah. Well, the climbing community is legendary, perhaps just among ourselves for our comradeship and our support. I’ll drop a little hint that when we form a local, we’ll be local 69 because we believe in mutual care. So I started climbing actually on the east coast, and when I was over there, I got in because my friend in college wanted to learn how to escape the zombie apocalypse, and this seemed like the best route for her, and I am a adamant people pleaser, so I was like, sure, let’s go. We got sucked into the climate community there, and everyone is just so supportive, kind, no matter what you look like, if you’ve ever do other sports before, people don’t care. Everyone can get on there and touch those colorful holds on the wall, and we love to see it. So I love being part of that community.

There is a rash of a bros, as in many of the sports, and I feel like that’s just entertainment for other people who come to the gym. You see a man grunting on the wall, just let that go. He’s doing his business up there, he’s getting his emotions out. In California, we are lucky because in LA we have such a strong union community, and so many of our climbers work in industries that are prolific within the working class and organizing within the working class. So we have Hollywood, all those entertainment unions, which I’m a part of. Ryan works in Hollywood as well. We have teachers unions. We’re so active, so we have a very strong community that sees each other in and outside of the gym. And we’re lucky actually at Touchstone, we have groups called Affinity Groups, and these are specialized meetups for people of color, for queer folks. We have lager, thes, brew crush, Eskimos, hair cliff hangers for disabled climbers. We have lots of ways for people to find their people in the gym, and that’s what we love about it.

Mel Buer:

Yeah, I’m new to climbing just recently started in the last couple of months, and I would say that it’s the same experience for me. It seems like there’s a very low barrier to entry and that everyone is welcome. And it seems like that’s kind of baked into the community that you have lived and worked in for as many years as you have. One thing that I do want to ask though is you formed this union in the end of 2023, and there was some issues that were happening at your gyms in LA that kind of pushed you to really collectively organize. Ryan, do you just kind of want to tell us what the issues were and why it was important that folks came together and filed for a union?

Ryan Barkauskas:

Yeah, there were a few errors, a few omissions and inconsistencies. We were seeing pay being different from location to location. You could work someone else’s coverage and be expected to not be paid their same rate. There wasn’t proper a ladder of seniority, there weren’t establish ways to really protect yourself and have look a path to advancement, better checking in with our bosses, they touched on kind of had this mentality of, oh, we’re so mom and pop. We so easily can just directly work with you. And that works to an extent. But when there can be things that come up that jeopardize our safety that worry us, and that we feel like, Hey, we’d like to have more communication with you every now and then we’ll just get a little bit of like, no, I think we’re doing okay though. That sparked, I think a lot of that organizing us feeling like, but this is our opinion, and wouldn’t you like to hear that? And to just kind of be told, no, I think we know best.

Mel Buer:

We’re a family here. Take your pizza party and walk out the door kind of experience.

Jess Kim:

We didn’t even get pizza that rough.

Mel Buer:

So you tried to solve these problems and tried to open up lines of communication with management ahead of organizing, and they just weren’t receptive at all.

Ryan Barkauskas:

It’s a very short progression and still what they encourage is very informal means of we just go to our direct manager and our direct managers are then supposed to be the go-between, but that puts a lot on that middleman. If they make a failure in communication or if it just escalates there and our remote admins just deem it not necessary. We feel like we don’t have any direct say, and it can make us really feel powerless, especially if we don’t, unfortunately might not have the best relationship with our managers. We can hope for the best, but that can only do so much when they’re always like, oh, let’s just talk about it. Let’s make it informal. It doesn’t always work.

Mel Buer:

It doesn’t seem like there’s, when things are informal like that, A, there’s a lot of bottlenecking that happens because there’s a lot of people who are passing messages along in a game of telephone, the worst game of telephone ever, people’s livelihoods, and B, it seems like there’s no documentation for you to be able to track solutions. Does that sound accurate in this situation?

Ryan Barkauskas:

Yeah, I think we’ve struggled in that way for sure. There can be some paper trails of emails, but past that, they even changed our communication systems when they changed programs on us to Slack, which I’m sure many people are on, but just simple requests that we have of just like, Hey, can we just put this in writing? Can it be more consistent? Can you include this group in the Slack? Maybe there’s a certain job title that isn’t even on the team communications yet, and they miss announcements. They’re resistant to do even that, and we’re like, why should it be so hard to even just share information?

Mel Buer:

Right. Well, Jess, how did folks come together in January? What was the process for really coming to start collectively organizing and forming this union? One thing that I like to do, especially on this show, is that many of our listeners aren’t really familiar with how unions come together, and a lot of these episodes that I do is really the aim is to sort of pull back the curtain a little bit on what that organizing looks like. So what did that look like for you and the bargaining unit here with Touchstone Workers United?

Jess Kim:

Yeah, of course. So when I had started working at Touchstone, I feel like people joked about forming a union like, oh, we should do that, but there wasn’t any real action despite all these frustrations that Ryan had described. And we had a really unfortunate incident that made the LA Times in October and November of 2023 where there was a threat made against the gym that was very specific, and there was an FBI investigation started, and the company communicated so poorly that the workers and the customers were put in danger, and obviously that doesn’t go over well. And the response from the company was not apologetic. It was very much a little blamey to be honest, and didn’t make people feel comfortable in the workplace. And because of that, like Ryan said, we had a centralized system for most employees to talk to each other with management prior to this.

And because so many people were documenting the status of the threat at these different locations and talking Touchstone did shut down that method of communication, but we had already exchanged emails, so we had a big email thread going with mostly employees and had already signed a petition to help with that situation. So because many of us were talking already, it was pretty simple to be like, you know what? We’re going to really organize. We also are fortunate that at Touchstone, we cover each other’s shifts frequently for desk staff, so we travel to other locations, we get to talk to each other, and then our setters and coaches and instructors, most of ’em work at multiple locations as well. So there’s a good flow of communication. Plus we all hang out. We hang out after hours, we climb, we hang out outside to climb. We have the unifier of being addicted to climbing.

So once we have the comms going, just like classic union campaigns, but if the listeners aren’t familiar, we live in America and in America, you do not want to talk about the union campaign openly, unfortunately, because it is really difficult to protect someone from being fired or retaliated against at this stage in the campaign. So if you’re organizing, you want to use non-work emails, you want to meet offsite, you want to talk in person, and you want to make sure that everyone who’s involved knows that they don’t want to just be talking about the union at this specific workplace out at the grocery store. You never know who’s around. So unfortunately, that’s the reality. So yeah, we just got people talking. We had the emails and then we distributed what are called the NLRB. There are cards indicating your interest in a union, you want 30% of the workforce to sign to file for an election, but kind of the gold standard in most unions now is getting more than 70% of workers to sign because you need a bigger majority to win an election. And so we were able to get that very easily and very quickly because we had the impetus from people feeling very unsafe, even with the security guards that were hired by Touchstone for a brief period of time who were not the best. I will say.

Mel Buer:

Oh, yeah, I mean, yes. One thing to also note here too is when you’re talking about a majority that’s 70% or more is what people call a super majority of cards signed. It’s essentially alerting the NL rrb that if you were to have an election, say for example, you file and your employer doesn’t voluntarily recognize your union, it then goes to a union election that is put on by the NLRB. You’re essentially telling them with confidence that you will win that election because more than a majority, a super majority of your eligible bargaining unit has signed cards saying, yes, I will vote yes. Right. It’s also really good when you file and you present this information to your management, to your boss, you can say, I don’t know, man, 80% of us are already for this. It might just be easier. It’s going to happen.

You might as well just say, yes, let’s get this party rolling. And oftentimes if they’re receptive, they will voluntarily recognize and then your union can be certified and then you can really start the process of negotiations for first contract. So if any of our listeners are feeling the opaqueness of that, that’s the general sort of gist of how unions can be certified in this country. And Jess, you are right. Oftentimes what happens with organizing situations is you really kind of have to plan and prepare for how you’re going to approach people in order to get them interested in the union. I have certainly been in situations in the service industry where I’m from in Nebraska where we tried to organize unions at the bars that we worked at, and unfortunately the organizing was happening in places that got overheard by management. And so they will begin to do things like captive audience meetings, like leaning on certain members to say no to this process.

All of this is technically illegal or there’s a line there. But oftentimes management is not interested in seeing workers collectively organize. They view it as a loss of power in the workplace because often, especially with Touchstone or Ryan, I’m sure you can kind of note this as well, it seems like they have enough of a profit in order to handle anything in terms, and we’ll talk about negotiations after our break here in 15 minutes or so, but it would seem that they have enough money in their pockets to be able to handle you asking for a raise. You know what I mean? So I don’t know if you feel the same way, but it seems to me, especially in all of my reporting, when we have a struggle like a bargaining that goes sideways or a picket line that forms or a strike, oftentimes it’s a question of power. Who wants to have power in the workplace? And Ryan, what are your thoughts on that? What has it felt like to kind of collectively come into your own power as a worker with Touchstone Workers United?

Ryan Barkauskas:

It feels, I mean, it feels empowering or dare I say, nothing really great comes that easy. It’s just really frustrating to recognize how much work and resistance this will involve. Like you said, companies might sit you down and try to talk you out of it. We had that moment. I remember when our CEO and one of the other CFOs came in, and that’s their last little ditch effort to say, Hey, we think we could serve you better if you don’t do this. And at that little meeting, our CEO promises to us, and this feels almost like a little bit of manipulation, how he says, I will not be a union busting CEO if you choose to ratify, I will accept that. Okay. I guess that’s what the majority of my work was wanted. I thought I knew better, but if you tell me this, that’s what I’ll hear.

So what we’ve seen is the opposite of that. I felt inspired to propose to put myself on this bargaining committee only as a part-time staff as well. Most of the people that I’m really trying to fight for are my full-time friends that are more invested in this company that really want to make this like their homes. And I just saw the failings of the communication that what we were getting from our higher ups, and I was like, well, maybe I could lend a part of that. I think maybe I’m a little bit wishful in my thinking when negotiations are a little bit more red and very protected. Everything is said through one lawyer and it’s been frustrating, but really what it’s shown is the need for this was like, wow, I guess. Yeah, his words weren’t exactly true when he said that.

Mel Buer:

No, I think you bring a good point in here, Ryan, is that oftentimes management does feel, it feels a little squeaky talking to him when you’re talking about organizing a union. What’s that one meme? All the questions you have are answered by my t-shirt that says, I’m not going to union bust. You know what I mean? It feels weird, but I will say, you did the thing you filed for election. Did they voluntarily recognize the union? No, they did not. Okay. Absolutely

Jess Kim:

Not. They didn’t even answer or voluntarily.

Mel Buer:

So yes, it was all bs. Them sitting you down and saying, oh, we will. We’ll hear that answer. No. And so you went through the election. What was the results of the election?

Jess Kim:

Yeah, I don’t remember the exact numbers. It was fairly close. We had a number of issues. We had a lot of union busting from the employer. Like Ryan said, we had those captive audience meetings, which again are illegal if you’re in the US currently anywhere in the US it is illegal, but especially in California, it was already illegal to have those meetings, which is when the employer comes in and tells you not to accept the union or try to persuade you to not unionize. We also had people like managers threatening that if you unionize, your benefits will be taken away or you won’t be able to talk to your manager anymore. And we received, which is my favorite daily mail to our house in just stacks from the company that was these big, bold, why unions are terrible headlines saying they’re going to come into our homes.

And it was like Scooby Doo investigation out there. It was rough. It was not factual. And then we got an apology letter actually from the CEO mark that was like, oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize that there were so many mailings because people were so angry about getting this pile of mail at their house. And I think there’s something there too in that the anti-union efforts can become from the employer can be so annoying and out of touch and irritating that actually drives more people to want to unionize. We’ve had folks who went to a captive audience meeting undecided, and they came out being like, man, those assholes, I want to be with you guys. We’re like, yeah, that makes sense.

Mel Buer:

Yeah, the best organizers, often the boss. We’ve seen that certainly in the federal worker unions in the last month or so, folks who never would’ve joined the union have seen what’s been going on at the federal level and they’re like, ah, actually, give me a card. Let me sign. I am tired of this. One more thing before we go to the break here, and then when we come back, we’re going to talk about the negotiations themselves and how things have been going since then because all of this has happened in early 2024 or so. But how has the climbing community responded to your unionizing effort, Ryan?

Ryan Barkauskas:

Geez, overwhelming support. It really is, like you said, how accepting the community is. The motto is the crag is for everybody outdoors. We take care of nature, we take care of it all. We just want to continue to enjoy this. We want everything that’s left behind to be shared and loved by all. And yeah, like Jess said, so many people are a member of II are working freelance in so many different disciplines and jobs, and so they hear about this and every time I’ve told someone that what’s happened, they say, that’s amazing. I’m happy for you guys. And they’re checking in. They want to know how to support. So really the community is really behind us and these are the relationships that we have. We talk to these people every single day. We have become really good friends and we are around them constantly and we’re all invested in each other. So to have the behind us really, really means a lot.

Mel Buer:

Jess, from your position as an organizer, how have you sort of seen the sort of community response to both the union effort that was successful? And now as you’re getting into deep into your negotiations at this point, how has the community response been in terms of support, in terms of reaching out to Workers United and wanting to share their experiences with the unionized gyms? What has that been like for you on your end?

Jess Kim:

Yeah, I agree with Brian. Completely overwhelming support. I was only recently fired from Touchstone in, I want to say October. So I’ve only been a full-time organizer with Workers United a few months, but we have an Instagram account for our workers. It’s at Touchstone Workers United. We get a ton of dms from people offering support from high profile climbers to local people in our community to people across the US who want to support, and they’re a part of their local climbing community. We also get interest from other gyms in the US who are asking, how do we organize? Can you walk us through it? And of course, we’re very happy to. It’s been truly wonderful. We haven’t gotten a single negative dm. What also really gets me is I discovered some Reddit threads yesterday about the organizing and wow. People in there are so supportive and so petty. There’s some memes on there that absolutely sent me. It was just, wow, I love the support, what the level of petty is, just That’s beautiful. It’s a beautiful thing.

Mel Buer:

Yeah, you got to laugh at it when things are so frustrating. So we’ve kind of talked about how the organizing was last year. How long have you guys been in negotiation process? When did you start bargaining for your first contract?

Jess Kim:

We started our first session in September, 2024.

Mel Buer:

Okay, so it’s been, what is that, four months? No longer, five months, six months of bargaining.

Jess Kim:

Yep. A long time.

Mel Buer:

Not. Great. Okay. Let’s kind of break it down a little bit. So just overall, Ryan, you’ve spoken about some of the frustration in the organizing prior to the election and probably in the aftermath as well, and you are on the bargaining committee overall. Let’s start there broadly. How have the negotiations been going?

Ryan Barkauskas:

Like pulling teeth? Yeah, me going into that with some hope that, oh, I could just start a real good line of communication. I could just appeal to reason. And what we’re met with is a lawyer from a notoriously anti-union firm who does all of the speaking. We are faced with three other representatives of our company, none of which really add anything to the conversation unless he has a question. Simple things that we would love to just be able the flow of information and to be able to actually go back and forth across the table are usually met with, oh, I guess I’ll have to look into that, and maybe we won’t hear back until six weeks later when the next meeting is right. And so it’s really frustrating to see this wall that I think has been put up by the company to say, Hey, this is us just really worried about our self-interests and we’re going to hold onto this as best as we can and give you as little as we can. In the six months that we’ve been meeting, we have two or three tentative TAs on the contract, and they’re very basic, the ones that we have. So it’s really been a struggle.

Mel Buer:

What are some of the main bargaining priorities that you went in there with? Obviously you’re talking about parody and wages, you’re talking about better safety conditions. What are some of the specifics of that that you really are really pushing for as you continue these negotiations with the company?

Jess Kim:

Yeah. Well, we based our campaign on three kind of pillars, which is safety, equity, and empowerment. Ryan spoke before about difference in wages between employees doing the same job. We’ve been there the same amount of time. The only difference could be gender, it could be anything. It’s just not unfair, it’s not fair. So our contract has a series of articles in our non economics. Most of our articles regard safety issues that we have in the gym. So a lot of it’s just compliance with general federal and state law. There’s a lot of things that are not compliant with law. We’ve had OSHA come in several times for different violations, and it’s simply just not an environment where you feel safe as a worker or where customers feel safe. And it’s very frustrating that there is no mechanism in America to really have companies comply with different laws.

For example, we have the workplace violence prevention law in California, which can law in July of last year of 2024. And in that employers are supposed to design blueprints with the employees, with the employees, like a collaborative effort on how to react to active shooters and how to react to different violent scenarios in the workplace. And given our history in 2023 of having issues related to this, it’s incredible that we not only don’t have a plan, but we have requested a plan many, many times in bargaining via email, people in person to our HR director. And there’s, there’s no compliance with that, and there’s nothing you can do. So outside of the union contract, what path you’re going to pursue with the contract, we can put that through the grievance and arbitration procedure, get that amended, get anything reparations back into it, because it’s not fair that workers want to simply go to work and not fear for their safety, and they want to comply with basic, the most basic laws that we have, which aren’t even that strong in America for safety protections.

And we don’t have those. So safety’s a big thing. Wages for sure, we have a lot of issues with the wages in the climbing community. There’s this history, this beautiful romantic dirtbag history of climbers who are living off the earth and they’re climbing outside. And in the past, they would just work at a gym for six months to get enough money for the whole rest of the year. Then they’d go climb and work on their projects, which is beautiful. But no one can build a savings on what is out here at the climbing gyms. We’re chasing minimum wage. They’re highly skilled positions. Our route setters have to use power tools at heights of 40 feet. They have to communicate with each other and use all these safety measures, and they design routes every single day that are different on three different styles of terrain. And they also take in consideration people who might be vi or visually impaired, people who have different abilities.

So there’s certifications involved. There’s a lot of factors. So to be offering people basically minimum wage, especially in a city like Los Angeles or up in the Bay Area is also not acceptable for us. It’s just not livable. And we do have staff who can’t afford housing and things like that. So that is a huge factor for us. And then the final thing is, as Ryan touched on some of our most basic asks are respect, like building communication structures within the company. We asked for a joint labor management committee, which could meet whenever there’s large safety issues. We asked for to bring back that centralized communication platform that people, everyone was able to use to get notices on new policies or talk about issues that are affecting all of the gyms. And we built in structure as well for what to do when someone receives warning when someone gets disciplined or is leading toward discipline.

And another big issue in our community is sexual harassment. We work in the fitness industry. We ask for different levels of how are we addressing issues in our gyms, these that are very prolific. And so our biggest issues are not building a new handbook or building a new code of conduct. It’s like we’re asking for basic compliance with laws. We’re asking for livable wages for folks, and we’re asking for basic safety protections both legally and mentally and with sexual harassment and ways to address these issues because Touchstone does not have an internal structure, an internal path for these problems. And in the past when people report discrimination or sexual harassment, they can just go unanswered or the answer is deal with it yourself. And that’s not okay. That’s not a safe environment for people to be working.

Mel Buer:

You want to make sure that people stay at their jobs. And these are basic sort of protocols and structures. The cool thing about a union for many of our listeners who maybe aren’t aware is that within the collective bargaining agreement that you ultimately agree on, it is a binding document that both sides sign. So when you ask for these things and they agree to them instead of this pie in the sky, yeah, we’ll get to it, trust us, you now have a binding legal contract that you can point to that says, actually, you said you’d get this to us six months ago. We gave you some time. Now we’re going to start pulling on this thread so that we can actually bring you to do this thing so that you are compliant or we’ll grieve you, we’ll file a grievance. We’ll bring in these mediators to say they haven’t done their side of the bargain, and we have.

And so the things that you’re asking for, you’ve touched a little bit, just some clarity for any of our listeners who maybe aren’t familiar. When you are negotiating, you’re negotiating both non-economic and economic proposals. The non-economic ones fit in the realm of these protocols that you’re talking about, these communication structures, safety plans and things of that nature. And then the economics is going to be obviously your wages, potential benefits, retirement health insurance, things that you may be a pension, perhaps, things that these that deal with the material conditions of the workers who will then be receiving those benefits. So oftentimes during bargaining, you will ta a small piece of that means a tentative agreement. It means you’ve come to an agreement on one provision in your contract, and then you can move on to the next. And sometimes it takes a while, but six months is a long time.

However, there are folks who have been bargaining for years and years and haven’t reached a conclusion. And oftentimes it leads to this frustration that you’re talking about, Ryan, where the assumption is, and maybe this is just me being idealistic, but the assumption is that you would come to the table in what’s called good faith, meaning you are willing to work towards a solution, you’re willing to make compromises and to have a collaborative sort of conversation that ultimately ends in the better working conditions for all happier workers means more profits oftentimes. And for whatever reason, oftentimes the company just decides to throw that out the window the second that you start asking for these things. So I want to ask, you’ve laid out a lot of these proposals, Ryan, you’ve already talked about the frustration, but what has been the sort of response to these demands?

Ryan Barkauskas:

It’s been a lot of legal jargon and slowing down the process really gumming it up. A large contention right now is something that we’ve had to call out and that we might be filing an unfair labor practice for this as well, is we’re arguing that they’re not in good faith for the fact that we have not received counter proposals on our economic proposals

Mel Buer:

Yet,

Ryan Barkauskas:

Ever. When did

Mel Buer:

You introduce them? When was the first time you introduced

Ryan Barkauskas:

’em? Those? A couple months ago.

Mel Buer:

So they should have something by

Ryan Barkauskas:

Now. Yeah, yeah. We had a change in our healthcare that was presented to us with very limited notice that then we had to see if we could bargain, which in itself is unfair labor practice. They’re changing conditions on us. And we very quickly were like, okay, we need to talk about this because this is affecting our bottom line. We’re met with a response of, well, if you would like to keep your same health insurance, maybe you’ll all just take a pay cut. And you can imagine when that was at the table, our reaction and how much that hurt to hear. And yeah, since then there has been just a real slowness on the non economics. They’re feeling like they’re just doing the bare minimum and their argument, which is truly just holding that bargaining chip against us saying, Hey, we want to see more movement on the non economics before we even talk to you about economics. Their justification saying Maybe we don’t know what you’re really going to be wanting to hold onto, but that’s trying to take all the power for themselves to say, we want to see you sacrifice more and to know what you’re willing to give when we should be bargaining the entire agreement when everything should be open to discussion. So it’s been frustrating as always to just receive lots of words and have to comb through them and say, oh, okay, what do they even mean by this?

Mel Buer:

And

Jess Kim:

It’s like homies, they ask for our economic proposals, we delivered them, and then they were like, actually, we’re not going to look at them. They’re like, oh, are you sure? Because we’re bargaining health insurance. They’re like, yeah, I don’t think it’s appropriate at this time. We’ll come back to it. And it’s been four months and we’re like, you asked for it, so we delivered. You got to response. I mean, it’s a long time.

Mel Buer:

Yeah, so it feels like it’s just completely fallen off the rails a little bit. You’re not really getting the movement, even the conversation towards the movement that you’ve been hoping for. And yeah, I can see how that would be an extremely frustrating experience. When’s your next bargaining session? When are you supposed to meet next?

Ryan Barkauskas:

Yeah, we have the next one about two weeks, March 10th.

Mel Buer:

What’s next? Just keep doing it. Keep doing the deal and see if you can make it work. I mean, I know that you’ve been pretty open about the frustrations with the negotiations on your social media and your town halls that you do. And really just kind of trying to gather more support from the community to really puts a pressure on management to come back to the table in good faith and to really kind of come to a solution because no one wants to be bargaining a contract for six months, for a year for however long you just want it done. You want to be able to sign the thing and get back to work. Some gym goers have put together a request for a boycott of the gym calling for people to cancel memberships and to send in letters of support. I’ve seen action networks that were put together in the last couple of months for this. One big question. I do want to ask, especially about something as important as calling for a boycott. Has the union itself called for a boycott as these negotiations have continued? And if not, what can supporters do to support the union and their negotiations to continue that sort of pressure for management to do the bare minimum, the right thing instead of canceling their membership? What are some thoughts that you have?

Jess Kim:

Yeah, so regarding the boycott, we as the union did not call the boycott. We don’t sanction the boycott. We appreciate the intention of the people who are calling for it, and it is a very powerful move for customers to make. For the union, we mostly just reserve our power to call a strike. So a boycott is when customers choose not to patronize a business. And a strike is when workers will not be working and they ask. Customers also do not come to the business, but we saw on social media there’s been some interchange of the terms, so we just want to be a little bit clearer there. And we found, first of all, the support from the community as always is incredible. And for people who are thinking of organizing, I think one of the most powerful tools that we have is communication because Touchstone is not great at communicating either consistently or clearly or responding in general to messages.

So for us, it was very important in our campaign to always have a weekly update. Every Wednesday we send an email to every employee in the unit with what’s going on, even if nothing big is going on that week. And then of course we have our social media. So if customers or members or community members want to support, we have a couple ways at our gym front desks right now, we have what are called union support cards. They look like a belay card for your harness, but they have a little pledge that you are amazing first of all, and second, you support the union and you support the workers. So get a little ego boost and a little color and add it to your harness two. We also have car signs. So these signs say, I support a unionized gym workers, or I demand better pay and benefits for touchstone workers.

You can leave them in your car around town in the parking lots. We’ve seen them in the wild, which is really cool the last couple of weeks here in la, and we also have a rally coming up. I don’t know when this episode is going to be released, but we have a rally coming up on March 7th in city at 6:00 PM It’ll be outside of our gym location, cliff Seve along the street, but it’s going to be a huge party. We’re going to have music, other unions are coming in, they’re bringing their soundtracks. It’s going to be a delight. It’s only going to be for an hour. If you are a worker, as we sent our email, do not walk off the job. We are not closing the gym down. If you’re on break, come on out and join us. It’ll be a great time. And we also have union pins people can wear. You can put on your chalk bag, put it on your gear, also wear it on your shirt. And we have union, so we only have a little bit of those left, but we are partnering with a local lining brand that people love. I don’t want to announce it yet, but let me just say people love this brand and they’re designing our next round of shirts, which will be available not only for our staff, but we’ll also be available to the public.

Mel Buer:

This episode is going to be out on March 12th. So when you have your rally, grab some video, send me some links, we’ll put some links in the description. We’ll put some photos up at the rally to see how much of a party it was so that folks can kind of see that. We’ve got a couple of minutes left here. Ryan, I want to start with you to the folks that are thinking of organizing in any capacity, their shop, whether with attaching themselves to a large union like the Teamsters for example, or doing it themselves, what words of advice, support, solidarity would you start with? What would you tell them if they were in your email inbox today?

Ryan Barkauskas:

Consider your most basic needs and your coworkers. This is clearly what we need for ourselves, but what we believe our community needs, what our friends and coworkers need. So considering them, we I think are very good at checking in and working as a team, but to be organized in such a way means really understanding, oh, I don’t need the same thing that they need there, but have these conversations, right? Understand if that’s going to be that necessary step for you guys, what it means. Ask other unions, understand the process. It can be scary. There was a lot of disinformation. There’s a lot of saying like, oh, are we going to be paying dues before we even have a contract? No, that could be something that could be thrown at you and made you worried. You can wonder if it’s all going to be worth it, and then just be patient. Nothing that great. Is that easy?

Mel Buer:

Do you think it’s worth it, Ryan?

Ryan Barkauskas:

I think so. I mean, again, the evidence of how much we’ve struggled against this makes me feel like the fight, it has really become worth it. And to have the support of everybody to just make, I just want this community to be the best it can be. When I moved out to la, I knew right away I was going to climb it touchstone. It had the name and the relationships I formed with some of the employees was what got me in as an employee myself. And so it’s always had this relationship with the company and I want the best for it, and I’ll continue to want that and have to fight for it.

Mel Buer:

What about you, Jess? What would you say to someone, I know you’ve already talked about folks coming into the dms and asking about how to organize, but to anyone who’s looking to organize, what are some thoughts that you have that you would like to share?

Jess Kim:

Yeah, I want to echo what you said earlier, actually, Mel, is that when you are organizing for the company, it’s not about money, it’s about power. People do not want to see the power be taken away from them. And you as the worker, you have the power. You keep the company going every day. You are on the floor, you’re facing the customers. If you and your coworkers chose not to work, to slow down work, to not comply with different policies, you truly have the power. The people who are giving you, not orders but directions and new policies, they don’t know how to do your job. They can’t do it like you. So be brave. It’s scary. But you as a group have power. And there’s an image on social media that I love of a big fish chasing a school of fish. But when the school of fish turn around together, they chase off that big fish. Kind of like finding Nemo when they all get out of the net. Okay, so swim together, just keep swimming. Don’t come from me, Pixar. And that is the message I want to be.

Mel Buer:

Yeah, I mean, I want to reiterate that for my listeners. Folks have been listening to me on this podcast and other podcast for many a year talking about union organizing specifically. But really what it comes down to really is just you collectively have power and also you are an expert in your own workplace. These CEOs sitting in their nice houses up in San Francisco or wherever the hell they’re sitting with, their very deep velvet lined pockets are not standing there on the shop floor with you. They don’t necessarily know what’s going on. You do. You are an expert at your job. You’ve spent many, many years building skills. It doesn’t matter where you work. If you’re working in a call center, if you’re working at a climbing gym, if you’re working as a barista, if you’re in the steel manufacturing business, it doesn’t matter, right?

Anytime that you’ve put into this vocation, this work experience, this wage labor that we spend so much of our time doing, eventually you become an expert in it. And so you know what you need and you know what will make the job better. And final thought for me before I let you folks go and let you have the rest of your night is really just do it anyways. Even if you’re freaked out, as my mom likes to say, walk through the fear and see what happens on the other side. Because oftentimes what you’ll end up with is a better place to work and a sense of security and a sense of belonging. And I will tell you, and anyone who has experienced it will tell you that feelings, true solidarity for the first time is better than anything that you could possibly imagine. And we’re living through some really harsh times right now.

So if you can build that solidarity with yourself in the workplace, with your friends that you spend so much time trauma bonding over behind a bar or a desk or wherever you are, and you can also, I don’t know, kick management in the pants a little bit, I think it’s probably worth it. So Jess, Ryan, thank you so much for coming on the show today and for giving us really an interesting sort of look into this independent union organizing that you are doing and Godspeed with your negotiations. Hopefully this is one of the things that’ll help kick management in the pants to just get moving. And you are welcome back on the show anytime to talk about updates, to talk about events that you’re doing. And yeah, thanks so much for coming on.

Ryan Barkauskas:

Thanks Mel. We appreciate the platform.

Jess Kim:

Thank you. So good to meet you. Come climb. We will catch

Ryan Barkauskas:

You. Yes. Welcome to the cult as I always tell our members.

Mel Buer:

One thing to note before we end our episode for the day after we finished recording, Ryan and Jess let me know that multiple members of their bargaining unit were deeply impacted by the Eaton Fire in Altadena this past January. If you’d like to support them, I have shared GoFundMe links in the description for those members. That’s it for us here at Working People. We’ll see you back here next week for another episode, and if you can’t wait that long, then go explore all the great work we’re doing at the Real News Network where we do grassroots journalism, lifting up the voices and stories from the front lines of struggle. Sign up for the Real News newsletter so you never miss a story and help us do more work like this by going to the real news.com/donate and becoming a supporter today. It really makes a difference. I’m Mel er and thanks so much for sticking around. We’ll see you next time.

After workers unionized at six Nestle-owned Blue Bottle coffee shops in Massachusetts in 2024, they have been in the midst of a pitched struggle to secure a first contract for their members. Their landslide victory against the multinational corporation has been a source of optimism for the coffee industry, and the union has enjoyed broad support from their customers, other unions in Massachusetts, and even workers along the international supply chain. Now, months into bargaining, frustrations mount as the company seems determined to drag things out as long as possible.

Bringing in the Union Busters

As with past union campaigns at Nestle-owned companies, the corporation brought in Ogletree Deakins to handle the union campaign and negotiations at Blue Bottle. According to watchdog organization LaborLab, Ogletree Deakins is the nation’s “second largest management-side law firm specializing in union avoidance.” Over the past 40 years, Ogletree has played a leading role in keeping many multinational corporations operating in the US union-free—one of at least four major union avoidance law firms that have taken their union-busting tactics into an international arena in recent years.

Workers at Blue Bottle understand the stakes as they continue to push for their demands at the bargaining table, and have been frustrated by the company’s attempts to drag bargaining out. “[It’s] certainly frustrating,” said Alex Pine, vice president of Blue Bottle Independent Union (BBIU). “I think that their entire bargaining strategy, and certainly Ogletree Deakins’s, is to delay bargaining to demoralize membership.”

Despite these frustrations, bargaining continues. In the last bargaining session, held on Feb. 21, the union secured tentative agreements for a number of their noneconomic proposals, but have seen no movement on key economic issues, including wages and holidays. The union faces an uphill battle in continuing to secure neutral meeting places—of which there are precious few. They have been able to meet in city hall locations, which are free to use, but scheduling difficulties at Cambridge City Hall have delayed bargaining even further. The company has repeatedly pushed to meet in conference halls, but the union is unable to afford the associated costs with renting those spaces. Other alternatives for bargaining, including Zoom, have been roundly rejected by the company. “The company certainly could afford to cover the cost of a bargaining space, they just don’t want to,” Pine said in an email. “They understand that the more time we have to spend looking for a location to meet means less time to organize.”

The union’s demands form a comprehensive package that would vastly improve the conditions that their baristas and other staff labor under. Chief among those demands are wages that are comparable with the cost of living in Massachusetts, democratic control in the workplace, and protection from harassment. To that end, they have asked for $30 an hour for their baristas, which would meet the minimum threshold for the high cost of living in the Boston area, as well as fairer scheduling, better PTO and holiday schedules, a more comprehensive healthcare plan, and the ability to accrue sick time for their employees. 

Perhaps more important, they have asked for a “just cause” clause to be included in their contract, which would restrict management from issuing what the union alleges are retaliatory write-ups. Since the union took their campaign public last year, multiple workers have been terminated without recourse–something that the union is working diligently to fix. Additionally, the union alleges that the company continues to create a hostile work environment for its employees. 

In January, the union staged a walkout in protest of the closing of their Prudential Center location without guaranteeing hours or a tip differential to workers that needed to be transferred to other locations. In a Jan. 25 statement, BBIU noted that they had filed 16 unfair labor practice complaints against the company, saying saying that Blue Bottle “engaged in union busting by writing up members for petty infractions, cutting hours of vocal supporters, unilaterally changing store operating hours without bargaining with the union, and more. In another unforced error by management, in September Blue Bottle fired union organizer Remy Roskin without any prior discipline. Even with the company agreeing to bargain over Roskin’s termination, workers say that Blue Bottle has unnecessarily strained the relationship between management and employees.”

Taking on the megacorp

Just as with union campaigns at Starbucks, Amazon, and other multinational corporations, the workers of BBIU have no illusions about the monumental task ahead of them. A megacorporation like Nestle, which posted profits of over $10 billion in 2024 and projected continued growth in its coffee portfolio for the foreseeable future, seems to tower like Goliath over the organizing efforts of its coffee shops in Massachusetts. Against these odds, BBIU remains committed to fighting for better conditions in their workplaces, no matter how incremental it may seem.

“It feels really good. I’ll tell people [at school] like, ‘Oh, I’m in a union [organizing] against a company owned by Nestle,’ and they’re immediately like, ‘hell yeah.’ The fact that we’ve already, in a very real sense, won so much, like we had this landslide union victory,” said Abby Sato, barista and BBIU organizer. “Even though at the table it doesn’t feel like these huge wins in the larger schemes of things, we are kind of tipping the scale, so it does feel really good, and it does feel like when we come together, we can make real change,” they added.

This sense of victory has helped bargaining committee members stay positive, even as the company drags things out. “This is the thing that gets me kind of excited when thinking about what we’re up against is all of the possibilities that exist,” Pine said. Since the union won their election, members of BBIU have been in contact with members of Sinaltrainal in Colombia, the union representing coffee workers farther down the supply chain. Workers in Colombia have been in a nearly year-long labor dispute with Nestle over mass layoffs–including of sick employees. Last month, bargaining sessions were meant to begin, but have since been suspended. 

For Pine, the regular messages of international solidarity from their union siblings along the supply chain have had a buoying effect. “Although the conditions of our workplaces are very different, it means a lot to me that we’re able to send messages of support to each other, talk about issues that we have with the company, and to have that kind of shared sense of international solidarity,” Pine said. That solidarity has given hope to Pine that they and their fellow workers can join a global movement to organize Nestle. “I think that there is a very real chance that we can begin to organize across the supply chain.”

For now, members are working on keeping morale up as bargaining stretches into yet another month. The union has worked hard to build up a strong union culture within their bargaining unit by continuing to hold social events and other gatherings. Pine believes that in the absence of any really meaningful social institutions or third spaces, the union is a source of community and shared power for their membership and supporters. “Even completely new members that don’t really understand what a union is already have positive feelings about it, because they understand that this can be a source or a space of a different way of life, really,” Pine said. “This is something collectively focused that gives people a sense of autonomy in their lives.”

A strike by Southern California healthcare workers at Kaiser organized under the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) has now carried on for 20 weeks, prompting the intervention of California Governor Gavin Newsom. After months of deadlock, Kaiser refused to yield to workers’ demands for pensions and adequate time to attend to patient care duties. Over a month after Newsom’s office offered to bring both sides into mediation, Kaiser finally agreed to sit down with the Governor’s mediators, with sessions beginning on March 10. Mental health patients in particular have been left in the lurch by Kaiser’s intransigence, and the crisis is only worsening as the aftermath of the recent Los Angeles wildfires takes its toll on the area’s residents. Working People co-host Mel Buer investigates the ongoing strike in this interview with Kaiser workers Jessica Rentz and Adriana Webb.

Editor’s note: this episode was recorded on February 25, 2025, before Kaiser agreed to mediation on March 3, 2025.

Additional links/info: 

• Previous coverage of the strike from The Real News:
  • ‘What they’re offering is stabilization, not care’: Kaiser Strands Patients in Limbo as Strike Approaches Fourth Month
  • Kaiser workers’ strike enters second week in Southern California
• ABC7, February 7: “Kaiser Permanente mental health workers strike can end with help of a mediator, Gov. Newsom suggests”

Links to support the strike:

• Mutual Aid: “Adopt a Striking Worker”
• Strike GoFundMe 
• Picket Line Locations 
• NUHW Strike Page 

Permanent links below…

• Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!
• Labor Radio / Podcast Network website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• In These Times website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• The Real News Network website, YouTube channel, podcast feeds, Facebook page, and Twitter page

Featured Music…

• Jules Taylor, “Working People” Theme Song

Studio Production: Mel Buer
Post-Production: Jules Taylor

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

From the attempt to broadly freeze federal grants and loans to high-profile firings at the National Labor Relations Board, TRNN Reporter Mel Buer and Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez break down this week’s chaotic directives from the Trump administration and what they will mean for working people and the labor movement. Mel and Max also lay out what we know about the tragic collision of a US Army Black Hawk helicopter and American Airlines regional passenger jet, Trump’s broad attacks on federal workers, including air traffic controllers and members of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee, and how those attacks have been going on long before Trump. Then, from the historic union victory by Whole Foods workers in Philadelphia to Kaiser Healthcare workers on strike in California, we will highlight key labor stories taking place beyond the chaos in Washington, DC. 

Studio Production: David Hebden, Cameron Granadino, Adam Coley

Transcript

Maximillian Alvarez:  Welcome to The Real News Network, and welcome back to our weekly livestream.

All right. Week two of the new Trump administration has been a characteristically chaotic one. But make no mistake — While this all feels kind of familiar because we have the last Trump administration to compare it to, from the avalanche of executive orders and the baffling press conferences to the spectacle-filled Senate confirmation hearings, the past two weeks have brought us, undoubtedly, into historically unique and unfamiliar territory.

We can see that just by looking at this graph from Axios comparing the current administration’s pace and number of executive orders to those of past administrations — Including, I might add, the first Trump administration.

As Erin Davis notes, “In his first nine days in office, President Trump unleashed a flurry of executive orders unlike anything in modern presidential history. […] Trump’s reshaping the federal government with a shock-and-awe campaign of unilateral actions that push the limits of presidential power. Only President Biden and President Truman have issued more than 40 executive orders in their first 100 days in office. So far, Trump has signed 38 after less than two weeks.”

And the shock and awe effect is very real, and it’s very intentional. Faced with a barrage of executive orders and administrative shakeups, some that are purely theatrical BS, others that are deadly serious and could trigger full-on constitutional crises, from pulling the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement yet again, to declaring a national emergency at the Southern border, to pardoning the Jan. 6 insurrectionists. There’s just too much here to process at once. Our brains and our hearts get overwhelmed and we end up immobilized.

But our goal with these livestreams, and with all of our Real News productions, is to do the exact opposite. That’s why today my Real News teammate Mel Buer and I are going to focus in on a few key stories from this week that have direct implications for workers, our lives and safety, our rights in the workplace, and for the labor movement writ large. Mel and I are going to try to use our skills as reporters with long histories of covering labor, including on our weekly podcast, Working People, to answer your questions and give you the information, perspectives, and analysis that you need so that you can process this, you can get mobilized, and you can be empowered to act.

All right. So Mel, what are we digging into?

Mel Buer:  OK, so we’re starting with three pretty major headlines from this week. The first is going to be last night’s horrific plane crash in DC. It’s the deadliest on US soil in over 20 years, where 64 civilians and three military service members are dead. There’s a lot we don’t know, and new information is coming through at a pretty fast clip. So we’ll lay out what we do know and why that matters.

Then we’re going to get into the most pressing headlines coming out of the White House as it relates to Trump’s executive orders, namely the funding freeze fiasco and what that means for workers here in the US.

And then we’re going to talk about the recent shakeups at the NLRB: General Counsel Abruzzo’s firing and the abrupt termination of the NLRB chair, Gwynne Wilcox, and what that means for the future of labor organizing in this uncertain moment.

When you look at these stories together, they reveal a lot about how this administration sees government workers, contractors, and the working people around the country who depend on their services, how it’s approaching governance, using union busting and antiworker tactics from the private sector, and how explicitly targeting the agencies and precedents that exist to enforce labor law and protect workers’ rights has become a key issue for this administration.

Maximillian Alvarez:  All right, so let’s dig into the most pressing story that we’re all thinking about right now. Let’s talk about what we know and what we don’t know about this horrific plane crash. We are going live right now at 4:00 PM on Thursday. As I speak, President Donald Trump is holding another press conference, his second today. It’s a live briefing on an FAA debrief. So there’s going to be things said at that briefing that we can’t comment on now, but we will, of course, follow up on this story, and we’re going to try to give you as much of what we know now.

Let’s start with the basics. What do we know, what’s happening? The AP reports the basics here. A midair collision between an Army helicopter and an American Airlines flight that was coming from Kansas killed all 67 people on board the two aircraft. The reasons for this crash, the causes of it, are still under investigation. That is the official word. So we want to temper all of our collective expectations here and allow for the investigatory process to proceed so that we can get more information. Now, of course — We’ll comment on this in a minute — That hasn’t stopped many people in the government from opining and blaming and directing blame at what they perceive to be the causes of this horrific crash. We’re going to talk about those in a second.

So AP continues in their report, which was updated this morning, at least 28 bodies have been pulled from the Potomac River already. Others are still being searched for. The plane that carried 60 passengers and four crew members included a number of children who were training to be in the Olympics in skating one day.

This is a truly, truly tragic and horrific loss, and those families will never be whole again. We send our thoughts and prayers to them and our love and our solidarity, because let’s not forget what really happened here. People lost their lives.

So John Donnelly, the fire chief of the nation’s capital, announced that they are at the point where they’re switching from a rescue operation to a recovery operation. This is very similar to what we experienced here in Baltimore in March of last year, when the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed — And Trump and Republicans tried to blame that on DEI too. We’ll get to that later — But there was a harrowing number of hours where loved ones and community members were hoping against hope that their loved ones who were working on that bridge — These were immigrant construction workers working in the middle of the night who, as we reported here at The Real News Network, received no warning that they were about to meet their deaths [to] a ship that was about to crash into the bridge they were working on. So we were in that same wait-and-see mode too, where hoping to retrieve living people turned into trying to recover deceased people. And as per the official notice, there are no expected survivors. This is a recovery mission, not a search and rescue mission.

As Mel mentioned, this is the deadliest air crash over US airspace since the 9/11 attacks that happened in 2001. Collectively, those attacks killed 2,996 people on the day of the attack. There’s no immediate word, as I said, on the cause of the collision, but officials have said that flight conditions were clear as the jet arrived from Wichita, Kansas, with US and Russian figure skaters and others on board. A quote from American Airlines CEO, Robert Isom, he said, “On final approach into Reagan National, the plane collided with a military aircraft on an otherwise normal approach.”

Now, a top Army aviation official did say that the Black Hawk crew was “very experienced and familiar with the congested flying conditions of Reagan National Airport.” For those who don’t live in and around DC, this is an extremely busy airport in a densely populated part of the city that has been increasing air traffic for years. Mel and I will talk about that more in a minute.

But point being is that, from the American Airlines side, from the military side, there appeared to be no interceding conditions like extreme weather that may have caused this crash that we know of so far. Investigators are going to be analyzing the flight data that they can retrieve from these two flights before making their final assessment.

The transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, who was sworn in this week, said that there were “early indicators of what happened”, but he declined to elaborate on those, pending a further investigation.

Now, I’m going to wrap up here in a sec. As I mentioned, President Trump is giving a second press briefing as we speak. He gave another one this morning. I’m sure many of us saw it, or at least saw the headlines [on] it, because in this press conference, where the leader of the country is expected to lead, Trump did what Trump does best and blamed everybody else. Without evidence, Trump blamed the air traffic controllers, he blamed the helicopter pilots, and he explicitly called out Democratic policies at federal agencies. Trump claimed that the Federal Aviation Administration, the FAA, was “actively recruiting workers who suffer severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric problems, and other mental and physical conditions under diversity and inclusion hiring initiatives.”

So as usual, the typical boogeyman of DEI being the thing at the root of all of our problems was the thing at the root of Trump’s press conference this morning. And MAGA Republicans have wasted no time reaffirming this line. And we’re going to talk a little more about that as the stream continues.

But those are essentially the basics of what we know and what we don’t right now. This is an unfolding story, but we think it does have a lot to tell us.

So Mel, I want to toss it to you to give us some of the broader context here that maybe people aren’t seeing, and they’re sure as hell not hearing from the White House press briefings right now.

Mel Buer:  Well, I think it’s important to note here that, just like with our railroad reporting that we did in 2022, that oftentimes what we’re looking at is a breakdown of policy among decision makers. We know that the AFA-CWA, and other unions that are involved in the aviation industry have been sounding the alarm about needing to have better staffing conditions at airports across the country. Those conditions have been worsening at least since 2013, so through successive administrations — Including the Trump administration where you had the chance to solve that problem and chose not to.

And especially in this DC airport, Freddie Brewster, Lois Parshley, and David Sirota wrote for Jacobin that “[…] lawmakers brushed off safety warnings amid midflight near-misses and passed an industry-backed measure designed to add additional flight traffic at the same DC airport where [the January 29] disaster unfolded.”

So really, I think the point that I’m trying to make here is that, while the aviation industry is trying to bring more flights into these airports — Which are welcome. We want to be able to reduce the congestion in terms of wait times for flights, having more options as consumers for traveling across this country — That also needs to come with heightened safety measures in terms of better staffing in the air traffic control towers.

Unions in the aviation industry have been really fighting for this for the last number of years. Just like with our railroad reporting, what we learned with the railroads was that lack of staffing and disregard for tried and trusted safety measures leads to accidents. And tragically, this is what happened here. That isn’t to say that folks aren’t fighting for this. That’s the big point that I want to make. And I think that, unfortunately, Trump’s blaming of these various groups really is not, to put it as lightly as possible, not helpful.

Maximillian Alvarez:  And it’s also not helpful, let’s also be clear, falling into the partisan trap of trying to blame Trump for all of this too. Because, as we are trying to show here, and as we show in our work at The Real News, these are longstanding problems that have had bipartisan support for many years. Trump is definitely making these problems worse, but he is not the originator of the problem. You can see that in the question of understaffing.

Now, of course, a number of pundits and politicians have pointed to the fact that, just last week, Donald Trump put a hiring freeze for federal employees, which would include hiring new air traffic controllers at a moment when we’ve been experiencing an extended air traffic controller shortage. We’ll talk a bit more about that in a second. But also, of course, Trump’s firing of high-level officials, even the heads of the TSA, the FAA, and members of the very commissions that are there to ensure air flight safety.

So, of course, the impulse is to look at that and see, well, see, Trump did this last week, and now this week we have a plane crash. It’s a little more complex than that.

As I speak to you now, there is a live update from The New York Times that came out just 10 minutes ago. Sparse on information, but the information reads: “Live update: Control tower staffing was ‘not normal’ during deadly crash, FAA report says. An internal report suggested that the controller on duty the night of the accident was doing a job usually handled by two people.”

And so what we are trying to show y’all is that that situation did not come from nowhere, and it is not a situation that is, sadly, particular to air traffic controllers. This is something that Mel and I hear in the worker interviews that we do in industries around the country, the crisis of deliberate understaffing in critical industries, including those that have a direct bearing on our own public safety.

And like with the railroads Mel mentioned, to refresh your memories, a couple years ago, if we all recall, the US was approaching its first potential railroad strike in 30 years. We had been interviewing railroad workers across the industry: engineers, conductors, signalmen, carmen, dispatchers, all of whom were telling us different versions of the same story, which is that the corporate consolidation, the government deregulation, and the Wall Street takeover of the rail industry had created this process that has built into a crisis over decades, where the railroads have become more profitable than ever by cutting their costs year after year after year.

So what does that mean? It means cutting labor costs, cutting safety costs, making those trains longer, heavier, piled with more dangerous cargo, while having fewer and fewer workers on the trains, and also fewer and fewer workers in the machine shops, checking the track, in the dispatch offices.

The point is that when these layoffs happen, when these corporate restructurings happen, when these policies are implemented in key industries like logistics industries, like aviation, you are not just firing people, you are removing layers of security that are there for a reason. And you’re doing so for the benefit, the short-term benefit of higher profits, while the long-term costs are borne by the workers in those industries, the public that is being hurt by them, and even by the customers who use those industries. Rail shippers are as pissed off as rail workers are right now.

So the point being that Mel and I hear this in education: teacher shortages, more students piled onto fewer teachers leading to worse education outcomes; healthcare: hospital workers who have been burnt out before COVID, even more so since COVID, more patients piled onto fewer nurses leading to declining quality of care, treating patients more like grist for the mill: Get ’em in, get ’em out. This is a system-wide problem. We are seeing the effects across the economy, and we can see it here in this tragic plane crash that has claimed the lives of nearly 70 people.

In fact, this is much like the horrific train accident that occurred in East Palestinian, Ohio, on Feb. 3. The anniversary’s coming up, the two year anniversary of that. And the workers on the railroads warned us that something like that would happen, and then it did — Just like workers in the aviation industry, as Mel mentioned, have been warning us that something like this would happen, and now it has.

But we have been dancing on the lip of this volcano for a long time. We’re just waking up to the reality now. I want to underline this point by quoting from a really great Jacobin article that was published in 2023 by Joseph A. McCartin titled “The US is Facing a Growing Air Safety Crisis. We have Ronald Reagan to Thank for It”. Again, this was not published this week, this was published during the Biden administration. McCartin makes the very clear point that “On March 15, 2023, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) held a ‘safety summit’ in McLean, Virginia, gathering more than 200 ‘safety leaders’ from across American aviation to discuss ‘ways to enhance flight safety.’ What prompted the unusual summit was, by the FAA’s own admission, a ‘string of recent safety incidents, several of which involved airplanes coming too close together during takeoff or landing.’” And McCartin also notes in that same article that “A recent internal study by the inspector general of the US Department of Transportation found that 20 of 26 critical facilities (77% of them) are staffed below the FAA’s 85% threshold.”

So again, don’t get it twisted. What Trump is doing is making the problem worse. It’s pouring gasoline on the fire, but this fire was burning before Trump came into office.

And Mel, as you said, this is something that we’ve had workers in these industries decrying for many, many years. And this is also something that we need to have a long, historical view on. Because as McCartin mentioned in that article, we do have Ronald Reagan to thank for a lot of this.

And I wanted to hover on that point for a second because, as we know, one of President Ronald Reagan’s most infamous acts in his first presidential term was to fire striking air traffic controllers, over [11,000] of them. It was a significant, massive percentage of the existing air traffic controller workforce in 1981. Not only did this unleash a new age of union busting across the private sector and elsewhere, but it also is directly relevant to what we’re talking about here. Because when you fire that many air traffic controllers, as Reagan did, this was 11,000, approximately 70% of the controller workforce at the time, that Reagan fired in 1981 and then tried to replace.

So a point that maybe we don’t think about but that actually connects to the air traffic controller shortage now is that when you, in one year, eliminate 70% of that workforce and then you replace it with new hires in the next two to three, four years, you are creating, essentially, a generational problem where those new hires in the 1980s are retiring in 30 years, and then the process starts again, where suddenly you have a massive aging out of the existing workforce and a dire need to replace those understaffed agencies.

So we are still feeling the staffing ripple effects and the safety impacts that has from Ronald Reagan’s original firing of the air traffic controllers. We have not fixed that problem. And as we’ve said a number of times, air traffic controllers continue to be chronically understaffed, which means all of us who fly are flying at their mercy, and our safety hangs on the overworked shoulders of understaffed air traffic controllers across the country right now. And I don’t know, does that make you feel safe, Mel? It doesn’t make me feel safe.

Mel Buer:  No. I take the train. I already have enough air anxiety.

The reality is, I think, as well when you’re talking about, particularly with the PATCO strike, but in any industry where there is high turnover, there is not really a space for the concentration of expertise. PATCO is a huge example of this where you have career air traffic controllers who have amassed, collectively, hundreds of years of collective experience and how to work this industry and do it safely. And you’re training new hires who may or may not have the same experience, or you’re shuffling folks into these departments. You’re not going to get the same level standard of expertise. We see it in healthcare, we see it in really any industry that has high turnover, from the people who make your coffee drinks all the way up to the engineers who make your planes that you ride on. So this is a huge problem, and we will discuss this a little bit later when we’re talking about what’s going on in the federal government as well.

But that is an important point to make, that what we’re seeing with this lack of staffing is really a lack of expertise. The ability to have internally these checks and balances that create the safety conditions that we rely on in order for us to live our lives without fear of falling out of the sky, literally. So that’s a really important point here.

And again, unions like the AFA-CWA and the machinists who work with Boeing are acutely aware of that and are willing and able to bolster this workforce. But you cannot attract a new generation of smart, capable, hardworking, willing people to buy into this industry and provide their expertise to this industry if you don’t have a competitive job to offer them. And that happens a lot in healthcare as well.

So it’s a top-down problem. It’s not that folks don’t want to do these jobs, it’s really, is this job going to be doable? Am I going to be able to pay my bills? Is my family going to be OK? Am I going to be able to get a pension? Am I going to be able to do this job, to the best of my ability, without working 120 hours a week and get paid nothing, functionally, for it?

And again, these unions are really acutely aware of this issue and are bargaining hard to solve these problems. Unfortunately, in many cases, they’re coming up against an intractable management who cares more about increasing profits for shareholders than actually creating a workplace that is competitive and that is also operating at a higher standard.

Maximillian Alvarez:  Let’s talk a little bit while we’re closing out this section. It does hook into another key subject that we wanted to talk about today, which is Trump and the Trump administration’s all-out attack on federal workers, and the vilification of federal workers as nameless, faceless, useless, even evil bureaucrats of the deep state who need to be chucked out, fired, eliminated, disciplined.

And if we’re not understanding who those people are and what they do, that may sound good, and people are going to cheer on Trump’s policies. But what we’re trying to say here is that we need to have a clear-eyed vision of actually who these people are, what they do, and how it directly impacts our lives. And the point being is that you cannot solve these potentially society-destroying, society-imperiling problems if you are not correctly diagnosing the problem itself.

That is why the attacks on DEI and the harnessing of DEI to create an explanation for all of this is really, really sinister. Because, like I said, they tried to do this when the Baltimore bridge collapsed. They blamed it on DEI here too. When the LA fires, where Mel and I are from, our homes are burning and have been burning for the past two weeks. And while we’re trying to talk to our loved ones and find out if they’re OK, this whole media cycle is blaming the fires and the destruction on DEI and woke Democratic policies. Now this plane crash happens, these people die, and immediately, before their bodies are retrieved from the Potomac River, Donald Trump is out there from the White House press office saying that it was DEI that caused the problem.

I don’t know how it can get any more obvious that this is political snake oil. It is a built-in perennial excuse crafted by the very same corrupt business lobbies and politicians who are endangering our lives for profit so that they can quite literally get away with killing us and then blame it on a fictional boogeyman. We can talk about the issues with DEI — We’ve got plenty of them — But trying to explain tragedies like this through a DEI-only lens is nuts. It’s stupid. It is ignoring the realities that are screaming in our faces and in the workers who are living those realities and who are telling us what the problem is.

There’s something really telling about that because this attack on DEI and this attempt to turn DEI into the catchall explanation is, in fact, capitalists, their own fake solution to the problem that capitalists themselves have created, capitalizing on the pain that they have caused through decades of rampant union busting, layoffs, disciplining of labor, focusing on only maximizing short-term profits for executives and Wall Street shareholders while putting us all at long-term risk by removing necessary safety measures and checks and balances and accountability, the onslaught of deregulation over the course of decades.

The point being is that I want to be very clear and apparent here. I grew up conservative. I’ve said this many times. I’ve been open about it on our show, on this network. And so, I have a living memory of being a Republican and championing other Republicans throughout the ’90s and early aughts who kept saying we need to break the backs of unions. We need to privatize government. We need to unleash the genius of the free market and deregulate as many industries as possible so that the genius of the market can lead us to a better society. I believed in all that stuff. I cheered it on.

And it’s like no one remembers that the same Republicans, Trump himself included, who cheered this on 20 years ago, the same corporations that didn’t want to take ownership over it are now trying to turn around and blame DEI for the things that they got what they wanted. It screwed up society the way that people were saying it was going to. And now the same people who profited from that, the same people who pushed that policy are turning around and trying to create a boogeyman in DEI and wokeism to get off scot-free.

And we are letting them, the corporate criminals, the Wall Street vampires, the corrupt politicians who have put us in this dangerous position, get off scot-free and convince us to blame our neighbors and coworkers and policies like DEI for the problems that they’ve created. That’s absurd.

I want to bring us to the way to fight this is not in a conceptual, policy-only way, but to, again, look at the ground level and understand who and what we’re actually talking about, and where the problems are and where they are not. I think that this horrific tragedy really points us, instructively, to a couple of core truths that are deeply relevant as we watch what the Trump administration is doing right now, using the corporate crafted language of inefficiency and bloat and overstaffing, they’re importing these tactics from the private sector into government. It reveals how that kind of thinking from the private market fundamentally misunderstands what and who the government is.

The evil bureaucrats of the deep state, they are people like the members of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee that Trump fired last week. They are the overworked air traffic controllers that are making sure that our planes don’t crash while they’re getting no sleep. They are the civil servants throughout the government who are being pushed to voluntarily resign and who are being reclassified under Schedule F so that they become at-will employees who are easier to fire. You may not like the government for many justifiable reasons, but without the people who make it work, nothing works for us.

I want to show how the leaders in labor, folks in labor that Mel was talking about, have actually been telling us this for many years. On The Real News here last week I interviewed the great Sara Nelson, the international president of the Association of Flight Attendants, CWA AFL-CIO. If you recall, Sara Nelson became a household name during the Trump-led GOP-led government shutdown of 2018 and 2019, 6 years ago. It was the longest government shutdown in our country’s history.

And Sara Nelson steps out of the world of organized labor and into the public limelight as this shutdown, which furloughed 300,000 federal workers while keeping 400,000 federal workers working for 35 days without pay. So people like air traffic controllers working all that time while also working second jobs so that they could feed their families. We were at the verge of another horrific tragedy like this back during the government shutdown in 2018, 2019.

But Sara Nelson and the flight attendants were the ones who were making that point, because in DC it was all, oh, this is about Trump’s border wall, this is not about Trump’s border wall. It was the same kind of thing like we’re talking about DEI and wokeism now, but we’re not talking about the actual goddamn problem.

So let’s tee up these clips of Sara Nelson speaking to the public in January of 2019 making that case during the longest government shutdown of US history.

[FIRST CLIP BEGINS]

Sara Nelson:  We are here today because we are concerned about our safety, our security, and our economic stability, our jobs. For years, the right has vilified federal workers as nameless, faceless bureaucrats. But the truth is they’re air traffic controllers, they’re food inspectors, they’re transportation security officers and law enforcement. They’re the people who live and work in our communities, and they are being hurt.

This is about our safety and security, and our jobs, and our entire country’s economic stability. No one will get out of this unscathed if we do not stop this shutdown. Leader McConnell, you can fix this today. If you don’t show the leadership to bring your caucus to a vote to open the government today, then we are calling on the conscientious members of your caucus to do it for you. There is no excuse to continue this. This is not a political game. Open the government today.

[SECOND CLIP BEGINS]

Sara Nelson:  We are calling on the public on Feb. 16, if we are in a day 36 of this shutdown, for everyone to come to the airports. Everyone come to the airports and demand that this Congress work for us and get politics out of our safety and security.

[CLIP ENDS]

Maximillian Alvarez:  I would highly recommend that everyone watching this stream, live or after the fact, go watch that full interview that we did with Sara Nelson. Listen to what she says and apply it to the situation that we’re seeing now. Especially those final words, that this is not about an ideological battle between Trump, MAGA and the deep state and wokeism and DEI. This is about a corporate class of tyrants who are destroying the people, jobs, and agencies that our basic safety and needs depend on.

There’s something, I think, really important here about the lessons that unions and labor specifically can teach us about what’s going to happen here, who’s fighting back against this.

Mel, I wanted to toss it to you to give folks a few points about that before we move on to the other stories.

Mel Buer:  Well, it’s like I’ve been saying. Unions across this country, in small shops, in large shops, in regions, all across the country, from a small coffee shop that’s taking on Nestle to the UAW getting plants reopened in Illinois, all of these struggles are tapped into what I think is a really key thing that we as labor reporters pay attention to, which is to say, workers are experts in their own workplace. They know what’s working, what’s not working, because they’re there every day, and they have generally pretty good ideas about how to improve these industries for the people who work in them and for the consumers and the individuals who are touched by these industries.

So when you see these labor struggles where you might, oh, I don’t know, disagree with tactics or find certain things to be a little odious, or you’re not sure why a certain thing is being offered in a contract or in a bargaining session or on a picket line, you might open up a conversation with those workers, if you’re there, and ask them why it’s important. Because ultimately, from the federal government all the way down to the smallest shop in your city, individuals know what’s going on, and their ideas might actually improve our lives.

And that’s really what the AFA-CWA is trying to do, is what the machinists tried to do at Boeing. We’re seeing this play out in successive industries all across this country. Especially now in this new administration that has already styled itself through its actions as being adversarial to the labor movement, it’s important. It’s important for us to pay attention to these things.

Maximillian Alvarez:  Just to underline what Mel just said there, again, as two reporters, co-hosts of Working People who talk to workers about this stuff every single week, if we sound like broken records, it’s because we keep hearing the same thing from all these workers and we’re trying to get people to listen to them.

But that’s a really, really critical point here. If it feels like there’s no solution to these problems in DC right now, that doesn’t mean there’s no one fighting for a real solution. Over 30,000 machinists, as Mel mentioned, went on strike at Boeing late last year. Let’s not forget Boeing’s role in all of this. Let’s not forget the Boeing planes that have been falling out of the sky over the past decades, and the way the same corporate Wall Street brain disease that took once the most vaunted airline manufacturer in the world, had the best reputation for its product in the world, how it went from that to being the laughing stock of the world and the kind of plane no one wants to get on because we’re all terrified that the plane’s going to fall out of the sky.

Who’s fighting for that? And how did that happen? It didn’t happen overnight. But the workers who went on strike at Boeing last year, they’re fighting to have a say in that. They’re fighting to have a say in the corporate policies that have put all of us in danger. Just like the railroad workers were not only fighting for pay for themselves and better time off policies for their families, but they were doing that so that they could actually do their jobs well and safely and not put us in danger when their trains are bombing past our T-ball games.

So there is an inherent connection between what workers in specific industries, unions in specific jobs, are fighting for that we have a vested interest in, and we should really think about that, not only in terms of why we should support those struggles, but what that says about alternative pathways for solutions when it feels like the bipartisan politics in DC are presenting none.

So just wanted to underline that great point that Mel made. We got more to talk about here, but if nothing else, we hope that you take that point away from what we’re saying here.

Mel Buer:  I think a great way to move forward in this conversation is to take a moment here to break down what’s been going on over the last week at the federal level. One of the big things — And it’s been probably the most dominant in headlines over the last five days or so — Is this funding freeze fiasco that’s been going on.

On Monday night, the Trump administration sent out a late night memo essentially freezing all federal grants and not allowing them to be dispersed to the states and organizations that were scheduled to receive them.

Keep this in mind when we’re talking about this, as I’m sure you’ve read about over the last couple of days, but these are funds that Congress has already approved for disbursement to all 50 states. State governments use these funds for a wide variety of items, from SNAP benefits to Pell Grants for students, to research grants, and everything in between, to the tune of trillions of dollars. These grants pay the rent for workers, they keep folks employed, they keep families fed. In the last couple of days, representatives and governors from states all over the country have registered their alarm and outrage at the move, and they began maneuvering to try and kill the order before it had a chance to really be implemented.

But I really do want to underscore something here, as I would like to read a piece from this memo that was sent out and ultimately rescinded as of yesterday, to underscore the breadth of it and also what may have caused some pretty intense confusion.

So this is a quote from the original memo that was sent from the Office of Management and Budget, and it says “Financial assistance should be dedicated to advancing Administration [sic] priorities, focusing taxpayer dollars to advance a stronger and safer America, eliminating the financial burden of inflation for citizens, unleashing American energy and manufacturing, ending ‘wokeness’ and the weaponization of government, promoting efficiency in government, and Making America Healthy Again [sic]. The use of Federal [sic] resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve. 

“This memorandum requires Federal agencies to identify and review all Federal financial assistance programs and supporting activities consistent with the President’s policies and requirements. 

“[…] To implement these orders, each agency must complete a comprehensive analysis of all of their Federal financial assistance programs to identify programs, projects, and activities that may be implicated by any of the President’s executive orders. In the interim, to the extent permissible under applicable law, Federal agencies must temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance, and other relevant agency activities that may be implicated by the executive orders, including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal.”

Now, here’s the issue with this. This was the issue that many people have pointed out, and that is the subject of many lawsuits as well, is that this is very broad. And I’m taking a little bit of a charitable reading here, but I really shouldn’t. It’s nonsense is what it is. It’s called impoundment. It’s been illegal for many, many years, that the federal government, specifically the executive branch, cannot withhold these funds on the basis of political differences, which is essentially what this is when you include things like woke gender ideology and the Green New Deal.

And understandably, 23 states sued to create a temporary restraining order on this, which was a big piece of news on Tuesday, that there were moves from a variety of different places to try and stop the implementation of this directive and, ultimately, the executive order as it stands.

Why does this matter? This is what running the government like a business looks like. It’s not how you run a government, Max. I don’t know about you, but I think it’s an absolutely ridiculous idea, and I think a lot of people agree.

Maximillian Alvarez:  Yeah. I mean, again, I’m smiling because as a younger me who used to be a full-fledged Republican, loved the idea of running government like a business. And it just baffles me the more that I’ve grown and learned and seen in the world just how dumb I was to believe that that was a right-headed way to look at things.

I’ll touch on that in a second, but let’s step back. When we’re asking why does this matter, there are two key points here that Mel teed up that we really want to drive home. The first reason why this matters is because it is blatantly unconstitutional. But that on its own, sadly, doesn’t mean a whole lot to a lot of people out there today.

So if we just say, oh, it’s against the Constitution, what do we mean when we actually say that? If there’s one thing that every 4 to 5-year-old in this country knows about our country and our national mythology, it’s that America was founded because our ancestors didn’t want to be ruled by kings anymore. They did not. They had spent generations, centuries living under top-down, feudal-style, king-type power structures, and it sucked. It was a bad way to run societies.

And so we came to this new world and created a more democratic system — I say more democratic, not fully democratic. We know there are plenty of reasons in American history for why we were never a full fledged democracy. But the promise of democracy was meant as a direct refutation of the proven evils and inefficiencies of kingly rule. And so that’s why we have the damn system that we have set up, as imperfect as it is. There was a point to it.

So that’s what we mean when we say it’s unconstitutional, is it is violating that basic social contract upon which this whole country is founded, where a president should not have, by definition and by principle, the unilateral authority to govern by shooting [from] the hip through executive orders and totally circumventing the power of the purse that Congress has been democratically endowed with. There is a reason why the House has the power of the purse, why Congress has that power, because it’s meant to be the most beholden to the people, the most representative of the people. And so the people should, in theory, be the ones with that control over how this country spends its money.

And so the president, by definition, by principles, should not have and does not have the authority to just freeze trillions of dollars that have already been appropriated by that democratic, or more democratic, system and just decide that they’re going to halt that, freezing. They’re going to review stuff, and they’re going to determine who gets their funding and who doesn’t. That’s what happens in corporations, that’s what happens in, again, societies run by kings and queens. That’s not what’s supposed to happen in a democratic society, and there’s a reason for that.

So when we say it’s unconstitutional and that matters, there’s a really deep principle at work here that we should not be ruled by the whims and unilateral authority of one person. I think that’s a good thing. Again, otherwise, everything that all of us have ever learned in school about our country and why it’s good is wrong. So there’s that.

But then, there’s also another reason why this matters that Mel mentioned. This just really underlines the stupidity, the inappropriateness of thinking of government like a business, thinking of things like the US Postal Service in the terms of the private market and not thinking about the essential service that a functioning postal service provides to a functioning democracy. That is what the postal service is there to do: to make sure people get their damn mail, not just the people who can afford it. And so if you’re judging things like the US Postal Service by its profit margins or its returns on investment and you’re not including that social investment and that social benefit, that political benefit, then you’re not going to be able to assess the success of that agency or the government writ large.

I wanted to tee up a clip that we had pulled for a previous section, but I think it’s really apt here. It’s a clip from James Goodwin, who is the policy director for the Center of Progressive Reform. Now, I actually spoke with James when I was guest hosting an episode of Laura Flanders’s show — Shout out to the great journalist Laura Flanders and her show, Laura Flanders and Friends.

So Laura and I spoke with James last summer about Project 2025, its authors, its plans. But also one particular aspect of Project 2025, which is Schedule F, which is the order that Trump has already brought back in that recategorizes thousands of federal employees who have certain worker protections that are there for a reason, reclassifies them as at-will employees, the same way that most workers in this country are, you can be fired [snaps fingers] like that, without just cause.

So I asked James what the effect of this was going to be if these federal workers, with their worker protections, were suddenly made at-will employees under this regime, what effect would that have? So let’s play that clip really quick.

[CLIP BEGINS]

James Goodwin:  So what makes the foundation of our administrative state is the people, professional, apolitical experts. This is something we started building in this country in the late 1800s to replace what was known at the time as a spoils system. These jobs were essentially done by friends of the president or people in political power, and that was just a breeding ground for corruption and incompetence. This is what Schedule F would do, is it would return us to this system.

And so under this proposal, we would take all these experts, these tens of thousands of scientists, engineers, attorneys, what have you, we’d fire them. Who they’re getting replaced with is somebody whose only real skill is unquestioning loyalty to the president.

[CLIP ENDS]

Maximillian Alvarez:  So we’re not on the campaign trail anymore. This is no longer a what-if situation, this is happening. This is what they’re doing now. Russ Vought, one of the primary authors of Project 2025, is having his hearing right now to be in charge of the Office of Management and Budget so that he can implement the things that he has laid out, and the other authors of Project 2025 have laid out in Project 2025 itself. But we don’t have to get into that. The point being that let’s talk about this now that it’s actually happening instead of is this going to happen or not?

The point to really make here is what James said. Again, you can have all the justifiable problems that you have, that we have with the government as such, with certain government agencies that are not working properly or doing enough to serve the people. We all get that. But when you take the people who are actually making the government work as much as it is and you turn them into an unprotected, easily fireable class of employee who are, again, through this memo that was sent out to over 2 million government employees asking them to voluntarily leave the government while also pushing folks back to work in person, trying to get them to leave, all reclassifying workers under Schedule F so they could be more easily fired. The cumulative effect here is to purge the government of nonideologically-aligned federal workers and restock what’s left of those agencies with Trump-aligned loyalists.

This sounds great when you’re thinking in 21st century terms of running government like a business. But as James rightly points out, we’ve had this before. It’s the whole reason that the civil service exists. Because in the 18th century, we had a system that’s working like how Trump and his administration want it to work now, where appointees were loyalists, friends, family members, and it was a corrupt nightmare, and nothing got done, and people were furious about it. So they spent the 20th century trying to get the government to not be that. Now we’re going back. That perspective’s important. That’s why this also matters.

Mel Buer:  Yeah, agree. I think this makes a… I don’t know. It’s a rising mass of corruption that is just getting larger the farther we get into the Trump administration, they have a very clear policy agenda that they, I think, know that they might not realistically be able to slam through via legislative means, which is why the executive orders are happening in this way. Because they know that many of these bills that they would like to see happen will not get passed. They’ll get stopped. They’ll get sued out of existence. So the best thing they can do is do an executive order.

And this is what’s happened with this particular federal funding freeze memo. The outcry was really big this week. We had governors going on the TV to say, this directly affects my constituents. These people rely on unemployment insurance and SNAP benefits, WIC, and everything else in order to make sure that their families are fed. I’ve been receiving phone calls from panicked constituents for two days. This is not OK. There needs to be some pushback.

What ended up happening is there are multiple lawsuits that have been filed, including one where, I think, 23-plus states filed a lawsuit against this directive. They’re trying to get a judge to grant a temporary restraining order on it. After that lawsuit was filed, the White House rescinded that memo yesterday, and the White House press secretary, Leavitt, took to Twitter to clarify that it was just the memo itself that was rescinded and not the original order to begin to examine which federal funding could be frozen based on the investigations that they want to do into these appropriations. Lawyers took that, quite reasonably, I would say, to mean that the lawsuits they filed were still worth pursuing.

I know there was some confusion on social media yesterday that the memo being rescinded meant that the entire executive order was rescinded, and the press secretary’s clarification on Twitter keyed us into the fact that it was just the memo itself and that they were absolutely planning on continuing to move forward with the directives in the executive orders relating to this.

So lawyers made that case to Rhode Island US District Chief Judge John McConnell yesterday, and they quoted that tweet in their case that, despite rescinding the memo, the plans were still in place to freeze funding at some point in the future, if not in the next week. The judge agreed and allowed that TRO suit to proceed.

So where we’re at with this right now is that the memo has been rescinded. The plaintiffs in this case, for a temporary restraining order, the lawyers representing 23-plus states refiled their suit last night that seeks to prevent any blocking of federal financial obligations now and in the future, and also prohibits any reissues of the now rescinded directive. So the White House can’t, or the Office of Management and Budget, cannot put out another memo under different wording. They can’t wiggle their way around it by directing only some agencies to freeze their funding while this TRO is in effect.

So they’ve submitted this proposal to the judge. The DOJ has 24 hours to respond — Which, as of right before we went live, I don’t think they have responded quite yet — And then the judge will signal that a ruling is likely going to come at some point in the next couple of days.

So if he grants this TRO on this particular thing, that means that, for at least 14 days, there is no federal freezing of the funds. It means that SNAP benefits will be funded. It means that Pell Grants will be paid out. It means that federal Work-Study will still be available to students at universities, and all the way down the list. That TRO proposal also says that, if needed, they can extend that by another 14 days. So what we’re looking at is 14 to 30 days. Presumably it gives additional lawsuits the chance to move forward with this, or the Trump administration can take the L and back away from this policy and rescind this executive order.

I think this, amongst the 38 that have been filed — And I’m sure more that will be signed today and tomorrow and the next day — This seems to be the one that really kicked up a lot of dust and also kicked the opposition into gear a little bit more than what we’ve been seeing over the last two weeks to three months, because it really is confusing and broad, very, very broad, and affects a lot of people. So in terms of that litigation, hopefully it’s successful. We’ll see in the next couple of days.

One thing that I do want to end on with this specific issue is that there’s a lot of information that’s blurring past your [timeline]. We’re getting headlines every other day about some absolutely obscene, harrowing directives coming out of the White House, and they’re coming at this breakneck speed. There is a tracker that you can follow. Just Security publication has a tracker specifically about executive orders that the Trump administration is putting out and any litigation that is trying to challenge those orders in the future, including updates. They have a pretty solid team that’s doing this across the board, not just about the executive orders, but the tracker that they have is specific to that.

And I know that I was looking yesterday on Bluesky trying to find someone who is aggregating all of this, because you can only listen to so many group chats before you start getting stuck and spiraling a little bit because the information is… We will just say that there’s so much of it. So I found this tracker, I went through it, and I think it’s really great. We’ll put a link in our description, we’ll drop it in the chat for you, because if you’re like me and you want to stay informed, but you want to stay informed without doom spiraling and see how folks are actually challenging these things to varying degrees of success, then that’s a good place to start, I think.

Maximillian Alvarez:  And again, please let us know here at The Real News, in the live chat now, reach out to us on social media. Email us. That is our explicit goal too, as I said at the top of this livestream. It’s more important now than ever when it is an explicit tactic of this administration, it is an explicit prerogative of the social media platforms that we use to bombard us with information so that we stay on those platforms waiting for the next bit of information to come. But we’re not actually doing anything with that information except consuming it, fearfully reacting to it, or angrily reacting to it, and then moving on quickly to the next thing. And the more of us who are in that position, the less mobilized we are as a populace.

We here at The Real News believe that people, real people, working people across this country and around the world, are the solution to the problems that we’re experiencing. We are the ones who are going to work together to build the world that works for all of us. We fundamentally believe that you, me, everyone watching this is part of the solution.

We want to provide information, updates, analysis. We want to give you access to the voices you’re not hearing: the workers on the front lines, the people living in these sacrifice zones, the people brutalized by the police, the people brutalized by our broken healthcare system and our war industry that is wreaking death and destruction across the planet. We are trying to bring you in touch with those people, those voices, the movements that are trying to address them, and to get you to feel that you are part of that, and to understand that you can be part of these solutions.

So we want to hear from you if we’re doing a good job of that, and if there’s other kinds of information, other voices, other perspectives that you want us to provide so that you feel more empowered to act and to do something and to be part of the solution here. So please do also reach out to us and share with us any suggestions or recommendations that you’ve got there.

We’ve got about 25 minutes left in this livestream. We also want to hear if this was helpful to you. We are not going to be able to get to some questions from the live chat itself today, but we have been sourcing questions from y’all leading up to this livestream on social media. We have a text service that you can get Real News updates on through text messaging. Folks have been sending us great questions ahead of this livestream through that service, and you can learn more about how to sign up for it in the live chat right now.

So we are going to end in a few minutes. Mel and I will step back a bit and assess based on these questions that we got before the stream began in the final 15 minutes here.

But before we get there, I know, Mel, there is another key story that we’ve both been really concerned about, but you really want to impress upon viewers why this is one of those headlines passing your timeline that you should actually focus on.

Mel Buer:  Yeah, so in the last week or so, there’s been a bit of a… I hesitate to use the word shakeup, but there have been some changes with the NLRB. And what we’ve been seeing is that NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo was fired. Honestly, I think most folks were expecting that. There was a changeover.

What she does is she’s the top adjudicator, prosecutor, investigator for the NLRB. She’s been really good at bringing forth some really important policy changes and also rule changes that really have helped workers organize. She’s been really tough on bosses, and holding corporations like Amazon’s feet to the fire. We kind of expected that to happen. It happened when Biden took over in 2021. There was a shakeup there with the general counselor, if I [remember] correctly. And so we kind of expected that to happen.

What is surprising is that the NLRB chair, Gwynne Wilcox, was also fired. She was appointed in December, I think, appointed and confirmed in December. And she is the first Black woman member of the NLRB. She is also supposed to keep her job through the next couple of years. As it stands, the NLRA and the various policies do not have provisions. These board members are not at-will members. They’re supposed to serve out their term unless there is some sort of malfeasance or a specific event that someone can point to in the administration to fire any member of the board. You can’t do it. So it was very surprising to see Gwynne Wilcox fired at the beginning of this week.

There is a statement here from the AFL-CIO president, Liz Shuler, that I want to read a little bit here that says, “President Trump’s firing of NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox, the first Black woman to serve on the board, is illegal and will have immediate consequences for working people. By leaving only two board members in their posts, the President has effectively shut down the National Labor Relations Board’s operation, leaving the workers it defends on their own in the face of union busting and retaliation. Alongside the firing of NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, these moves will make it easier for bosses to violate the law and trample on workers’ legal rights on the job and fundamental freedom to organize.”

Now this is important, and we’ll talk about this just in a moment, about what exactly the NLRB does on a granular level. But the way that the NLRB essentially operates is that the board is the adjudicators. They make decisions on union elections, they make decisions on investigations into workplaces. They make decisions on unfair labor practice charges that will bring consequences against employers when they treat their workers badly, break the law, retaliate, fire workers for union organizing, any number of things.

In order for the board to operate, there has to be quorum. So of the five members, there has to be at least three appointed working members of the board. Right now there are vacancies, which is also surprising. Normally, in the normal course of things, an incoming president will use those vacancies to shift decision-making. There were two vacancies on the board that would’ve, I think, if you’re talking about the strategy here, would have changed policy at the NLRB by itself.

Now there’s only two members of the board after Gwynne Wilcox has been fired, which means the board doesn’t have quorum. They do not have the authority to make decisions until they have quorum. So any of the things that the board could do to uphold the NLRA, which is to say the enforcement of the law that protects worker rights in this country, can’t happen until a new person is appointed and confirmed or until Wilcox is reinstated, which she has indicated that she will pursue whatever legal avenues that she has to be reinstated to fight this firing, because again, it’s illegal. It’s illegal what Trump did. I’m not trying to create this doom spiral, but this is concerning. It’s very alarming, and it’s important that we underscore that.

I know that there are folks among the labor movement who would love to see the Wild West of labor organizing return. We may actually see that at some point in the future. But at the moment, what we have with the NLRA is workable. It’s not great, but it is workable, and it does keep individuals employed. It keeps individuals from getting hurt on the job. It keeps individuals from being fired for organizing. And if we don’t have an NLRB that can enforce that because it’s been hobbled by this particular thing, it’s not great, Max.

Maximillian Alvarez:  No. I forget who the quote came from, I think it was a Democratic legislator, but it was like, the message right now is workers are on their own. And functionally that is correct, because the NLRB, insufficient as it is — And we have reported on that too. We’ve reported on how understaffed, underfunded the NLRB is and has been for years. We’ve reported over the years about how the NLRB should be more aggressive in enforcing labor law. Again, we can walk and chew gum at the same time. The NLRB cannot be perfect, but things can be a lot worse without it. We’re capable of having that conversation.

But we need to understand also what that means in real terms. And so I want to tee up a clip here from Mel and my’s podcast, Working People, where I spoke with workers at the National Labor Relations Board, like rank and file workers, labor lawyers, people who are doing the work of the agency and who are also both representatives in the NLRB union.

So this was actually an interview that we did when we were approaching the threshold of a government shutdown in, I think that was September, 2023. Remember, that was the congressional Republicans internal fighting over more spending cuts, border security, no military aid to Ukraine. It was a high-stakes fight between McCarthy and Matt Gaetz. So it was in that period that I spoke with Colton Puckett and Michael Billick, legislative co-chairs of the NLRB union and full-time NLRB workers, about just what it is that they and other NLRB staff do and the role that that work plays in our daily working lives. So let’s listen to that clip right now.

[CLIP BEGINS]

Colton Puckett:  At a high level, the core functions that we do that, I think, most folks that know about our agency know about what we do, and that’s we investigate unfair labor practice charges. So someone believes that their employer or their union has violated the law in some way. They can file a charge with us, and we investigate it and figure out whether or not the charge has merit. That’s a big portion of the work we do, and I’ll talk a little bit more about what that means.

But another big thing that we do is we run union elections, essentially. And so when workers come together, they decide, we want to form a union, we want to join a union, they’ll file a petition with us. There’s a certain process that entails. And then when it comes time to actually hold the election, we in the field go to wherever that election is taking place and we make sure that it’s done, and done in as fair and impartial a way as is possible.

And then the last thing we do, another big thing that is part and parcel with unfair labor practice investigations is we try cases. So if we find that there is merit to one of these unfair labor practice charges that we get, we always will try to settle a case, of course, but sometimes it doesn’t work out. So that means we actually go to trial before an administrative law judge and we litigate the case and we try and prove the violation. And it’s similar to, it’s not exactly like going to federal court, but it’s the same general idea. And so that’s another big portion of the work that we do.

And so that’s the big three things at a very high level. But I think sometimes getting into the day-to-day, some of that can get lost.

As field staff, I think Mike mentioned at the top, we work in offices spread all around the country. We are essentially the front line of the agency for working people all across the country. That means that we interface directly with workers every single day, whether that’s a charging party, we’re trying to help them figure out how to e-file their evidence, for example, or figure out what they need to send to us that might be useful versus what not to, or if we’re just answering questions about where their case is in the process or what certain processes means because a lot of this is legalese, and we don’t expect everybody to know exactly what an unfair labor practice is. That’s a big portion of the work we do.

One of the things that we do, there’s one in every regional office, there’s an information officer on duty every day. You can call your regional office — They might not answer immediately, but leave a voicemail and you will talk to a live person that day, and they will walk you through any questions that you have. If you want to file a charge, they can assist you in preparing the charge and informing you how to do that. And I don’t necessarily know that a lot of other federal agencies have that type of direct person-to-person interaction in that way.

And so that’s a big thing that we do. We talk to folks all the time and then just try and help them understand what it is we do and what it is their rights are.

[CLIP ENDS]

Maximillian Alvarez:  All right. So that’s not nothing. That’s not evil bureaucracy. That’s real shit that real working people depend on. In the final minutes here, Mel and I wanted to drive this point home, because we could be playing clips for the next five hours of real world examples that real world workers have told us on our podcast about when they needed the NLRB to adjudicate an injustice, a violation of their rights, and how important that was to their livelihoods, how important it was to their union drive, how important it was for the labor movement itself. But that’s what we’re trying to get y’all to see is that this is not just conceptual, nameless, faceless bureaucratic stuff. That’s what they do. That’s what folks at the NLRB do.

And just to give one example that was the first field report that I did when I started here at The Real News in the middle of COVID in 2020. Let’s not forget that early in 2021, one of the biggest stories in the country was that workers in Bessemer, Alabama, majority Black, deindustrialized Bessemer, Alabama, with twice the national poverty rate, that they were leading the charge to form the country’s first unionized workforce at an Amazon facility. Now, we know that they ended up being unsuccessful in that union drive, but that drive sparked so many of the other labor struggles that we’ve reported on over the past few years, including [contributing] to the Amazon Labor Union’s successful unionization drive in New York.

And so that’s a real world example. I was there on the ground, Mel was talking to these workers, I’ve talked to these workers, I’ve been in their union hall. They tried to hold a union election, which is their right, that is their democratic right, to vote on whether or not they want a union, even if it is at the second largest private employer in the country and one of the biggest international behemoths in the world. These workers had that right and they exercised it.

And the National Labor Relations Board ruled that Amazon had illegally interfered in that election by placing a US Postal Service mailbox on Amazon property right in front of the employee entrance with the Amazon cameras pointed on it. And so the NLRB said, hey, that’s not a free and fair election. This is intimidation, this is surveillance. You guys have to have another election. They had that enforcement ability to give workers in Bessemer another chance, a fair shot at a union election.

So that’s just one example of a high-stakes ruling that both shows how Amazon is a much bigger behemoth than the NLRB can take on its own. But that ruling really mattered for workers who were really fighting for what they believed in.

Mel, I know you’ve seen tons of others. Are there any few you want to highlight here real quick?

Mel Buer:  Well, I think I want to just, I could name ’em all up top of the bat. We can do Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Strike. It’s a ULP strike. We can do half of the walkouts at Starbucks started with ULPs fired because bargaining wasn’t starting fast enough. We can talk about pretty much, I would say, a sizable chunk of a worker’s ability to withhold their work legally begins with the filing of a ULP.

And the NLRB has to reach a certain place with that, where you are filing this grievance and you say, we have checked our boxes and we’ve filed this ULP that says bargaining is not going well. The company’s bargaining in bad faith, which means they are not actually giving a good faith effort to sit across the table and work through this contract negotiation like we are. They have actively endangered workers, for example, at Starbucks during the LA firestorm. They have enacted policies that are retaliatory. They have held captive audience meetings.

When we are trying to form a union, all of these rulings that the NLRB rules on are designed to free and fairly investigate these complaints and then to actually offer some sort of recourse for workers, whether that means ordering management back to the table and telling ’em to stuff it and get the job done, or whether that means enacting no captive audience meetings in workplaces. Whether that means allowing individuals to be on company grounds to organize off hours, to pull in people and have conversations to work on a union campaign that’s gone public. All of these things are what the NLRB helps us do. And there are dozens, dozens of people, dozens of campaigns that I’ve talked to, that I’ve reported on [just] in the last year where the outcome, in some way or another, depends upon what the NLRB can do for them.

That’s just the place that we’re in. That’s the recourse that we have right now. We have to thread that needle and to use the law, as inadequate as it is, to our benefit, and be able to work within that and use the NLRB as an agency for what it’s there for. Which is to say, often I look at the NLRB’s policies in the last 10 years or so. When we have a board that is really pro-worker focused, a lot of things can happen.

Final example I’ll give is that in 2017, the NLRB was full of pro-business folks that Trump had appointed. During Trump’s administration, and then the subsequent administration after, there was really this watershed moment with graduate student organizing where, during Trump’s administration, there were restraints on which type of graduate students could organize on college campuses. That rule changed in the last five, six years as a result of a more pro-worker NLRB makeup, and there has been an explosion in new organizing on university campuses that we didn’t see before. By some metrics, it is the fastest and most consistent organizing that has happened in this country in the last five years.

So it underscores the importance of what this agency can do for us as workers, and what this agency can do for us as a workers’ movement. And so when it’s hobbled by an administration, as it has been in the Trump administration, things become exponentially more difficult.

My fellow union workers at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette waited for a year and a half for a decision on the ULP that they filed. They’ve been on strike for over three years at this point, trying to get the company at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to bargain fairly and to stop playing games with their health insurance and their livelihoods. And the NLRB is really the thing that’s driving those consequences so they can get back to the table and get back to work.

So as much as we want to sit here and say that, oh, it’s just another bunch of feckless bureaucrats — No, it has real world implications for how we can organize in the future. And I truly believe that, in terms of movement building in this country, the labor movement is an integral part to that, for all its faults. That institution needs to use the tools that it has at its disposal.

So when an administration — Any administration, because I’m not saying that Democratic administrations in the past haven’t used the NLRB as a cudgel, haven’t deliberately underfunded it and understaffed it because they are also only pro-worker in name, but not really in action. It’s important for us to be able to uphold this institution because it helps us maintain some semblance of control over our workplaces, at least for now. We will see what the next 10, 15 years look like.

As Hamilton Nolan has said, the Democrats squander their chance to really rebuild the labor movement — I agree — And we are now in single digits a little bit in terms of union density, but we’re not cooked by any stretch of the imagination. And if we can pay attention to and internalize the fact that some of these agencies and the work that they do is actually really useful for our movement building, then I think we have a better chance of staving off the worst impulses of this fascist government.

Maximillian Alvarez:  No, I think that’s powerfully put, Mel. Just again, a plea to everyone watching: If you’ve been watching our reporting over these past few years or other people’s reporting on the Starbucks union drive, the Amazon union drive, but not just those; healthcare workers going on strike for their patients, teachers and educators going on strike for their students, their communities, manufacturing in the auto industry and beyond. John Deere workers, journalists at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, entertainers at Medieval Times. These struggles of working people where people like you and me have realized that if they band together, exercise their rights, form a union, and work together as a union, that they can actually change their lives, they can change their circumstances, they can even change our society’s circumstances, like the machinists going on strike at Boeing or the railroad workers fighting for rail safety that impacts all of us, like we were talking about earlier in the stream.

All of that is going to be so deeply impacted by a nonfunctional NLRB or an NLRB that is functional but actively hostile to the workers’ side of the struggle and is doing the bidding of the employer class. I don’t know what the stories we report are going to be. I don’t know what the workers we interview are going to say in the coming years if that is the case, but I promise you it’s not going to be what it’s been in the past few years where workers have seen this groundswell, and they’ve wanted to be part of it, and they’ve seen a path to unionization with an NLRB that actually is functional enough to serve the needs of working people trying to exercise their rights. We are not in that territory anymore.

So even if you don’t give a shit about anything in DC — Which I would totally forgive you for — If you give a shit about the labor movement and working people, this is going to impact that, this is going to impact you.

And we don’t know what the ripple effects are going to be to the business class, to the private sector, to all the employers out there who now know that workers are on their own like they did after Reagan fired the PATCO strikers in ’81. We don’t know what the cascading effect is going to be if employers decide to go more on the offensive in squashing unionization efforts, more on the offensive in rolling back workers’ rights, treating workers like shit, knowing that they’re going to have fewer options for recourse through the NLRB. So if nothing else, let’s remind ourselves that that matters. That concerns us, our neighbors, our coworkers.

But also that we, as Mel said, are not cooked here. We are not powerless here. We have a vested interest in the story, and we ourselves are part of the outcome. I say I don’t know how this is going to shape out because I don’t know what you are going to do about it. I don’t know what everyone watching this is going to do about it, but that’s going to determine what the outcome is. And so, again, if anything, we want to leave y’all with that note that this is meant for you, for us to figure out what we do next.

And with that wrapping up the 90 minutes where we’re looking at these key headlines, I wanted to just have 10 minutes of bonus time here so that we could, Mel, take a step back and breathe a bit and address these really great questions that some of our supporters and viewers sent into us that helped us think about how to frame this livestream. In a way we’ve been trying to answer the questions over the past 90 minutes, but I wanted to just toss these out there and get your thoughts — And also what you guys in the live chat think about this.

But one of the key questions that we got from Giovanni R., which was really great, which was, “How much do you estimate this regime will affect what’s left of workers’ benefits and safety standards?” So we started addressing that now, and we’re going to talk about it a little more in a second, but that’s one key question that we’ve been trying to answer here.

Another question that we got from David B., which I think is also really crucial, is David asked, “Will labor only present a front for or a front of resistance and fight back, or is it actually going to push the limits of what we as working class people need and demand? Will labor stop seeing the Democratic Party as the vehicle for that fight back and resistance? Will labor exert itself as if it understands and believes that the laboring class is the sine qua non of production and wealth?” Great question. So much that we could say about there. I want you guys watching to think about that.

And the last question that I wanted to throw up on the screen here, which helped us prepare for this livestream, was from Edward S. And so Edward wrote to us saying, “When will the unions educate their membership about labor history and that the GOP is their foe? It’s atrocious that a huge percent of union members vote for Trump.”

So Mel, I wanted to, now that we’ve gotten through the last 90 minutes, do you feel like there are any other lingering answers to those questions that we didn’t get to, or things that are really sticking in your mind?

Mel Buer:  I think I’ll start with the first one, with Giovanni’s. Maybe we can do a couple of minutes for each one. I think when we talk about how much this regime will affect what’s left of workers’ benefits and safety standards, I think one thing that I’ve learned over the course of my reporting, whether it’s been on OSHA agencies in California, or in the healthcare industry on the West Coast, or the railroad industry in the Midwest, or wherever else, is that oftentimes these agencies can be equipped with the ability to maintain safety standards, to maintain workers’ benefits, and oftentimes there’s no political will to maintain those.

Subsequent administrations may cater to lobbyists, to understaff these agencies, to re-appropriate funds away from these agencies. Just like anything else in the government, you need money to operate. And if you’re being appropriated less and less money each year, that means you’re hiring less and less OSHA inspectors each year. That means there’s less OSHA inspectors to handle the complaints that happen that are called in, and then they start making hard decisions about which ones to investigate and which ones not to — Or it sits on a waiting list, as what happens with the NLRB, where oftentimes, for example, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette complaint was essentially on a waiting list for investigation for over a year because there’s just not enough people who have been tasked with investigating these things.

I think what we’ve been talking about, Max, is there’s a bit of a breakdown in the system itself that perpetuates these problems. Something that happens a lot is that workers see this breakdown in an acute area like the aviation industry, like the agriculture industry, like the healthcare industry, and the fight at their disposal is, for example, I just did reporting in Southern California on the Kaiser health system and mental health professionals who are still on strike after 100 days, who saw these breakdowns in the system that was disproportionately affecting their patients because there weren’t enough people getting hired. And these are critically, acutely mentally ill patients who require regular treatments who aren’t getting that — Illegally so, in the state of California.

And so what they do is they view these as workers’ rights issues, patient issues or workers’ rights issues in the healthcare industry. So what do they have at their disposal? They went on strike. Their contract expired, and they’re not going to get off the picket line until they get one written in stone, in paper, signed by Kaiser, that these conditions will cease being as horrendous as they are because that means that they can take care of their patients better.

So in that sense, subsequent administrations have done something to the effect of deregulating portions of the industry, [and] they create serious problems. The railroad strike happened, almost happened under the Biden administration and was stopped last minute. If you talk to some railroad workers, they aren’t happy about that. They feel like they lost leverage because the Biden administration stepped in at a critical time where he could have said, actually, I don’t have to do this.

So I don’t know, man, I think it’s going to get worse before it gets better. Obviously we are looking down the barrel of four years, at least, of extreme MAGA GOP policies that have their own ideology. Obviously, they have their own plan, and a lot of us are going to get left out in the cold.

Maximillian Alvarez:  Or the heat. I wanted to jump in on that point too, because when I think about what these conditions are going to be for our fellow workers, current generations and future generations, to answer Giovanni’s question, I guess what we would say is what railroad workers told me and Mel when we first started investigating that story years ago. Every single worker we talked to told us the same thing at the top: What you need to understand is this goes way back.

And so, if anything, that’s an argument for why all y’all out there should stop fucking watching mainstream political news, or even independent news junkie stuff that only focuses on bipartisan politics and follows the news cycle of Washington DC, because it rots your brain and you lose the ability to think like a real, regular person.

Now, when you talk to other real, regular working people, you get a better frame on the problems that we’re experiencing. And so when railroad workers are saying, here’s the problem, now here’s how far back this goes, and that’s how far back our memories go because we’ve experienced it, and that is decidedly different from the political election cycle.

And this is something that we’ve been bringing up on our reporting here over and over again, is that Donald Trump, Biden, these last few election cycles have been characterized by a sort of like, what did the previous administration do that the next administration’s blaming them about and overturning? And why are people voting for Trump? Because they’re mad at Biden and his policies. But really what we are talking about here in the political world is that voters are responding every two to four years to a crisis that’s been building for the last 40, 50, 60 years.

And so the cumulative effects of this death by a thousand deregulatory cuts, that is what we’re trying to get a handle on here, because that is the frame you need to have to understand how conditions have gotten this bad and why, as Mel said, they’re probably going to get worse before they get any better. From the air traffic controller staffing shortage to the industrial pollution of communities in sacrifice zones around the country from East Palestine to South Baltimore.

This stuff starts happening in more and more places year after year when unsexy, uninteresting legislation gets passed through, it’s not really a blip on people’s radars when it happens 15 years ago. And then 15 years later, you end up living next to a lake that you can’t swim in that you’ve swam in your whole life. Public policy bioaccumulates. It accumulates in our bodies, it accumulates in our jobs, it accumulates in our communities. It doesn’t all happen overnight.

I guess that’s the point I’m getting at, is that we are still in the process of experiencing and feeling the full weight of decisions that have already been made, that were made in Trump’s last administration and Biden’s last administration and Obama’s administration — And Reagan’s administration. We are still finding out the repercussions of those decisions that have already been made, and we are laying the groundwork for even more impactful decisions to hurt us well into the future.

And that’s why I jumped in when you said that we’ll be left out in the cold, and I said, or even in the heat, because that’s another storyline that we follow here too. What are workers and workers’ rights and labor unions going to do as the climate crisis continues to spiral out of control, which it sure as hell is going to the more we do this drill, baby, drill, pull out of the Paris Climate Accords while LA is burning, western North Carolina is obliterated by hurricanes. We are barreling in the exact opposite direction.

But what makes me think of that example is that I remember when the Supreme Court overturned Biden’s attempt to require workplaces of over 100 people to have COVID vaccine mandates, or for folks who didn’t want to take the vaccine, that they did regular testing. The Supreme Court said that they rejected that order and it was hailed as a victory for the antivax crowd, for the Trump MAGA crowd.

But what you and I saw, Mel, and what we talked about, because we actually read the ruling, was that the Supreme Court said because COVID-19 is a general condition, that it just exists in the world, no one employer can be responsible for implementing these kinds of policies to address it.

And so what they were doing was laying the groundwork for getting employers off scot-free as the climate gets worse, as people are working in hotter conditions, when they’re dying in the summer heat, or they’re breathing in toxic chemicals. And basically, we have set the stage for employers to not be liable for our deaths when they’re putting us regularly at hazard in our working conditions as the climate crisis worsens. That’s what I’m trying to point to is these decisions are going to have ripple effects for generations.

So there are things we can do now, but we have to have a full, clear sense of the problem. And that’s what we’re going to try to keep taking apart and analyzing piecemeal in these livestreams, in our reports. Like I said at the top of this livestream, our goal is to not get overwhelmed by the news cycle, but to practice focus, to use our journalistic tools to give you the information you need to act and not be immobilized and hopeless. And so that’s what we’re working on doing and doing better here.

We really want to hear from you guys, and let us know if we are doing better, if there are things that you’d like us to see, do, people you’d like us to have on, subjects that you really need help breaking down in our team here, not just our journalists, but our incredible whole team of editors, producers, studio technicians, let us be usable to you. Let us know what you need and we will use our skills to try to help.

But ultimately, you are the solution. You are the one who is going to determine with your neighbors, your coworkers, your fellow working people, what happens in the future, what kind of future we are leaving for our children. And so our job here at The Real News is to make sure you’ve got what you need to make change. And we want to hear from you, and we want you to hold us accountable if we are not following through on that.

And so please let us know what you thought of this livestream, let us know what you’d like us to cover in future livestreams, and please keep sending questions so that we can keep answering them better and more directly. Because we’ve got so much to say on it, but ultimately what matters is that we’re saying what you are looking for and need to hear and not just listening to ourselves talk. That’s the goal here. That’s what we at The Real News are here to do.

We are a team that is here for you, and we’re a strong and mighty team. And Mel, I could not be more honored to be on this team with you guys in the back, our whole studio team: Adam, Cam, Dave, Kayla, Jocelyn, James, looking at the live chat, everybody on this team is here to help, and we are here for you, and we really appreciate your support, and we look forward to seeing y’all next Thursday when we go live again.

But until then, please support our work so that we can keep bringing you important coverage and conversations like this. And more important than ever, take care of yourselves and take care of each other. Solidarity forever.

After 11 weeks on strike, behavioral health workers at Kaiser Permanente’s Southern California offices will head back to the bargaining table on Jan. 9. 2,400 members of the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) have been manning picket lines across Southern California since Oct. 21, 2024. At the heart of their struggle is a fight to push California’s largest healthcare provider to bring Southern California workers’ pay, pensions, and working conditions up to the level of  their Northern California counterparts, and to solve the chronic understaffing crisis that has plagued Kaiser SoCal mental health clinics for years. 

The quality of patient care in Kaiser’s Southern California system has dropped precipitously for over a decade, long before the start of the strike. These conditions have only worsened since workers walked off the job last October. Now, as the strike enters its 12th week, workers and patients are increasingly concerned that if Kaiser continues to drag their feet at the bargaining table, behavioral health care for the nearly 5 million enrollees in Southern California will remain interrupted, with potentially devastating consequences. Workers and patients alike say that an improved contract will drastically improve the quality of mental health care that enrollees receive.

For patients seeking care, wait times are a stressful hurdle

For patients seeking behavioral health care within the Kaiser system, the process is stressful, even retraumatizing. Even before the strike began, patients and behavioral health workers complained that Kaiser continued to impose an illegal “non-quantitative treatment limitation,” or one-appointment-at-a-time rule, which disallows patients from scheduling multiple mental health appointments at the same time. As a result, some patients are forced to wait weeks or even months between mental health appointments, effectively preventing them from accessing regular behavioral health care. 

For some patients, these extended wait times can mean the difference between life and death. Patients like Ezekiel Koontz have found the process of securing regular therapy appointments to be “arduous,” even with their particularly emergent case. Koontz, who survived multiple suicide attempts, described being subjected to a revolving door of therapists and waiting six weeks or more for a therapy appointment. “Kaiser constantly, kind of… throws you around and around [and] for me, in my case, I was constantly waiting for months and months between appointments while I was suicidal,” Koontz said.

“It’s very rare that a patient ends up with a therapist at Kaiser that sees them regularly and for the duration of time that they need them,” said Jeremy Simpkin, a case manager who has been with Kaiser for five years. “For the most part, it is a revolving door.” He says certain things have improved over time, but clarified that other processes like the external referral system, which allows patients to access behavioral health care that Kaiser doesn’t provide (programs like dialectical behavior therapy, for example), are often byzantine and demoralizing for patients who are forced to navigate them.

A mountain of complaints from behavioral health providers about the deteriorating conditions inside Kaiser’s behavioral health clinics and patient experiences like Koontz’s led the NUHW to file a complaint with the DMHC in 2018. A lengthy investigation by the DMHC found that Kaiser had broken state law numerous times, finding that, “[w]hile the [Kaiser Health] Plan has worked to address [maintenance of adequate provider networks and effective and functional quality assurance programs], despite multiple enforcement actions, and comprehensive corrective action plans, the Plan’s shortfalls have continued and have impacted the Plan’s ability to ensure adequate and timely access to behavioral health services to its enrollees.” In 2023, the DMHC issued a $50 million fine against the plan (the largest in state history), and required that Kaiser enter into a settlement with the DMHC to correct the issues that had plagued employees and patients for over a decade. 

The union maintains that, despite the detailed corrective actions laid out in the 2023 settlement, Kaiser has continued to fall short of the settlement’s objectives. Patients have continued to suffer long appointment wait times, high provider turnover, and lack of access to emergent mental health programs that would improve their chances of recovery. Koontz blamed their frustration with the process on Kaiser itself, saying, “I keep having very well meaning people [therapists] offer me everything because they really do want to see the best for their patients… Kaiser is not a human. Kaiser is a company that wants your money. And so while the people are genuinely trying to do what they can for, you know, people like me, who, again, nearly died multiple times, it doesn’t seem like anyone’s really capable of that, of actually making good on many of the promises that they genuinely want to keep.”

These issues have only worsened since the strike began, despite Kaiser’s promises that there were comprehensive contingency plans in place. The union alleges in a new complaint filed with the DMHC that, since the start of the SoCal strike, Kaiser has routinely failed to “provide timely and appropriate individual treatment” for enrollees, among other issues. According to the complaint, filed Dec. 20, 2024, “Kaiser’s practices constitute violations of multiple California laws… Patients who do not receive timely and appropriate [Substance Use Disorder] care are more likely to experience relapses and other harms, including death. NUHW has confirmed relapses among Kaiser’s Southern California enrollee[s] since October 21, 2024.” 

A new, similar complaint filed Jan. 4 with the California Department of Health Care Services also alleges that Kaiser “failed to provide required mental health services for parents and families at Fontana Medical Center NICU and PICU, leaving patients at risk of not receiving critical care.” According to the union, Kaiser has repeatedly understaffed the two critical care units since workers began their strike last October, which has affected dozens of patients.

For Koontz, the options that Kaiser has offered them while workers are on strike have been inadequate for their needs. Kaiser has offered Koontz and other patients the option of seeing a new therapist, but it’s unclear if they will be able to return to sessions with their regular providers after the strike is over. Additionally, the union alleges in their new complaint that, in some cases, temporary staff covering caseloads in Kaiser’s addiction medicine clinics during the strike are only working in two-week rotations, placing undue stress on the patients who are in need of their services. 

The therapeutic relationship in behavioral therapy is often the most important aspect in determining how successful a patient is in reaching their therapeutic goals. In short, patients must be able to stick with a therapist long enough to build a relationship of trust and open communication. The revolving door, as some call it, doesn’t allow for that relationship to be built. “In my experience, how would you expect to have a meaningful connection with somebody who you know is only there because Kaiser doesn’t want to pay the person you’re normally there with?” Koontz said. “Are you going to realistically have a connection with somebody who you know is going to vanish?”

“What they’re offering is stabilization, not care,” Koontz continued. “They’re trying to make sure we don’t off ourselves in between, because that looks really bad for their bottom line. You know, people can’t pay when they’re dead.” 

Striking workers worry about the quality of care that their patients are receiving while they walk the picket lines. “There’s a lot of major worries for the patients, and that was from the very beginning. Knowing that even though Kaiser is saying, ‘We’ll provide comprehensive care and people will get therapy while you’re out,’ we know that that’s not happening,” Simpkin said. Simpkin added that while the striking providers feel anxiety and concern for their patients while out on strike, they know that this new contract will have an immediate positive effect on their patients. “We wholeheartedly believe that what we’re striking for will immediately and directly improve the [sic] patient care,” he said.

A union fighting for their patients, and themselves

Striking Kaiser workers believed that many of these long-standing problems could be addressed at the bargaining table, and negotiations began in late July 2024. When negotiations failed to produce a new agreement before their previous contract expired at the end of September, workers began preparing for a strike and walked off the job in late October. There have been no negotiations since the first week of the strike. In December, Kaiser finally allowed a bargaining date to be scheduled for Jan. 9 after state lawmakers weighed in and urged the health plan to get back to the table.

The union has prioritized solutions in their proposals that have already been proven to have a positive impact on patient outcomes in the wake of the Northern California strike in 2022, where behavioral health workers walked off the job for 10 weeks in order to secure a contract that would improve working conditions for themselves and, by extension, their patients.

In a Dec. 23, 2024, press conference by the union, NUHW President Emeritus Sal Rosselli made a statement underscoring this fact, saying, “There is no reason for Kaiser to be fighting us at the bargaining table, because what we’re proposing isn’t anything that the vast majority of Kaiser employees [don’t] already have. What we’re proposing are prerequisites for Kaiser to live up to the [2023] settlement agreement: end the chronic understaffing of its mental health clinics and provide behavioral health care that meets state standards and the needs of its patients.” 

Among the proposals that NUHW is bringing to the table are pay parity with their Northern California counterparts, restoration of pensions for newer Southern California employees, and more time to work on patient care duties outside of face-to-face appointments. Improved working conditions, pay, and benefits would certainly make the job more competitive in an already competitive behavioral health care market, meaning that Kaiser can maintain safe staffing levels and reduce turnover. This, in turn, translates directly into better patient outcomes for Kaiser’s enrollees.

For workers like Simpkin, who began his Kaiser career working in Northern California, there’s no reason for Kaiser to refuse the terms laid out by the union. He says that the NorCal contract already drastically changed the lives of the workers and their patients for the better. “I saw it happen in Northern California,” he said. “It doesn’t fix all of the problems. There’s still a lot of work to do. But as soon as we started implementing those contract changes in Northern California, the working conditions improved, the patient care [and] conditions improved. People’s morale improved. They were able to hire more people. People stayed in their jobs. So I know that it will work, because I’ve seen it.”

Still, the delayed bargaining schedule has signaled to some workers that Kaiser remains unwilling to work with the union to come to an agreement, before more of their patients fall through the cracks. “If something was really important to you and you wanted to resolve it right away, you wouldn’t wait, you know?” said Jade Rosado, a striking licensed clinical social worker in Southeast LA County. “So that’s what that tells me, that was my initial reaction, like, oh, they’re really not serious.” 

From her place on the picket line, Rosado has received positive feedback from patients and community members alike. Despite their frustrations, the focus remains on Kaiser’s inaction in maintaining a continuity of care that meets patient needs. “The feedback that we’ve gotten, even from the community when we’ve been on the picket line, it’s been supportive,” Rosado said. “I’m sure that there are people that are frustrated too—patients that are frustrated that are not getting the care that they need. So while they support us, they’re also frustrated.”

As Rosselli told reporters at NUHW’s Dec. 23 press conference, “Instead of working with its behavioral health professionals to improve care, Kaiser is trying to cement their second-class status at the expense of its nearly 5 million patients in Southern California.” Despite these scheduling setbacks, the union is ready to get back to the bargaining table on Jan. 9 and work to come to an agreement. In the meantime, spirits are still high on the picket line, with workers hunkered down for the long haul. Rosado credits the solidarity she shares with her fellow union members as having a galvanizing effect. “Even though this is hard, like, we’re gonna get through it,” she said. “We’re gonna be okay. We have each other, and we’re supporting each other, and we got this.”

As Kaiser continues to cancel appointments and force patients through a confusing external referral process, patients’ ongoing care remains in limbo. For Koontz, they hope that Kaiser will come to the table ready to come to a solution, but they worry that further delays in negotiations will create an untenable situation for their own recovery, and are skeptical that Kaiser even cares in the first place. “But also realistically, though, I’m just truly being completely honest, if I did kill myself, what would Kaiser think? They wouldn’t blink. I’m just a random guy, another number that just vanishes off their list. Who cares? It is a very impersonal system.”

The Real News has reached out to Kaiser for comment about these patient concerns, and will update the story when they respond.

Longtime Working People listeners will be familiar with Max and Mel’s extended work discussing the supply chain, the workers who keep that system running day in and day out, and the dangerous and exploitative working conditions that many workers labor under. Our global economy relies on these workers to stay running–and bosses around the world use this pressure as a cudgel against the workers.

For today’s episode of Working People, we’re zooming out and taking a look at the global supply chain with Judy Gearhart, research professor with the Accountability Research Center at American University and host of the Labor Link Podcast, a podcast about “the brave individuals organizing the workers who make our stuff.” With decades of experience collaborating with organizers and rights advocates supporting worker struggles in the Global South, Judy is uniquely positioned to bring the stories of these workers forth to her listeners.

Additional links/info:

• Check out the Labor Link podcast here.
• Labor Link Podcast, “S2E4 – Hariyanto Suwarno (Indonesian Migrant Workers’ Union) and Charli Fritzner (Greenpeace USA)”
• Mel Buer, “Corporate billionaires are wrecking the supply chain. Just look at the railroads.”
• Teddy Ostrow and Ruby Walsh, “UPS and the Logistics Revolution”

Permanent links:

• Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!
• Labor Radio / Podcast Network website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• In These Times website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• The Real News Network website, YouTube hannel, podcast feeds, Facebook page, and Twitter page

Featured Music:
Jules Taylor, “Working People” Theme Song

Studio Production: Mel Buer
Post-Production: Jules Taylor

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Speaker 1 (00:17):

Hi, I’m Judy Gerhardt. I’m a research professor with the Accountability Research Center at American University at the School for International Service, and I host a podcast called the Labor Link Podcast, which is about workers organizing and global supply chains.

Speaker 2 (00:33):

Hello everyone. It’s your host, Mel er, and welcome back to another episode of Working People, a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class today. Brought to you in partnership within these Times magazine and the Real News Network produced by Jules Taylor and made possible by the support of listeners like You Working People is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network. If you love what we do and are looking for more worker and labor focused shows like ours, follow the link in the show notes and go check out the other great shows in our network and please support the work we’re doing here at Working People because we can’t keep going without you. Share our episodes with your coworkers, friends and family members. Leave positive reviews of the show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and reach out to us if you have recommendations for working folks that you’d like us to talk to.

(01:18)
And please support the work we do at The Real News by going to the real news.com/donate, especially if you want to see more reporting from the front lines of struggle around the US and across the world. Long time TRNN supporters will be familiar with my previous work on the US supply chain and the integral role that railroad workers played in maintaining the network of goods and services that keep our country running as we learned in 2022. Without the workers, these networks don’t run. Bottlenecks happen and the national and global economy can grind to a stuttering halt. If you haven’t read my previous coverage on it, then please check it out at the link in our show notes on today’s episode of Working People, we’re going beyond the borders of the US and trending our focus on the international workers who keep the world’s global economy running.

(02:04)
This is likely going to become a series of interviews with workers from all over the world, but I’m getting a little bit ahead of myself. So to start this conversation, I thought it would be important to bring on someone who’s been doing the important work of giving a platform to the workers who make these global industries run. I want to talk to her about her life and research and dig into the important work that she’s doing now. As always, it’s my goal to give you our listeners the context you need as we pull back the curtain on contemporary labor organizing both in this country and worldwide. So with us today to help us get that conversation rolling is Judy Gerhart, research professor with the Accountability Research Center at American University and host of the Labor Link Podcast, a podcast about the brave individuals organizing the workers who make our stuff with decades of experience collaborating with organizers and rights advocates, supporting worker struggles in the global south, Judy is uniquely positioned to bring the stories of these workers forth, her listeners from their website.

(03:01)
The Labor Link Podcast touches on many aspects of the global economy, trade policy, international development programs, corporate accountability, and the international human rights norms meant to protect workers from abuse. The first Labor Link podcast series featured organizers leveraging transnational campaigns to build power. And this second series is on Fisher driven solutions to the seafood industry, featuring interviews with Fisher organizers from around the world who are overcoming challenges and using creative strategies to advance fisher’s rights in the global fishing industry. Thank you so much for being on the show today, Judy. I’m really excited to have this conversation.

Speaker 1 (03:37):

Thank you so much, Mel. I really appreciate you and Max having me on.

Speaker 2 (03:41):

So to start off our conversation, I first wanted to give our listeners a chance to get to know a little bit more about you and your work, your career. How did the last couple decades of organizing nonprofit work bring you to this current research?

Speaker 1 (03:55):

Wow. So I have been working, I think I started about 30 years ago actually doing organizing work in Mexico and I got to know a lot of amazing people who were organizing women in the export processing factories, the macula ladora in northern Mexico. And really that was the beginning. I mean, I went to Mexico knowing that I wanted to work on economic rights. I had done that college study abroad in France when Miran, the socialists were in power, and I had been going to college in Philadelphia where it had the highest per capita homelessness rate. So that had gotten me all thinking, okay, I need to understand economic rights. And when I went to Mexico and met people who were organizing workers and the workers themselves, I fell in love with the movement. I fell in love with these people who are, they’re trying to do good in the world, but they’re also trying to build power for the people who don’t have it. And I really found their campaigns and their struggle compelling.

Speaker 2 (05:09):

So what did you end up doing after you finished that work in Mexico? Where did you go next?

Speaker 1 (05:17):

So it’s a little bit of a meandering story. So I went to grad school and I went and worked for the United Nations. I went to back to Honduras and worked for the International Labor Organization and for unicef, and I realized that international instruments are blunt end instruments. There was a lot of campaigning at the time about child labor in the Honduran export factories. You’ll remember maybe some people will remember the Kathy Lee Gifford scandal. That happened because there were 14 year olds making clothing for her. And being in Honduras at the time, I was really aware of the complexities of what was happening because you had 50% of kids in school got through elementary school, and by the time they were 13 or 14, if they hadn’t finished elementary school, they couldn’t go on to middle school. So they had to work. And our international campaigns ended up pushing a lot of 15 to eight to 17, 15 to 16, 17 year olds out of the workforce because all the global brands said no more child labor.

(06:25)
And then you had this sort of moment of struggle. And for me it meant I could see the power of the international mechanisms, but I also knew that we needed to figure out a way to connect with workers on the ground and what kind of remedy they needed. I then landed back in New York and I got a job with Social Accountability International, working on workplace standard, voluntary workplace standard, the basis for social audits. And in the beginning I thought, this is great because at the time you had a lot of companies putting out codes of conduct that didn’t include freedom of association and collective bargaining didn’t include a living wage. So I was part of a group of people trying to convert international human rights norms into language that was atory for companies basically saying, you should do this, you should do that. This is what it means for what you need to do in your supply chain.

(07:25)
And because it included those core rights, I found it compelling and I thought we could use it as an education instrument, which we did. We did a lot of worker training, we had a lot of trade unions. We partnered with the apparel unions globally, and we used that tool to help them in their negotiations and collective bargaining. But I ran into a bit of a wall at some point because the social auditing was, it was a voluntary mechanism. They reported the results of the audit, but not enough of the details. So it was confidential like so many of these initiatives. And at the time I started realizing I was not going to be able to change those core flaws in the social auditing and the voluntary compliance mechanisms. I was lucky enough to become the executive director of the International Labor Rights Forum, and then I spent 10 years working with amazing organizers and campaigners around the world and doing worker tours supporting, I was part of the team of people who helped negotiate the Accord for Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, which is a binding first of its kind transparent agreement. It’s basically a collective bargaining agreement between transnational apparel brands and the Bangladeshi unions and global unions. And that brought me to today where I’m really trying to figure out how do we take those amazing organizers and share their stories with other people so that they themselves can influence policy and also academic thinking to the extent I’m not a real academic, but to the extent that I’m part of the academy at this point.

Speaker 2 (09:13):

So the work that you do with the research center then is really kind of doing these interviews, talking to these workers, gathering this information and trying to present it to not just academic audiences, but translate this into potential policy objectives for the various organizations that you work with. Is that kind of a good understanding of the kind of work that you’re doing now?

Speaker 1 (09:36):

Yeah. Everything we do is trying to bridge between the global policy trade or corporate policies and what the workers on the ground are actually doing. I work with some great colleagues at the accountability research center who they work with health rights advocates in Guatemala or on education reform in the Philippines. Their work is a lot about community driven government accountability, and it was a perfect place for me to land with worker driven corporate accountability, this idea that we need to enable the workers and the organizers on the ground to influence the policies that are affecting them.

Speaker 2 (10:21):

I think this is kind of a good segue to really get into what your current focus is with the Labor Network or Labor Link podcast rather. Your first, or your series, I should say that you worked on was about these transnational campaigns to build power. Before we get into your current work with the Fishers in the fishing industry, was there anything that surprised you as you were interviewing these workers about the campaigns they were engaged in or about the workers themselves?

Speaker 1 (10:53):

So I think the thing that first surprised me is when I started working more heavily on research for arc, I was doing a lot of long form interviews, and when I first sat down to write the report that I had gotten a grant to write, I pulled the transcripts, which I guess many academics do all over the world, but I read the transcripts. I’m like, there’s so much smarter than me. What they have to say is so much more powerful. And that’s where I started saying, wait a minute, how do I figure out a way to put this out? So through the Labor Radio podcast cust Network, I met Evan Matthew Pap, who helped me with the first series through Evan. I met Jules who’s helping me with, who’s producing the second series, and it made it somewhat possible. I really hats off to what you do at working people.

(11:50)
It’s a lot of work. The thing I guess that surprised me, if anything, other than just this realization that I need to find a way to get their voices heard was the things I discovered about people I’d been working with for years. So the first four people I interviewed, I had known for anywhere from six to 12 years at the time, and I had helped them with worker tours. And when I was the director of the International Labor Rights Forum, we had given awards to their organizations for the organizing work they were doing. So that’s why I had wanted to start with them. But it was really taking that time to do the long form interview that I learned things like the organizer from Myanmar from the Migrant Worker Rights Network in Myanmar. He was an activist from Myanmar, and I compare him and I think the show notes, he’s basically like this Mother Jones character in my head because he comes from Myanmar shows up in Thailand, and he’s just trying to make a living. He’s escaping because he was at risk of losing his life or getting jailed in Myanmar. And so then he goes to Thailand and pretty much immediately starts organizing. And one of the big issues in Thailand is migrant workers can’t form a union. They can join a union, but they can’t form a union. But that didn’t deter haw.

(13:20)
And he and another expat who also had escaped cente, they started seeking out the trade unions and SA Karn, who’s another one of the first interviewees, so Sait Karn from the state Employee Relations Committee is a visionary. I mean, he basically said, okay, I may be maybe representing primarily Thai workers from public sector jobs, but we’ve got to help migrants. And he did, and he supported the Migrant Worker Rights Network and he did a lot of other things to try and bridge that gap, which is something I think the US at the time I met SA was really still beginning and improving upon, but it certainly took us a moment to try and bridge between traditional organized labor and migrant workers, and I think the movement’s better for it.

Speaker 2 (14:17):

Right. There are a couple things I wanted to just kind of touch on before we move forward. Really first, to share solidarity with you as a podcast host and a researcher and the realization that you come to that, the people that you interview really are the experts in the industries that they work in. And the job is kind of interviewees to really kind of set and open up a space where these folks, these workers can talk about the experiences that they live every day, whether it be the working conditions, the organizing that they do. And that’s sometimes a tough job. A lot of folks really get uncomfortable when the mic turns on. It’s oftentimes pretty difficult to get folks to feel like they can really talk authoritatively on the experiences that they have because they ask. The same question that we ask often is, how am I a representative for this?

(15:17)
Am I supposed to be here talking about this? And the reality is, yes, working people, a lot of the work that Real News does, what we do is we try to create this space where we recognize that the workers that we talk to are the experts and that they are the ones who are bringing this experience forward for our audience to understand. And that’s a tough job. And so I don’t want you to feel like you’re not doing a good job. I think it’s a really unique position to be in, and it’s a very privileged position to be able to bring these folks forward and provide this platform. And so I just wanted to acknowledge that work that you do and that it’s really important.

Speaker 1 (16:00):

Matt, Mel, back at you. I mean, I really appreciate what you all do, and I would be thrilled if you ever want to interview, I’d be happy to facilitate the conversations in the context. It’s really true what you’re saying. I mean, so Tola Moon from Cambodia, who’s one of the first people I interviewed, I mean, there are many of us in the international community who see Tola as this really incredibly brilliant strategist, and he’s very low key. And his organization, the Center for the Alliance of Human Rights and Labor is currently under threat that the Cambodian government might shut them down for an analytic report that they put out about a program being run called Better Factories Cambodia by the International Labor Organization and by the International Finance Corporation. And it’s an analytic report. They’re not trash talking. They did their research and anyway, so much respect. And whenever I interview him, he ends it by saying, thank you so much. It’s always so inspiring to talk to you. I’m thinking, you’ve got to be kidding me. You’re so much more inspiring than anything I’ve ever done. I’m just some small town kid who’s fascinated by

(17:24)
What other people do,

Speaker 2 (17:25):

Right? I mean, that’s the same thing here. Folks are like, oh, you’re so cool. You do all this great work. And it’s like, oh man, if you could listen to yourself, I hope you listen back to this episode and understand how intelligent and charismatic and hopeful these workers are. And the thing about work, about wage work in any context at any place in the world in this system is that it is designed to make you feel inferior, to make you feel like you don’t belong or that your contribution doesn’t matter and that you’re just another nut and bolt in this giant machine. And that’s it. The reality is that workers in every context are whole people who care a lot about what they do, who care a lot about the contributions that they have, particularly in the global supply chain. I had this experience when I was talking to railroad workers is that from an outside perspective, you wouldn’t think that folks would be able to feel like they can rise above the drudgery, I suppose.

(18:33)
But the reality is, whether it’s railroad workers, whether it’s farm workers in Southern California, in central California, there is this pride in the work that you do and the contribution that you have to keeping the world running. And that’s something that bosses really don’t believe is a reality, which I feel like is kind of like an ace in the hole for us when we’re organizing, is to say, when you assign and really believe in the dignity of your work and you assert your dignity as a worker, you kind of throw ’em back on their heels a little bit. As the organizing continues, there’s such a rich tapestry of how we interact with the jobs that we do, and it’s really beautiful to kind of be in a space and begin to sort of peel back those layers in conversation as we do as podcast hosts and researchers, and to see the moments click where I guests really start to believe what they’re saying, not that they didn’t believe it before, but that they’re coming to this better realization as they’re trying to tell strangers in our audience about the work that they do. That yeah, it is important. There’s no piece of it that is not, and that is a really gratifying piece of what I do and what you do, I’m sure as a host, facilitating these conversations. So

Speaker 1 (19:59):

Yeah, I will say the last one I should shout out from the first series who I didn’t mention yet, is my dear friend Ana actor from the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity. And she is, I mean, she definitely is an amazing speaker. She’s actually quite well known now, amazing organizer. In fifth grade, her dad got sick and she went to work in the apparel factories. And what that woman has done with the fifth grade education, she is just continued to self-educate herself. She just is brilliant. I mean, her capacities on so many levels, and then her ability to inspire is just, it’s pretty incredible. And I have to think about more women leaders to include, although in the phishing sector, I have to get to the processing sector. That’s my next hope, because right now we don’t have a lot of women in live capture phishing.

Speaker 2 (21:03):

Yeah. Well, that’s a good segue actually. Let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about this second series. You have four episodes out, I believe, right?

(21:13)
Yeah. Hey, that’s amazing given the breadth of work that you’re doing. So this is focusing on Fisher organizers and the advancement of workers’ rights in both large and small scale fishing industries from around the world. I believe your last episode, you were talking to fishers in Indonesia, if I’m not mistaken, maybe a good way to kind of orient our listeners in this research and with these workers. Can you share a little bit about the conditions that they’re currently laboring under? I know that’s a broad loaded question, but can we kind of give them a little bit of context into what the sort of both large and small scale global fishing industry looks like? I imagine a lot of our American listeners may think of global fisheries and may immediately go to, I don’t know, deadliest catch or something, a very unique American sort of fishery that maybe doesn’t look the same elsewhere. So let’s start there.

Speaker 1 (22:21):

Okay. So global fisheries, the majority of them are at capacitor overfished, and they are environmentally, there’s a struggle to make them sustainable. And the environmental, so environmental advocates around the world have been working on this for a long time. However, in 2014, actually even before that, there were some small exposes, but in 2014, major media outlets like the New York Times and the Guardian and the AP came out with a series of stories about forced labor on the Thai fleet. And then there were also stories appearing about forced labor on the Chinese fleet, the Taiwanese fleet vessels showing up in South Africa in Australia, Indonesian migrant fishers just walking off the vessel saying, we’ve been slaves on that vessel help us, or other vessels that were pulled aside for illegal unreported and unregulated fishing, IUU fishing, which to the environmentalists, to their credit, have been working for a long time on illegal unreported, unregulated fishing.

(23:38)
And that has brought some cases in where fishing vessels were detained for fishing illegally, and then the forced labor was discovered. So the story that I have from Hatto from SBMI in Indonesia, the largest migrant worker union in Indonesia, they were asked to go and help the fishers who were stranded in South Africa. And then what they discovered is the Indonesian government, the way the laws were set up, they couldn’t get these fishers, the support they needed. And so then that begat a whole body of work for them. But globally, starting around 2014 with all of these exposes, the one in South Africa, the ones on the Thai fleet, there were other cases all around Southeast Asia, the global community started to mobilize, and they really started reacting to forced labor on these vessels. It is horrific. I mean, there are stories of fishers stranded at sea for 15 years.

(24:52)
That’s probably one of the outside timeframes, but there are others who are out there for more. And then of course there are others who don’t come back who are killed at sea or they die from an illness at sea, and then their body is buried at sea, which is something that’s very traumatic for a lot of these people. For the Indonesians, it’s very traumatic, particularly I talked about that with Hato. And the campaigns that have surged from there have focused a lot on forced labor and illegal fishing, and it really brought a lot more work to support fishers and migrant fishers. I want to stop there. So in case you want to ask another question, but there’s so much work to be done just to address that forced labor. However, the thing I got from talking with people like or SA Karn, is we can rescue forced labor victims for decades to come, but it’ll never stop happening until we organize the fishers, until we enable them to stand up to the captain, we enable them to get remedy when they’re not paid, and we enable them to build the social movement that challenges these laws.

Speaker 2 (26:17):

That’s kind of where I was headed in my own thinking. You talk about these exposes in 2014 on that are trying to tackle one issue and pulling back and peeling away layers of what seems to me to be a wholly systemic industry-wide practice of forced labor, the industry in this region and elsewhere. And that in itself feels like an overwhelming sort of experience in its breadth, in its scope in how many fishermen past, present, future may be affected by this. And so I think a good question to ask then is as this organizing has been happening, more concerted organizing has been happening over the last 10 years or so, have there been some campaigns that you’ve spoken with fishers about that they consider to be successes or effective or moving the needle and in a good direction in terms of these organizing objectives?

Speaker 1 (27:28):

Yeah, so I think the first couple interviews I did are with the International Transport Workers Federation and the Fisher Rights Network in Thailand. So the ITF has been helping to set up at port and at multiple ports in Thailand fisher organizations. And so the Fisher Rights Network is growing. Again, as I said, they’re not able to form a union technically, but that doesn’t keep them from forming basically a worker center and from pursuing negotiations with the employers. What’s happening a lot in this space is you have a lot of funding and a lot of people with goodwill who are focused on the forced labor. And it’s important work. If you have been forced to be at sea for two years and you haven’t been paid, or if you have a family member stranded at sea and you just want to get them back, it’s crucial work, right? It’s absolutely crucial,

Speaker 2 (28:37):

But it doesn’t stop there. We need

Speaker 1 (28:38):

To talk about the also the and the also and right, so I’m not saying yeah, but I’m saying also and right, we need that work, but that work needs to connect in. And you have a lot of NGOs that do that work that don’t necessarily connect in. So there are some efforts now to connect these pieces together. And I think with migrant fishers, it’s a challenge to learn how to organize. They don’t come from organizing backgrounds for the most part except for the exceptions of the people who are leading some of these efforts. And so how do you bring this consciousness of what it means to organize what it means to work with your fellow fishers? I hope that you’ll get to talk directly with John Harto from the ITF who’s been organizing now going on a decade in Thailand, not quite a decade, but to hear it through his perspective as a former teamster, as an American, it’s quite moving.

(29:42)
But the bravery of these fishers who continue to organize, and I don’t want to tell the story that he tells, but to hear him tell the story of the fisher that inspires him every day is just, it’s pretty jaw dropping because the guy should have died at sea and he didn’t, and he continues to organize, but that one fisher is standing up to his boss and continuing to organize. That’s what the movement’s built on. And I think, Mel, I’m not a trade unionist from history. I’ve always been on the NGO side, although I’ve always been in solidarity with and supporting worker organizing, and I’ve definitely been very deeply involved in worker centers and Latin America, but I think a lot of people beyond the labor movement don’t fully appreciate what it takes to organize the day in the day out and what it means to have your momentum crushed by a fake solution. And that’s what’s happening a lot in global supply chain solutions. So yes, absolutely, we want to get remedy for fishers who have been victims of forced labor. Yes, we want to rescue victims of forced labor, but we need to build from there to the next step of enabling fishers to defend each other.

Speaker 2 (31:16):

Right? Well, the industry moves on because the workers are going to be participating in the industry as folks begin to really truly put up that fence that says that forced labor is not the way forward. So then what are the rights of the workers now that they are getting paid now that they have some movement now that they can get off these boats? It moves beyond that and creates a new culture of worker dignity in these industries. And I agree. My experience in union organizing prior to this current job where I actually am a card carrying member of CWA News Guild now was organizing in the IWW as a freelance journalist. And for folks who aren’t union organizers or maybe have never worked in any sort of quote organizing group, whether that’s political organizing, whether that’s union organizing, whether that’s, oh, I don’t know, community meetings, quite a bit of it is, what’s a good way to put it, bureaucratic drudgery sometimes.

(32:27)
It’s a lot of really hopeful, really optimistic, really intelligent, really passionate people butting heads often, at least in the West. And there’s a lot of people on the outside of these organizing groups who really don’t want to see you succeed and will do really horrible things to make your job 10 times harder because what’s that really? Well-known Stokely Carmichael quote in, for example, in order for non-violence to happen, your opponent must have a heart. Essentially. We’re coming up against corporations, we’re coming up against nonprofits even I’m lucky to be at one where folks walk the walk and talk the talk, but that’s not always the case where individuals in positions of power really don’t want to share that power with a workforce. And so organizing is really difficult to try and get the folks who sign your paychecks, who create these conditions in your workplace to see you as a human being is extraordinarily difficult, which is always surprising.

(33:36)
And to also bring people in who have never experienced collective organization before and empower them to make decisions and to participate and to activate them and to keep them activated and to keep their spirits up and to do all of this in order to continue to push forward in what is a marathon, a long game is very difficult. And I cannot imagine what it’s like to be in an industry that I has its baseline as the complete and utter dehumanization of its workers, forcing them into situations for 15 years, forced slave labor, and then to pull these individuals out of this enforced culture of oppression, empower them, and then continue to empower them to assert themselves and the dignity of their work collectively. It’s got to be unreal, both in just the scope and difficulty of it, but also in the sort of payoff. And I can imagine that there’s some serious euphoria of the winds that happen that keep individuals moving forward, right? It’s got to be life affirming, truly, to see that needle move a little bit year after year,

Speaker 1 (35:03):

Even just to build community in migrant communities that are moving a lot. I mean, these are not stable work teams,

(35:15)
So how do you build community? So you talked about layers earlier, Mel, and I think we could talk about the layers of fear factor that happen whenever you’re organizing and you know that your boss doesn’t want you to organize, you feel threatened, but add to that the layer that your identity papers being held by the captain of your vessel. And so you’ve come into port and you’re allowed to leave the vessel, but if you leave the vessel, they don’t give you your papers and then they might report you if you don’t come back. So you have to get back on that vessel, add to that, that you’re indebted to the captain because you didn’t pay the recruiter that brought you over, but instead there’s money coming out of your paycheck that’s reimbursing the vessel owner for you getting over to get that job. I mean, the payment for a job is just another whole crazy level of abuse that happens in this industry.

(36:18)
And then add to that, your language inability in the country you’re in as a migrant, it just keeps adding on. And I’ll say, you said earlier that it’s become systemic. I mean, that’s absolutely true. So Indonesian migrants and they migrant fishers are disproportionately made up of Indonesian migrant fishers, at least all the cases that come in of forced labor and abuse. And the Indonesians that I have spoken with and the organizers I’ve spoken with, it’s standard procedure for them to go abroad, sign a two year contract. So they sign a two year contract on a Korean, Chinese, Taiwanese fleet generally, and then they’re supposed to get paid electronically, and that money’s supposed to go to their family or to them, however they set it up, but then they’re at sea and they don’t have access to wifi, and they have no way to see if they got paid. They have no way to communicate with their families. So our friends at Global Labor Justice, they’re supporting a campaign with Taiwan. The Indonesian fishers in Taiwan got together and started a campaign called Wifi for Fishers now, and they have slogans like No wifi, no wife, because imagine you’re gone for two years. Your wife didn’t get any money, didn’t hear from you,

(37:43)
You

Speaker 2 (37:44):

Don’t know. Might assume you’re dead. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (37:46):

Yeah. And so they really, they’re trying to figure out a lot of these vessels. They have digital tracking, they have satellite, they have the capacity to provide the wifi. In fact, there are even places where they get into range of wifi access and the captain will take their phones away. They don’t want them to communicate. So the fact that they’re on a two year contract, the fact that there’s transshipment at sea so that the fish get off, but the fishers don’t, and then often they will pull into a port and they can’t use port services because they’re not legal, they’re not allowed to go, their documents are held back. So it’s not like they can get off at port and go run to the embassy and say, I need help. I’m being trapped. I mean, that just, it’s not that easy.

Speaker 2 (38:40):

One comparison that I keep coming up in as we’re talking about this, particularly about migrant status, about language barriers, about the barriers to really free movement on these boats, you hear a lot of the same concerns from organizers who are working with United Farm workers and the migrant farm workers who are working in farms in Southern and central California in Arizona along the border, a lot of them will cross the border without the appropriate visa paperwork. They’re taken advantage of by the farms that hire them. They’re housed in these often cramped, scary conditions in the middle of the desert or wherever they’re being housed. They’re subjected to extreme heat. And the farms themselves, if they’re unorganized, because some of the farms are organized and do have a relationship with UFW as a union will really kind of give and take however much they want because there’s no consequences.

(39:57)
Oftentimes the government’s not going to step in a way that’s useful a lot of times because the individuals who could investigate these claims, the agencies are underfunded deliberately or otherwise. There’s just not enough people to go around to show up at these places to investigate these issues. I imagine that a lot of this is the same because you’re in the middle of the ocean and even if you get claims about workplace conditions and being abysmal or abuses happening on these boats, it’s likely pretty freaking difficult for these governments to step in international waters. So you have all of these complications. So the point I’m trying to make is what it comes down to is the workers themselves that they are the ones who are collectively able to address, call out these issues, address these issues, force consequences for these issues. And that is no small feat when you’re talking about fleets of boats in the middle of the ocean

Speaker 1 (41:00):

And the distant water fleet is so hard to police and regulate, and increasingly countries don’t allow foreign vessels in their waters, but that doesn’t mean they’re not overfishing. So the Indonesian fishers, I have an interview coming up with aren’t on from salute in North s Lui, and he talks about organizing at port, both for fishers on the Indonesian domestic fleet and the Indonesians going abroad on the distant water fleet. And Indonesia, a number of years ago, said, no more foreign vessels in our waters. But now you have a domestic fleet that pays even worse, but the conditions are terrible. They’re not well financed. They’re overfishing still the same waters that were, they booted out the Korean fishers to try and let their fish recuperate, but they didn’t. They basically continue to overfish. So it’s really a struggle. And then you have the fishers who would, because you can make so little money on the domestic fleet, they’re willing to take that risk of going abroad for two years and not being in contact with anyone. But listening to you now, Mel, I’m thinking we need to find a way to, first, with all the organizing that’s happening now, enable the fishers to sit down and reimagine how this could be. If we could imagine a world where migrant fishers, whenever the vessel comes into port and the ITF is saying it should be every three months, you should be coming into port at minimum.

(42:37)
And if those fissures in whatever port they’re at are able to access communications and support, it could be a completely different world. It is doable, but it takes an amount of coordination because you’ve got whatever country is flying the flag of the vessel, and there’s abuse of the flag registrations, which the ITF has a great campaign on flags of convenience, it’s worth looking at. But then you also have the port that the vessel comes into, and then you have the market state. That’s generally the US and Japan and Europe where we have some

Speaker 2 (43:14):

Influence,

Speaker 1 (43:15):

But we haven’t really been exerting it yet. There was a big campaign of global buyers and retailers saying, supporting the employer pays principle. And we looked into that. I worked with some students last year and did some research on the employer pays principle and companies support it. They support the principle, but they have no way to implement it, and they’re not financing it. So basically the buyer or the retailer, it’s just like in the global apparel supply chains, they’re saying to the vessels they buy from, go do this, but they’re not helping finance it. They’re not going to be steady buyers from those vessels that change their policies. They’re not really taking responsibility for bega the change in the sector.

Speaker 2 (44:07):

Well, there’s no incentive for that. There’s no incentive for it. There’s no consequences for not doing it, right.

Speaker 1 (44:14):

There’s only organizing pressure really. I mean, we can talk consumers, but it’s not penetrating in the way that we need it to.

Speaker 2 (44:21):

Right? Well, this is the sort of idealist, internationalist, anarchist in me, God forbid, hopefully some of my listeners don’t get mad at me for this, but it’s like, what would be great if we could just get rid of all of these borders that make this shit impossible? Pardon my language. Maybe a truly international community would benefit greatly from not having extra border barriers that make this impossible for individuals to stop off somewhere, contact family, I don’t know, get justice for the abuses they suffer in the middle of the ocean. That’s an extremely reductive idealist position for me to take. But when you hear these kinds of problems, you’re like, why? A lot of these could be solved with the air quotes, relatively simple solutions, right?

Speaker 1 (45:15):

I don’t know, Mel, I’m with you. I mean, capital’s treat across borders. They’re very unfettered. I mean, there are some regulations and some things they need to go through. We could do something if you were to treat migration equally to the people migration to capital, if you created regulations that were as facilitative, things would shift and change. Yes, it’s idealist, but 30 years ago I was working on Latin America and the impact of the US drug trade in Latin American and on human rights, and I never could have imagined we’d see the day that we’re in now with marijuana being legal, if somebody doesn’t rethink migration in a more radical way, I don’t know that we’re going to get there. So keep rethinking it. I’m way out of my depth and all the different repercussions. I mean, not so out of

Speaker 3 (46:20):

My depth,

Speaker 1 (46:21):

But I mean we would need another five hours to even start to hash out all the different repercussions because there’s a big cultural element to how do you mix different peoples and cultures and over time, and that is a segue to something I do want to mention is I’ve been doing this work starting on the egregious abuses of forced labor, but always with this eye too. We can’t just stay there. That’s like just looking at the tip of the iceberg, because the causal factors are really the inability of the fishers to have a voice, to organize, to bargain collectively. The phenomenal amount of discrimination they suffer day in and day out because as migrants, and at the same time, we can’t look at the seafood industry only through the lens of the distant water fleet. What I would hate to see is buyers and retailers finally addressing this piece, the tip of the iceberg, and not addressing the causal factors or the rest of the seafood industry.

Speaker 2 (47:30):

They would treat it as like a checked box. We’ve done our due diligence. Look at this

Speaker 1 (47:35):

Amazing work we did in this one piece, because I will tell you the future episodes I’m hoping to do with Fisher organizers. I’m looking at organizing in coastal fishing in Africa and Latin America, and there you’ve got a lot of tensions coming up between the industrial fleet and the coastal fishers who are really largely fishing for food security. So much of the global movement, the mechanisms we have as a global movement are trade related. And if you only look at what can I change using trade policy or global corporate policy, you’re going to miss this other layer. And with the seafood industry, these two butt up against each other, so you have the industrial fleet that’s further off the coast, that’s mostly is more likely to be doing export. And so we have mechanisms and policies that we can bring to bear on countries to change how that industrial fleet’s governed,

Speaker 3 (48:38):

But

Speaker 1 (48:39):

We need to also be looking at that coastal fleet because those coastal fishers, they’re managing the waters, the fisheries, they’re really providing it’s food security. What they’re doing, and this is where I really get to the cultural rights. Sorry, it was a long segue. It was long. It’s okay. But when you talk to coastal fishers, this is not just about livelihood and food security. This is a way of life for centuries for a lot of these people. And I think a lot of people think, oh, we just have to fish last along the coast. It’s like, well, maybe there’s got to be a different path because this is their way of life and we’re really threatening something much more profound than what we would be threatening if we’re curbing the industrial vision.

Speaker 2 (49:31):

Right? Important conversations and important nuance to this entire topic. I’m actually really looking forward to future episodes that you do, and I think this is kind of a great place where we can kind of close out our conversation. Can you share with our listeners where they can find your work? We’re going to be putting links to the Labor Link podcast in our show notes. Are there maybe one or two representative episodes of the last two seasons that you think our audience would be interested in or an episode that’s a good maybe primer for the second series that any of our interested audience members can kind of start with?

Speaker 1 (50:14):

Yeah. I think for the Fisher Driven solutions this current season, start with the first one with John Harto. As much as I’m really working to enable people to listen to the Fisher organizers, I think John will really get everybody thinking about what these fishers brave they are. This is really choosing among my children here now that’s D, listen to it all. Yeah,

(50:48)
They’re all fun stories. I mean, because then it segues to the Fisher Rights Network where they’re really, I mean, these guys are really, they have to be so crafty because like we talked about the fear factors, these trying to organize when and build trust with people who are so fearful. It’s phenomenal work that they’re doing. And then of course, Hoya, who’s also from Central and Cambodia organizing migrant fishers in Thailand from the Cambodians, and he’s got a fascinating story to tell. He was originally there as a Buddhist monk, and then he left and started organizing migrants. It’s just another amazing story. And then the one that is really fun and most recent is, and people should check this out, so it’s with Harto from SBMI in Indonesia, and there’s a little piece in there with Charlie Fritz from Greenpeace, and they’re talking about a film called Before You Eat that they produce with Greenpeace that really, if you want visuals on this stuff, check out before you eat or check out Outlaw Ocean. But okay, here I am promoting everybody else but my own show, and given that we share a producer, I better get on with it.

(52:09)
So the way to find the Labor Link podcast, we are on Spotify and we also set up a website, so maybe it’s easier for some people. Labor Link podcast.org. You can find us through the Labor Radio Podcast network and on Spotify, and also go to labor link podcast.org.

Speaker 2 (52:31):

Cool. Cool, cool. Yeah, we’ll put all of those links in the show notes so that folks can check out Judy’s work and stay up to date on what’s happening. The process of putting together a podcast is extremely difficult. We make it seem easy, but it’s definitely not. There’s a lot of work that goes into it, and one of those things is really promoting episodes that folks see them. So we’ll be adding a bunch of links to those episodes because they are incredible conversations, and you absolutely will find something interesting and impactful in what you’re listening to. And this will be my final note before we get to the closing paragraph here, but one thing that I learned in the research that I did for the National Supply Chain Network as it relates to railroaders, is that things that seem boring on their face really are pretty intricate, interesting and precarious when it comes to the supply chains, both nationally and internationally. You might go a little crazy going down that rabbit hole to realize just how precarious global supply chain networks actually are. I’m sure folks can remember the ever given Suez Canal disaster and how that completely choked up the global supply chain almost immediately, right

Speaker 1 (53:53):

In the middle of the pandemic.

Speaker 2 (53:54):

Yes. And how long it took to recover from that. Just one small piece can kind of knock the card pyramid down. So if you find that your knee-jerk reactions to say, oh, that boring stuff, then peel back a little bit of the onion there and take some time to look into it because it becomes endlessly fascinating, infuriating, enraging, and ultimately, you begin to see these sort of moments and spaces for productive and transformative organizing when you start to understand these systems. So that’ll be my final little note here. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Judy, please come back anytime. Let’s link up and continue talking and talking with folks and send me all the interviews that you can. I can’t wait to speak to the folks that you speak to. Thank you so much. Thanks for coming on.

Speaker 1 (54:53):

Yeah, thank you so much, Mel, and thank you for the show that you all produce. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (54:57):

Yeah, yeah. I appreciate the work that you do as well. And as always, I want to thank you all our listeners for listening, and thank you so much for caring. We’ll see you all back here next week for another episode of Working People. And if you can’t wait that long, then go subscribe to our Patreon and check out the awesome bonus episodes we’ve got there for our patrons. And please go explore all the great work that we’re doing at The Real News Network where we do grassroots journalism, lifting up the voices and stories from the front lines of struggle. Sign up for the Real News Newsletter so that you never miss a story and help us do more work like this by going to the real news.com/donate and becoming a supporter today. Once again, I’m Mel er and with much love and solidarity, I’ll see you next time.

On Monday, Oct. 21, 2,400 behavior health workers at Kaiser Permanente’s Southern California locations walked off the job in their ongoing struggle for a fair contract. Over the summer, negotiations between the health system and the bargaining committee, represented by the National Union of Healthcare Workers, failed to close the gap between their proposals, opening the door for a strike. The workers are now well into their second week on strike.

The healthcare giant refuses to bargain seriously with the workers, offering paltry raises instead of agreeing to the workers’ demands for better pay, pensions, and safer staffing levels at the Kaiser mental health clinics in and around Southern California. These gains, the union believes, would allow Kaiser to compete with other health systems, drastically improve patient care quality, and solve many of the scheduling issues that have plagued the health system since before the start of the pandemic.

The union hopes that by striking, they can show management that they are serious about securing a fair contract for their members. Last week, on the first day of the strike, Mel sat down with Chris Reeves and Lisa Caroll, two behavioral health workers who work in Los Angeles and San Diego, respectively, to talk about the state of negotiations, what workers are demanding, and how it feels to be out on the picket line in the struggle for a fair contract.

Additional links/info below:

• NUHW’s Strike Announcement Release
• Donate to the NUHW Mental Health Workers’ Strike Fund
• Stay up-to-date on the strike here
• Check out TRNN’s previous coverage of Kaiser workers striking in the east coast

Permanent links below:

• Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!
• Labor Radio / Podcast Network website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• In These Times website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• The Real News Network website, YouTube channel, podcast feeds, Facebook page, and Twitter page

Featured Music:
Jules Taylor, “Working People” Theme Song
Studio Production: Max Alvarez

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Lisa Carroll:

I am Lisa Carroll. I’m a licensed clinical social worker. I work at San Diego Medical Center in the ICU. I also am on the executive board for NUHW, the Southern California division, and I also am the medical steward for all the medical social workers that are in the San Diego area, both inpatient and outpatient. I also have a wonderful partner over in Care at home. She’s a new steward and I’ve been mentoring her this past year just because the work is so important, ensuring people up is so important. I’ve been with Kaiser 17 years and I’ve been a steward for 15 of those years.

Chris Reeves:

My name is Christian. I am a registered nurse at Kaiser. I’ve worked there for about six years. I’m a union steward and I’m also a member of the bargaining committee.

Mel Buer:

Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Working People. I’m your host, Mel Buer. Working People is a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class today. Brought to you in partnership within these Times magazine and the Real News Network produced by Jules Taylor and made possible by the support of listeners like You. Working People is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast network. If you love what we do and are looking for more worker and labor focused shows like ours, follow the link in the show notes and go check out the other great shows in our network and please support the work we’re doing here at Working People because we can’t keep going without you. Share our episodes with your coworkers, friends and family members. Leave positive reviews of the show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and reach out to us if you have recommendations for working folks you’d like us to talk to.

And please support the work we do at The Real News by going to the real news.com/donate, especially if you want to see more reporting from the front lines of struggle around the US and across the world. On October 21st, after contract talks broke down, 2,400 behavioral health workers with Kaiser Health System in Southern California walked off the job on strike in a bid to bring their employers back to the table and negotiate a decent contract. In the first week of the strike, the union joined two bargaining sessions with the healthcare provider in an attempt to close the gap between proposals while workers continue to walk the picket lines at multiple locations in Los Angeles and San Diego. Chief among their demands is for Kaiser to secure safe staffing levels and reduce appointment wait times for their patients, as well as bring parity between the Southern California workers and their Northern California counterparts in pay retirement benefits and scheduling.

As it stands, SoCal workers are suffering under worse working conditions than their counterparts in the north. Bargaining for these gains however, has been difficult with the employer consistently bringing unsatisfactory proposals to the table. In a recent press release sent to the media on Monday October 28th, the union provided an update after bargaining once again broke down with Kaiser on the 25th contract. Bargaining has broken off after Kaiser Permanente negotiators on Friday. Once again invited workers to the table only to offer practically nothing new. While Kaiser’s nearly 2,400 mental health professionals are seeking the same amount of time as their counterparts in Northern California for critical patient care responsibilities that can’t be done during appointments, as well as the same pension benefits that Kaiser provides nearly all of its other California employees. Kaiser’s primary new proposal in bargaining on Friday was an additional 25 cents per hour for bilingual workers With me today to discuss the contract negotiations and the strike are Chris Reeves, a psychiatric RN with Kaiser and Lisa Carroll, a licensed clinical social worker and medical social worker with Kaiser. Thanks for coming on the show.

Chris Reeves:

Thank you for having us. Yes, thank you for having us.

Mel Buer:

You guys have been on the picket line all day. How are you feeling after the first day on strike?

Lisa Carroll:

Think physically a little challenged, but I think mentally and emotionally. It was for in San Diego, it was really good turnout, really good energy, really good media coverage, really good political support. So I would say it was a great first day and we even had nurses come out from Unac and a couple clerks come out from Local 30 to walk with us, picket with us during their clocked out time. So it was a really positive first day.

Mel Buer:

Great. How about you, Chris? How was your first day?

Chris Reeves:

I completely agree. It was actually very invigorating. Even though I’m extremely tired, I feel fired up. I think a lot of us really just kind of fed off of each other and really just felt the energy. There was a lot of energy, a lot of passion out there, a lot of frustration that we were able to get out, but it was very inspiring to see everyone come together. We had a really awesome turnout at LAMC today, and a lot of support from the public as well, so that was really nice to see and experience.

Mel Buer:

That’s really great. I think before we get too far into the weeds of the strike itself, I think it would be a really good place to start perhaps maybe to kind of discuss the makeup of the unit. So there are 2,400 behavioral health professionals in this Southern California unit. Can you kind of speak to the types of job titles, professions, what kind of your day-to-Day work looks like within the unit?

Lisa Carroll:

In medical social work, you’ll have people that are social workers in a hospital, you’ll have social workers that are in an outpatient clinic. You’ll have social workers that are working with hospice, home health, palliative care. So one of the reporters today said to me, because I work in the ICU, well what does an ICU social worker do? And I said, all the things that the doctors and nurses don’t do and shouldn’t be doing. I mean, they have medical things that they need to do, but if somebody’s ended up in an ICU, needless to say, either they’ve had an acute event or they have a chronic condition that has brought them there. And so they need social, emotional, financial, legal, psychiatric, behavioral health support as does their family because while the medical folks are putting the person back together again with a plan for stability, I have to do that for their life. So that coincides so that when they leave the hospital, they’re able to see a pathway to supporting themselves, their families, things like that.

Chris Reeves:

Yeah, so I work in the Pan City area. It’s a pretty large service area and it’s made up of two clinics. And among inside those two clinics, it’s an outpatient behavioral health centers and addiction medicine as well, which is made up of licensed clinical social workers, marriage, family therapists, psychiatric nurses, psychologists who are used in a very specific and specialized capacity as well as I think I mentioned psychiatrists, the physicians. So it’s a huge team. It’s everything under the sun. We also have medical social workers as well. And so we’re divided in teams. We have a team of what we call return therapists who are seeing patients. Usually it should be weekly or biweekly, but because of the poor access that our clinic has chronically suffered for many, many years, most patients are only able to be seen once every four to six weeks, sometimes eight weeks, sometimes longer by those return therapists.

We also have a BIOS group who really sees the patients who are more acute. We’ve seen some changes to that too because all those programs are very impacted. And so those are the providers, the social workers, therapists who are providing group services, case management for ongoing and more frequent follow up care for addiction medicine. There are addiction medicine counselors also. We do have physicians that work in that department managing the gamut of substance abuse and obviously psychiatric and substance abuse. A lot of times they go hand in hand. Those are very complex patients. I personally work more so directly with the psychiatrist and supporting them. They have extremely large caseloads. They actually have no caps on their caseloads. And so we have pediatric and adult psychiatrists, some who also have more specialized care such as eating disorder. And so the psychiatric nurses there really support patient messaging specifically all of the messages that are coming in via telephone or call centers as well as the physician emails.

And so our primary role is to complete assessments to provide education, to also do follow-up medication, follow-up, answer questions and address issues. Patients who are experiencing acute episodes, especially if they’re having exacerbations of their symptoms, patients whose symptoms are not well managed on their medications and really in the last several years doing a lot of care management through the phone and through messaging because a lot of our patients are on wait lists and are not able to see their providers. And so that is the bulk of our job. We do work with the interdisciplinary team and we get messages from our therapists and social workers, and we do provide follow-up for patients who have seen their therapists who are having untreated symptoms as related to medication or side effects, things of that nature. So we also have to follow up on those things. And last, I don’t think I mentioned, we do have a team of crisis therapists as well who work in the department, so we also work closely with that group as well.

So just from hearing both of you describe your respective spaces in behavioral health within the Kaiser system, that’s a lot of work to have to pay attention to. That’s a lot of focus on patient care as it should be. Right. I think this is a good place to sort of hone in on what’s been going on in your negotiation since July. So you’ve been negotiating a contract since the end of July, and what you’re asking for in regards to some of your proposals, especially as it relates to caseloads, as it relates to better quality of patient care without, I dunno, burnout ruining the caregiver’s life in terms of just time spent and pay for that kind of work. Lisa, can you kind of speak to some of those proposals and what the union is asking for?

Lisa Carroll:

I think one of the things that I wanted to start with is even before bargaining, the union leadership met with Kaiser leadership and Kaiser initiated that meeting and they asked us, what will it take to restore the partnership with your union? And we were very clear with the same three asks that were consistently repeating, which is in 2015, they unilaterally took away all of our new hires pensions as a punitive action because we had raised the mental health access and denial and lack of care and all the suicides and everything to Sacramento. And so we had to be, I guess, taught a lesson. They refer to it as bad behavior. They think we’re behaving badly again right now. The second part of that is that we are not asking for anything that any of the other labor unions don’t already have. So whether it’s the service and tech units or the nurses units, we’re asking for the same type of wage increases that they’ve received.

And there have been multiple periods of time where we’ve been given nothing five years here a year here. So over time, our wage scale has really eroded. So I know one of the things Kaiser has said in the news is that they’re paying us, I think 18% over market rate. I have no idea what numbers they’re talking about because we have to compete for the same group of people to come work for Kaiser, as does Sharp Scripps and UCSD in San Diego, and they have all equal or exceeded Kaiser’s wage scale. So either somebody’s not doing their job or I don’t know how to explain that, but that’s a real problem. UCSD still offers a pension, so we’re not able to attract, recruit, retain people. One of the things we did in a past contract, which Chris would remember, is we set these pathways so that you could bring in people who weren’t licensed, who could work on their license and earn their hours, and then hopefully that would be a way of attracting and recruiting and retaining employees.

But the workload is so horrific, and the competition is so good that they get their licenses and they leave and they feel really badly about it because they’ve been a part of a team. I think the only thing that we really have going for us is sort of lifeboat mentality. We all have been in this lifeboat together. We have all fought together. We all want to stay together and we want to navigate this lifeboat into better waters, but I can’t stand in the way of somebody choosing to leave where they’re going to get better compensation and a better work life. So for myself as an example, I cover an ICU and a step down unit that’s roughly 40 beds when the pediatric social worker who also covers a telemetry unit is off, I also cover her beds. So I’m expected to cover anywhere from 40 to 80 beds on any given day. And so that’s child abuse reporting. That’s a PS reporting, that’s finding a representative for somebody who no longer can cognitively designated representative and getting access to their funds to pay for long-term care. That’s getting people connected to dialysis centers. That’s getting people connected to transplant coordinators.

We also do a lot of goals of care conversations in my particular area as well as pediatrics, depending on how ill they are. And we have to be able to refer to our home care partners in home health, our palliative care or hospice, their staff has been cut in half as a savings effort for that department, which just means profit. There’s no savings. Kaiser members pay for these benefits and then they’re denied care. And they wanted, Christopher will remember this from the bargaining table, they wanted the hospice people to see five patients a day. Well, I don’t know if you’re aware of how big San Diego County is, but unless they live in the same cul-de-sac, that would actually be physically impossible. And the way the regulations read is that they must be seen by a licensed clinical social worker that there is an assessment that’s required within 30 days, actually really within the first week to 10 days of service.

And so those things are not happening. So that’s actually Medicare fraud, and I don’t know what part of being investigated, they don’t understand, but they’re making this whole thing so very public that we will make things very public too. And it all could have been avoided. We were happy to have this conversation at the bargaining table, but the proposals, well, I wouldn’t even say Kaiser has come back. They’ve maybe proposed two or three things that they’ve spent time on that are fit onto a half of a page. Not a lot of thought went into that. And those offerings are very, wouldn’t you say, Chris? Very 2020 2021. I mean, they don’t reflect the economy that we have in Southern California or the wages necessary to maintain housing and live in Southern California. So that’s what’s been going on at the bargaining table. Our group, NUHW, has just done such a fantastic job working on proposals, trying to come back with counter proposals, trying to achieve agreement.

And pretty much what we get from Kaiser is deny, deny, deny. This is something they keep repeating. We’re happy with the way things are. So they’re happy with three month waits for medical appointments, three week waits, six week waits, three month waits in psychiatry for appointments. This is viewed, our professional group is viewed as a non-money maker. So it’s okay that it’s a factory that churns out and spits out labor people because they don’t want to spend the money. And that sends a very distorted and hurtful message to Kaiser’s members because their purchasing a benefit that they’re not going to receive its deception.

Chris, do you want to speak more about the conditions that you’re seeing in Los Angeles and really about this? Let’s hone in on this conversation about Kaiser’s members are paying for this benefit, and Kaiser itself is making access to this benefit for its membership nearly impossible, while also making the ability for the providers themselves to be able to do their jobs just as impossible. So you would think going to the bargaining table that they would be willing to listen to what I’m sure is quite a bit of negative feedback from their own members as well as these proposals to try and solve these issues from its union membership in order to create a better space of care, right?

Chris Reeves:

Yes. Yeah. So as Lisa mentioned, we prepared vigorously months before we actually were able to get bargaining dates from Kaiser. We actually tried to engage with Kaiser in bargaining in early spring because the conditions for our workers were so bad and for our employees were so egregious, and they did not give us any bargaining dates until basically the start of fall, so July 31st. And so since meeting with them, we’ve brought forward many proposals. And like Lisa said, it’s usually met with either complete silence, rejection, not interested, or we like things the way we are. We’d like to keep the current contract language, but the thing that Kaiser is failing to recognize is the things that they’re doing, it’s not working. Them being fined that record 50 million fine. And I believe it was $50 million, right, Lisa from DMHC, that hasn’t changed much in the last year.

And so to be honest, things have gotten worse. I really truly feel like that has just, it started started things getting worse. It was already bad, but things went from bad to worse because then Kaiser was under the microscope and they started implementing all these different tools to kind of get by and manipulate the system. And so that actually put a lot of hardship on our providers because they had to start doing a lot more documentation and doing all of these tools basically to provide protection to Kaiser, but not necessarily to improve patient’s care, their access to care or the quality of care that they’re receiving. And so you’re right, access is impossible. They are paying for, our patients are paying for memberships, and they’re not able to see providers when they want to as often as they need to. Even they’re not able to see the providers according to the standards their own providers have set.

So the provider might say, please come back to me in two months or three months or six months. And you’re seeing patients who are going well beyond that because there’s no appointments right now, the clinic books appointments about three months out and every Monday a new schedule opens up for the providers on a week by week basis. And by Monday morning we’re completely out of appointments because the patients learn that that’s the day you need to call. And they’re basically fighting in line trying to get that appointment. So by Monday afternoon, they’re all gone, which that shouldn’t be the case. I mean, we’re talking about all the appointments are gone for the next three months. And so that’s when we get messages because those clerks are, they don’t know what to do. They don’t want to tell the patient, we can’t do anything for you.

And so they say, oh, talk to the nurse. Maybe they can get you a sooner appointment, but we don’t have any magic keys or access to appointments that just don’t. So what happens is we end up having to assess them and really say, how sick are you and what can we do right now to put a bandaid on it? I often say that, which has truly been the most difficult thing for me and my job, is putting a bandaid over a bullet wound because I realized as important as the work that we do, it’s just a very small piece. And there are just critical things within the foundation of Kaiser mental health system that is just broken and it’s not working. And so as a result of that, we’ve seen a mass exodus between all medical professionals. We’re talking a lot of therapists, there have been doctors, there have been nurses, people who have come on, they’re like, forget this.

Especially the ones who haven’t been invested and trying to see things get better or who have been here long enough to say, you know what? Things just haven’t gotten better. I’ve been here for a long time. It’s not changing. I’m out. But we’ve had a huge high turnover rate, including providers who have left Southern California to go to Northern California because there are a little bit better staffing and retention tools there, including the pension that was maintained. So it’s very interesting, the ability to do our jobs have gotten significantly more difficult. One of the things that Kaiser has done to address their access is to try and take away patient management time. And they want to tell people, the public, that the clinicians are saying, oh, we want to see our patients less. But the truth is, is that they need that time to do their job.

And we’re not asking for anything different than what Kaiser gives to our colleagues, our counterparts, because that time is important to be able to call patients back and answer their messages to address case management things, whether that’s following up with family or facilities coordinating care, filing the necessary and mandated reports such as filing a child protective service report or an adult protective service report. There’s a lot of things that go that are, it’s a part from the things that we do with the patient. And so our clinicians are really having to choose, am I going to sit there and look at my patient and make eye contact and engage, or am I going to try to do both and try to get this note done because I know I don’t have enough time and we’re basically being treated like an assembly line. We’re really working in these factory-like conditions where they don’t have enough time to do their work.

And so with the time that they’re given and they have to make those decisions, but yeah, it’s pretty terrible. Our patients are waiting months to see their doctors sometimes after they’ve gotten their medication adjustment over the phone, that still doesn’t get them an appointment. It gets what they need address maybe in the moment, but it doesn’t mean that it’s going to get them a face-to-face with their provider. And so we’re seeing burnout everywhere, and that’s the reason why we asked Kaiser to come to the bargaining table early on, why we did a lot of preparation on proposals to help address the staffing issues, the workload issues. And then lastly, we are trying to take care of ourselves and our families. We’ve had five years basically of wage increases. We are behind everyone else, and I completely agree with Lisa. I don’t know who is doing the math at Kaiser, but they need to hire someone else.

Mel Buer:

Well, someone who just moved from Los Angeles and who I have a decent job and it’s difficult to plan for a future when you don’t know if you’re going to be able to have a salary that is comparable to the rising cost of living every year over year. I don’t know, man, as kind of a lay person. My mom is in healthcare. And so all throughout my life there have been these sort of at-home conversations about you take care of the workers and the patient care gets better all the time. Right? And it just seems to me as a sort of lay person that this is a logical solution to a serious problem. We’ve seen this problem explode in the age of Covid and what the pandemic did to an already stressed out healthcare system, and especially to the sort of explosion in mental health crises that was accompanied by extreme isolation and these crises both within the workforce at these hospitals and outside of it.

It just seems logical to me that if you want to solve this problem, you would do whatever you could to retain good staff to solve this problem. It just doesn’t. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think I’m sure, and let’s talk about this a little bit, but I’m sure that you’ve had these conversations with folks who are interested in coming to talk to you at the picket line and perhaps before, and any sort of the sort of messaging campaigns that you’ve done about these negotiations. Are you getting that same sense that you’re coming from a rational position from these folks who are outside of the union who are supporting you on the picket line?

Lisa Carroll:

Absolutely. I mean, every single media person that I’ve talked to, every single political party, union party, every single person is like, yeah, we don’t believe Kaiser. We know that they have abundant resources, that they’ve made significant profits and that they’re making a choice not to support their workers. What we did the math today when we were on the line that what they’re paying a scab to come in, one person to come in and do one of our jobs would pay for six people to have the pension. That’s a clear choice.

Mel Buer:

It’s a hard choice. And it’s always a power move, isn’t it? Right. Because when it comes down to it, they can plead poverty all the time. And I hear this on picket lines all over the place that these giant corporations from Kellogg’s to John Deere, from the studios who were throwing rider under the bus last summer and the summer before,

All of them are pocketing obscene profits, like more money than I could ever possibly imagine to have in my life ever. Right? Yeah. In order to do what? So that they can continue to be the bosses really and not seed any power in the workplace, even though consistently across the board, Chris, as I’m sure the workers are the ones who understand the job most intimately and also understand how to fix the problems at the job, not someone sitting in an administrative boardroom at the top of the hospital choosing who to fire. You know what I mean?

Lisa Carroll:

So at the bargaining table, we gave them a calculation on how to plan for how much time a person needs to do these other activities that aren’t the immediate face-to-face therapy session. It was a simple math formula. I mean, I’m not a mathematician. I could understand it. And here you have a table full of people going, I don’t understand. And we’re looking at them going, how do you have your jobs and not understand this? So you’re either lying or you really shouldn’t have the job

Chris Reeves:

That you have. Right, Chris? Totally. And honestly, I really have taken it as I think they’re feigning ignorance. I honestly think that they’re playing games because it absolutely makes no sense whatsoever. And I think that it’s really important for people to realize really what the numbers are, because in math ain’t math, and it really isn’t. Kaiser is the Goliath of healthcare organizations. They have abundant resources and they to fix the issues, and we have given them so many proposals and really have painted a very clear picture of what’s happening within their mental healthcare system. And it really begs the question of, do you really, and to me it’s very clear that they don’t. It’s very clear that they prioritize everything else over mental healthcare for their patients and their members, but they’re not lacking in resources. We did the math for them that it would literally cost them about $2,000 to restore the pension for about 1700 members who don’t have it so that we can be like the 96% of Kaiser members who do have it.

But I think at this point, really it is really begging the question, do you actually care about your employees? And I think that Mel, you made a good, great point because we did really see a significant demand in mental health care and addiction medicine services with the pandemic. It was very interesting because of course there was a critical short staffing in the hospitals, so we did need providers to take care of those patients who were coming in medically ill. And so at one point they were trying to pull the few of us that were working in psychiatry, the nurses to put us in the hospital, which was fine. A lot of us were willing to go if they did the training, but it was like, who’s going to take care of our patients? Because at the end of the day, we saw our first patient before any of these hospitals saw their first patient because people were getting anxious and they were fearful.

And so our demand and our volume had already started increasing before that virus had really reached even our shores, if you will. And so since then, it’s just kind of skyrocketed. People have not only because of the isolation and the different things that happen socially, but they had time on their hands. And social media I think also has been a big influence. And so the things that we were hearing people calling in and saying, I want to get evaluated for anxiety and depression and all these disorders. They heard it on social media. We knew something was happening, we felt the shift. I always go to management and say, Hey, something’s happening here. We’re getting a lot of calls. We let them know our patients are much sicker. We’re having a lot of patients who are struggling with addiction. A lot of people started drinking and using substances during the pandemic to cope, and they just didn’t listen.

We warned them because a lot of times we’re getting those calls first. We’re already seeing it. We have a lot of patients who are learning about A DHD, autism, things like that from social media. We started seeing an uptick, A DHD evaluation started a huge portion of our access. So we absolutely do tell Kaiser about these things very early on. Do they listen? No. Do they prepare for it? No. Do they plan properly or have any insight? No. Things are always rolled out in our department without proper planning. Things that just make absolutely no sense for the workers or for the patients. It’s egregious. I don’t understand it. I don’t understand how such a huge organization has such major problems and how things move very slowly. It’s very interesting.

Mel Buer:

Well, everyone’s a number instead of a person instead of a human being, right? From the patients to the workers who are taking care of the patients, everyone is a number and that number brings in a certain amount of profit. And if you can’t bring in that profit, then your number that gets shoved off the end of the Excel spreadsheet, which is just a horrendous way to look at healthcare in this country. And we could have a long, maybe we’ll have you back on with the other healthcare providers that I talked to and just have a long conversation about broadly what this type of system has done to reducing humanity in this country and into these sort of unique, not unique little boxes, check boxes for how much money they can get out of us on an individual basis without actually providing anything in return. Absolutely.

And I don’t mean to be so cynical about it, but it is something where I benefit greatly from mental health services myself and I did during the pandemic and will continue to do, and I did before the pandemic. And I understand how important and crucial this work is. If I didn’t have it then I wouldn’t feel like I could land on my feet after 2021. And I know many, many people in my life just from individuals that I talked to all over the country on picket lines or elsewhere, that also benefit from these services. It’s a no fucking brainer to fund them. And what that means is if you, the workload, frankly, pay the employees a competitive wage, increase the staffing levels, allowing for individuals to feel comfortable in a career where they don’t need to give in to these high turnover rates, then you’re going to see more patients offer more services, make more money.

If that is what you’re concerned about as an administrator is getting butts in seats and people coming through the doors and all of that nonsense to everyone but them, it makes perfect sense to listen to you at the bargaining table and find a way to solve these problems. But as we know, and again, I don’t mean to sound so cynical, but as we know about Kaiser, they don’t listen to their workers and they always end up pushing their workers out on strike to the detriment of everyone involved, which sucks. So I think maybe a good way to sort of end this conversation before we get to the what can my audience do to support you is what is Kaiser’s kind of response to the strike? Are they beyond just the full blown PR machine that always comes out of the corporation when you walk out, have you received any sort of indication in bargaining or otherwise that they’re hearing you and that they want to solve this sooner? Or is it just they shut the doors and you got

Lisa Carroll:

To, we’ll find out on Wednesday when we go back over the weekend, because I’m on the executive board, there is some internal medical advocacy in Southern California and it sounds like they’re willing to make some movement on the wages and also patient management time. But I will believe it when I see it because I feel like this is Lucy and Charlie Brown with the football, but they’re still taking a hard line with the pension because of our bad behavior. That’s literally what they say. And we’re not asking for anything that their unions don’t have. We’re just asking for equity.

Mel Buer:

Yeah. How does that not just immediately tip off some lawyers to honest to God retaliation?

Lisa Carroll:

Honestly unfair labor practice?

Mel Buer:

Yeah. I dunno. Maybe they’ll shoot themselves in the foot and give you guys an upper hand with that because that’s obscene. That’s outrageous. Outrageous.

Lisa Carroll:

And I think they like that tear in the fabric. If you can kind of think about that as a piece of clothing, because as long as they maintain that tear, then they can do the same thing to the other unions. They haven’t, but they want to.

Mel Buer:

Yeah, they can threaten that, look what we did to these professionals that we can do to you tell the line kind of thing.

Chris Reeves:

Yeah, I still think, I just feel like their response, to be honest, I’ve been hopeful throughout this whole thing, even in their first talks that they wanted to work with us, but I’ve seen the complete opposite. And so like Lisa said, I’ll believe it when I see it because right now all we’ve seen is them just to try to cover up what’s going on. Them being very deceitful them trying to be very confident saying, oh, we got this patients, don’t worry if your provider’s out on strike, we’re going to have other places where you can go for your care. In our vast external provider network, they’re calling patients and they’re saying, oh, well, do you want to just wait for your provider to come back? They’re doing the documentation that they think is going to protect them, but I feel like they’re doing all the things except for actually doing what.

They’re exactly everything except for the right thing. I think that’s well said because they can end this very quickly, but it doesn’t seem like they want to. They’re closing schedules for weeks out. They’re telling patients about their comprehensive plan. They’re buckling down telling people that they’ve actually, they haven’t taken any things away and they’ve offered all of these things, but they haven’t addressed the issues. They haven’t brought anything meaningful to the table at all whatsoever. Many days they come to bargaining without absolutely nothing. We ask them, do you have anything for us? No, it’s very curt and it’s very obvious that they’re not taking it seriously. But I think today, I think that we show them that we’re forced to be reckoned with. I don’t think that they anticipated the number of workers that said enough is enough. I did want to mention too, one thing that everyone can do, because this is a huge sacrifice for everyone.

And so if they want to help and support our cause, they can go to home.nw.org. That’s the main page for our campaign website. And there is a way to donate to hardship funds for Kaiser patients. There is a way for them to share their stories and a link to Kaiser Deny website so they can really actually tell the public exactly what’s been going on, how hard it’s been, how hard it has been to get appointments or services that they’ve requested or that they need. So that’s a huge way for people to support and bring awareness to what’s really truly going on at Kaiser.

Mel Buer:

Lisa, is there anything else you wanted to add? Is there a strike fund for striking workers or do you not have

Lisa Carroll:

Something? It’s all through the exact same resources that Chris just reviewed.

Mel Buer:

Okay.

Lisa Carroll:

Great. And I always say just call Greg Adams and tell him what you think. The more people that blow up his phone, the better.

Mel Buer:

That’s great. That’s great. Honestly, that would be great. Final thing, picket locations for anyone who wants to come join you on the picket line, there’s one in la, at least one in LA and one in San Diego.

Lisa Carroll:

Aren’t those also on the website?

Chris Reeves:

Yes, those will be on the website tomorrow. We are going to be in Woodland Hills, and so we’re expecting a large turnout in Woodland Hills, but that will also be every location. That’s going to be a day of action. It’ll be listed on our website tomorrow, will Beland Hills.

Mel Buer:

Okay. Is there anything else you’d like to share with our audience before we break for the night?

Lisa Carroll:

Oh, thank you. It was a nice conversation. I really appreciate your awareness.

Mel Buer:

Thanks.

Chris Reeves:

That’s my dog giving the last two raw. Yeah.

Mel Buer (44:31):

And as always, I want to thank you all for listening and thank you for caring. We’ll see you all back here next week for another episode of Working People. And if you can’t wait that long, then go subscribe to our Patreon and check out the awesome bonus episodes we’ve got there for our patrons and go explore all the great work that we’re doing at The Real News Network where we do grassroots journalism, lifting up the voices and stories from the front lines of struggle. Sign up for the real newsletter so that you can never miss a story and help us do more work like this by going to the real news.com/donate and becoming a supporter today. Once again, I’m Mel Buer and with much love and solidarity, I’ll see you next time.

Two years ago, workers at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, represented by five different unions, walked off the job on strike. The Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh has been in negotiations for a contract with Post Gazette management for SEVEN years—since 2017—and have battled bad-faith bargaining, illegal and unilaterally imposed changes to working conditions, and loss of vacation time and insurance benefits. As of Oct. 18, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette strike has officially entered its third year, despite the National Labor Relations Board ruling that management has flagrantly broken federal labor law and committed multiple Unfair Labor Practice charges. We speak with a panel of striking workers about how they are faring after two long years on strike and what it will take to secure a victory and return to work.

Panelists include:

• Rick Nowlin, news assistant, editorial writer, and PG archivist
• Bob Batz Jr., veteran editor, writer, photographer, and Interim Editor of the Pittsburgh Union Progress (PUP)
• Steve Mellon, veteran photographer and writer, and regular PUP contributor
• John Santa, copy editor, page designer, and sports writer for the PUP
• Natalie Duleba, page designer, copy editor, web editor, and award-winning PUP contributor

Permanent links below:

• Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!
• Labor Radio / Podcast Network website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• In These Times website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• The Real News Network website, YouTubechannel, podcast feeds, Facebook page, and Twitter page

Featured Music:
Jules Taylor, “Working People” Theme Song

Studio Production: Max Alvarez
Post-Production: Jules Taylor

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Rick Nowlin:

My name is Rick Nowlin, my title with the Post News Assistant. I work in new archives. I’ve been an editorial writer and I was also the jazz writer for 20 years.

Steve Mellon:

I’m Steve Mellon. I’m a photographer and writer at the Post Gazette. I’ve been at the newspaper since 1997. I write for the Pup pretty extensively. As a matter of fact, I’m often torturing Bob. He’s the editor of The Pup and Karen Carlin. I’m often torturing them with stories at 11 o’clock and I take every opportunity, actually, I’ve sent Bob’s stories to two o’clock in the morning, three o’clock in the morning, and I always take every opportunity to profusely apologize for being a night owl.

Natalie Duleba:

I’m Natalie Duleba. I started working at the Post Gazette early 2020. I’m a page designer and copy editor and a web editor there. My participation at the Union progress has been sporadic, but one of my articles did win a Golden Quill Award, so not a lot, but when I do, it’s a good one.

Bob Batz Jr.:

Hi, Mel. I’m Bob Batz Jr. I’m a 30 year editor and writer and photographer at the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, and I got tapped to be the interim editor of the Pittsburgh Union Progress, which is our electronic strike paper.

John Santa:

My name’s John Santa. I’m a copy editor and page designer at the Post Gazette. I’ve only been there about a year, but I’ve been at various publications for about 20 years in the business now, so yeah. Oh, at Pop, most importantly, which I tell people that’s probably going to end up being the thing I’m most proud of in my entire career. But at Pop, I’m a sports writer and like Steve, I am very prone to sending in sports stories from late games at two, three in the morning and probably frustrating Rick Davis, our sports editor to No End. So thank you, Mel. Happy to be here.

Mel Buer:

I’m so glad everyone’s here. Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Working People. I’m your host Mel Buer. Working People is a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class today, brought to you in partnership within these Times magazine and the Real News Network produced by Jules Taylor and made possible by the support of listeners like You Working People is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast network. If you love what we do and are looking for more worker and labor focused shows like ours, follow the link in the show notes and go check out the other great shows in our network and please support the work we’re doing here at Working People because we can’t keep going without you. Share our episodes with your coworkers, friends and family members. Leave positive reviews of the show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and reach out to us if you have recommendations for working folks you’d like us to talk to, and please support the work we do with The Real News by going to the real news.com/donate, especially if you want to see more reporting from the front lines of struggle around the US and across the world.

So we’re coming up on a pretty mind-blowing anniversary in the news labor world. Two years ago in October, 2022, after the newspaper unilaterally cut off insurance benefits to production workers and newsroom workers filed ULPs for bad faith bargaining. The workers of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette walked off the job on strike. The newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh has been in negotiations for a contract with the Post Gazette management for seven years since 2017, and have battled bad faith, bargaining, illegal and unilaterally imposed changes to working conditions and loss of vacation time and insurance benefits. In October, 2022, newsroom workers voted to go on strike and strike. They did. Now, two years later, the workers of the Post Gazette are still on strike, and despite the NLRB upholding their unfair labor practice charges against the company, they still have a long way to go to total victory. Today we’ve brought some of the striking workers onto the show to talk about the last two years of the strike, the welcome updates from the NLRB and what’s next for the workers as their battle continues. Before we begin, a small editorial note for me, just as a disclaimer, I am also a dues paying member of the News Guild, CWA local 3 2 0 3 5, and the folks we have on today are my union siblings from the Pittsburgh Local. Now that that’s out of the way, welcome to the show friends. Thank you for

Natalie Duleba:

Having us. Hi, thanks for having us. Thanks

John Santa:

Now. Thank you. Happy to be here.

Mel Buer:

All right, so to start off our conversation, I think it might be prudent to give our listeners an update about the current state of things at this point in the strike. Bob, can you explain the recent NLRB decision from August and what that has meant for the strike and for negotiations?

Bob Batz Jr.:

Well, we won our case, Mel, you wouldn’t know it to look at us or talk to us, but we won our case. The NLRB board upheld the its administrative law judge decision from January, 2023. These dates are mind blowing to say them even though we’ve led them. So the board said, yeah, our judge was right. The company’s been breaking federal law in lots of different ways, and we want to expand the remedy. We want them to pay more for breaking the law. The problem is, and this is the crux of the problem with our strike, a crux of our strike, the NLRB has no enforcement power, and so the board said we won, and then we were all sitting there like I wanted to break out pots and pans and whiskey shots, and we couldn’t do that because we were still on strike and we were still on strike a month later, more or less. So what we’re waiting for and our siblings in the other CWA unions and in the Pressman’s Union, we are counting on relief from the federal courts through injunctive processes that we don’t fully see what’s going on because it’s this federal agency doing stuff on our behalf. And as we sit here coming up on our actual two year anniversary of US walking, we’re waiting for that relief to come from the courts.

Mel Buer:

John, if you want to just give me a little, what’s your impression here? This is a common sort of complaint that a lot of folks have about the NLRB is an agency really is that a lot of folks will see these sort of victories with their ULPs being upheld with various sort of small sea consequences being meted out to these corporations and these management teams that are breaking labor law and creating untenable working conditions for their workers. But oftentimes it really does amount to a slap on the wrist, or if the corporation is big enough, the fines don’t do anything. It’s a drop in the bucket for their daily profit, not to say they’re even the millions of dollars that they make year over year. So you have this NLRB victory and you’re still waiting for these sort of consequences to push the management back to the bargaining table to get them to, I don’t know, show shred of humanity for their working employees. How does that make you feel?

John Santa:

Yeah, it’s obviously incredibly frustrating. I mean, we face ownership or my bosses if you want to call them that publishers in the case of our paper that are unreasonable and even aside from being unreasonable, they’re oftentimes just completely unattached to reality of the situation that they’re dealing with here. And it’s obviously frustrating. You then think about how underfunded the NLRB is, and you see how difficult it is for these decisions to have any real teeth. I mean, I think the number, something like 30%, 27% of union election petitions are up there have been 27% more union election petitions over the past year. That’s just way too much for the NLRB to have to deal with in its current state. I mean, I would have to look at the numbers exactly, but I think it’s like $20 million that the NLRB is underfunded by. I mean, until there’s real change in that regard, it’s hard to believe that there’s ever going to be any meaningful kind of fix for us. So we’re hoping that we can get more support in every way, and especially from politicians and local leaders locally and nationally that could really affect change with the NLRB.

Steve Mellon:

Mel, if I can cut in here real quick.

Mel Buer:

Absolutely.

Steve Mellon:

Our case is a perfect example. We have ruling after ruling that states unequivocally that the Post Gazette has violated federal labor law. There’s no question about the rulings in this and about what the facts of the case are, and yet here we are two years out still on strike. This is the state of labor law in the United States right now. They have money, we don’t, and they have the power of appeals. They have these high price law firms, union busting law firms that can come in and just try to grind us down. I’m amazed that I sit in these morning meetings that we have, and I look around at the number of people like John and Natalie and Bob and Rick who are still with us, who are still fighting these fights. And that’s the one thing that gives me hope is that despite the odds that are against us here, the processes, the underfunding of the NLRB, despite those processes that we are still standing, we’re still here talking to you, we’re still a unified group, we’re still on strike.

It’s not easy after two years, we have to check in on each other on a regular basis. We have these discussions about how you’re doing not just financially, but two years without work, without that work identity, without those morning check-ins that you do around the coffee machine. These are, it’s tough. I never thought 40 plus years in this business that I would be on strike in the two minute warning of my career. I’m 65 years old that I would be doing this, but I can tell you that despite all that, I’m so proud to be look and see Natalie and John and Bob and Rick and all those other faces in the morning meetings and know that we’re still in this fight.

Mel Buer:

I think that’s a good sort of segue into my next question. Rick, you’ve been on strike for the last two years, and I really want to just ask how have folks fared in the last two years? How are you feeling now that you’re coming up on this official anniversary, two year anniversary of walking off the job? What’s the state of the strike fund? How are folks staying positive on the picket line? What’s your sense of that?

Rick Nowlin:

Well, I think with my situation, it is a little bit hairy because I got married about four years ago and my wife and I bought a house three years ago, and then the strike came even though I thought it was the right thing to do to take a stand, she was obviously quite concerned to say the least. So how are we going to make it, as I said, the process shake out and a big part of the issue that we’re working on is healthcare because I said healthcare being our healthcare being effectively canceled and replaced with another plan, which was way more expensive. One thing that has definitely been the case, in my case with the union picking up healthcare costs because a year and a half ago I was diagnosed with prostate cancer and you can imagine how expensive that might be it one going to not just hospitals, but also specialists, but because of that, if there’s a time to be on strike is your time to get prostate cancer, this will be the time to do it. And my wife, we’re very thankful for, if anything, that’s the time it happened. As far as that’s concerned, our income has been cut, but also because unions have been picking up many of our expenses, our expensive has also been cut out. So we’re thankful for that. And on a side note, to keep me from going stir crazy, many of these people know that I’m also a musician and my number of gigs that I’ve had have gone up prescriptions over the last year and a half as well. So in one sense it’s been for me personally, dialysis get to spend a lot of time with my wife that we wouldn’t have otherwise. But we’ve been able to weather the storm quite well because she has some investments that she’s made over the years. And as I said from the beginning, my being on Striker, I’m almost as old as Steve. I’m 63 and my being on strike is being a sympathy with my colleagues here because I’ve always felt that given the situation, as he’s mentioned in labor law that was being violated, that it does affect me in one sense, but I’m here for them. I just suppose it’s the right thing to do for me to go out with them because if they’re being screwed eventually it means that all my gut screwed as well. So it’s one of the things that we’re all in this together. That’s how I look at it.

Mel Buer:

That’s a very good point to make. And I really hope that your cancer fight is successful and that you do get the rest that you need to be able to heal from that.

Rick Nowlin:

And I want to say it was caught early enough, so we haven’t had any, I really haven’t had any treatments. I do know I have another biopsy in December, but the thing about it’s, we caught it early enough so that I really haven’t needed anything. The only thing we’ve been doing is just monitoring it. But once again, if I was still active, who knows how much we would’ve paid all these specialists there. And that’s part of the reason why, as I said, being on strike is, at least for me at this point, turned out to be a blessing.

Mel Buer:

Funny how that works. Right. Natalie, I did want to ask you a question.

Natalie Duleba:

Sure.

Mel Buer:

I know, and this is one of the, I think this is the hard question, I suppose. I know that some workers have crossed the picket line and gone back to work. I had a memorable and frankly heated exchange on Twitter with one of those scab workers back in 2023, and still others have been hired on in scab positions in the intervening two years. How have you as a group, as a union handled these strike breakers? Has it hardened resolve among the strikers, people pissed off, I imagine So unfortunately in this US labor movement management will do this every time there is a strike and it is a reality of it, of walking off the job. So how have folks at the Guild taken that in and yeah, what’s your thoughts about that?

Natalie Duleba:

So I remember that Twitter exchange quite a lot because that was a former striker who had gone back to work across the picket line was, I dunno, for lack of a better word, trying to get clout for supporting the SAG and WGA strikers and talking about, oh, well I’ll look at all this stuff that they had learned and it was just so hypocritical, but that’s not an attitude that is outside of the norm, that kind of hypocrisy that you see from scabs. And I actually lived with a striker, they lived in my house and they took a job at the Post Gazette outside of the bargaining unit, which just in the general of taking a position at the Post Gazette out of literally everything that they could have taken a job for. They’re a very talented writer, young and willing to work hard, and they decided to take an editorial position at the paper during the strike.

And it was a super personal betrayal. And that’s what I really think about a lot of people who have continued to work or who went back to work or even took the job. And it’s like, obviously I’m familiar with the kind of tough job market it is out there for journalists. I’ve moved across the country, this is my third cross country move to Pittsburgh chasing a job, better pay, et cetera. But especially people who live here and have an established reputation in Pittsburgh, they can get jobs probably almost anywhere else that needs a person who can put together a fun couple of sentences and knows how to talk to people.

And it’s just kind of mind boggling. I’m lucky that I really haven’t had any out in the wild encounters with scabs besides my former roommate. That was really tough. They did move out. They told me they took a job with post the day that they moved out. So it was definitely a shock, but I didn’t have to live with them after that. And the times that I have has just been in professional settings and we’re professional, so if we’re working, we’re going to be polite. And I know that sometimes if we have the mental capacity for it, we have the emotional bandwidth for it. We do try to say like, Hey, why did you take this job? Because a lot of people who have taken, well, a good portion of the people have taken jobs we’re freelancers already for the Post Gazette are known within the writing and photography communities here.

And it really felt, it feels like they saw an opportunity to, it was very self-interested to just slide in when the strike is on. When up until that point, they hadn’t been able to be hired during a non-strike situation where great photojournalist like Steve Mellon or Pan Pancheck are on strike and it feels very just self-centered, which is really the core of it. And I know that there’s a lot of, this is hard to say fortunate, but I started working right before the pandemic started, so I only had a couple weeks in the office and I was the nighttime worker, so I didn’t actually know a lot of people. I don’t think I had met Steve Mellon in person until that first day on the picket line. He had just been a name on a screen for me for two years. But we have strikers whose working relationships, friendships of decades are now broken and that’s not something that can be forgotten.

And it’s also something that if it’s ever to be, I don’t even know if forgiveness is like an option for folks. I’m not going to talk for anyone else, but that’s forgiveness, that has to be earned by the people who’ve continued to work and it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of indication that they want to do that because of the way that they don’t engage with us in good faith. At the beginning of the strike, we made a lot of bids. We called people regularly to hear their stances and I think we all remember just how emotionally draining that was. And some of this is just protecting our own mental health and our own emotional wellbeing to not engage with Strike Bakers or people who scabs who never came out. And I think that’s fine. I agree with that because it is so hard to parse those really intense interpersonal issues and it is going to be a huge uphill battle uphill negotiation when we’re back in the newsroom because I think that unfortunately it’s going to be us who has to be the bigger person when we’re 100% like the wrong party. Here we’re the people who some of us begged scabs to come out, begged them to not go back in and especially who came back in knowing the resources that we had already offered them that they just kind of spat on. And that’s going to be a really hard thing to work alongside knowing that they’re literally that they put their paychecks over supporting us and supporting themselves.

Steve Mellon:

That’s very well put, Natalie, and I appreciate hearing that. I’ve been around for a minute and some of these relationships that I have with some of the scab workers, I mean those go back decades. I’ve watched some of these people’s kids grow up and so it’s like a deeply personal betrayal in some sense. And I don’t know what those relationships are going to look like going forward once the strike is over. I don’t know. That’s just territory that we will have to navigate. I don’t spend a whole lot of time thinking about that right now. It’s pretty easy for me. I bumped into one of the new scab hires a couple of weeks ago at an assignment and for somebody like that, I didn’t know who he was. He came up and introduced me and I just told him, look, dude, I’m not having a conversation with you right now.

That’s pretty easy for me to do. I don’t know this person and I, he’s a human being, so I care about him on that level, but I’m not going to waste any brain cells on it. But some of these other relationships striking, you have a binary choice. You can either stand with your workers or you can stand with your employer. In our case, an employer that has been violating labor law. So if I break the law, if I go down and steal a toothbrush from the target store, my ass is going to end up in the back of a cop car and I’m going to go to jail. But if you’ve got money and you own a company, you can violate labor law. Go live at your main mansion, fly your airplane around, flash your fancy watch to your good buddies in New York City and live your happy life. So this whole thing with scabs, I used to, when we first started, I was calling some people who had crossed the picket line just to keep the lines of communication. I thought this would last three or four weeks. I didn’t know it was going to last for two years.

One of the issues I had is that I would call and just say, Hey, how are you doing? I’m just checking in and seeing how you’re doing. We can really use you out here on the line. And those weren’t successful conversations. Quite often it would be a litany of complaints about the union and about how I was hurting them, how I was making their job so much harder. And to your point, Natalie, I couldn’t have those conversations anymore because I was talking to strikers who were really struggling. That initial shock of going out on strike, I mean it’s hard to describe, to put into words what kind of a jolt that is to your life. It affects not only your paycheck but your sense of identity. There’s so many unknowns, like Rick said, so many unknowns, things you have to work through. And we were dealing with all that and then I would call people who were very comfortable in there getting a paycheck, very little in their lives had changed. The only thing that really had changed is that they might have somebody saying, Hey, isn’t there a strike going on there? Did you cross the picket line? Maybe somebody would call them a scab and they would become deeply offended. I just quite honestly didn’t have patience for that, so I stopped making those phone calls.

Mel Buer:

I think that’s a good point there Steve and John, I’d love to get your thoughts on this as well. I going out on strike, I think a lot of folks, particularly younger folks ostensibly on the left, these activists and organizers who maybe don’t have the benefit of union experience will get very excited when strikes happen understandably, because this is a monumental collective sort of action that happens where workers come together and say, we’re doing the thing that is going to have the most impact and that’s withholding our labor in service of better working conditions in our workplace. It’s a very uniquely empowering experience, but it is also a very difficult decision to make and I think it’s important to draw attention to that. And I wonder what your thoughts are, John, about what it means to go out on strike and also to maintain withholding your labor for two years. Incredible.

John Santa:

Yeah. Sincerely, there is not an aspect of my life that hasn’t been affected by this strike. I’ve friendships, family, money, struggles. I think it was Steve said, you lose your identity from a career that you’re very passionate about. I mean, let’s face it, no one gets into journalism to get rich. You do it because you believe in it. You believe in making an impact on your community. It’s hard. There’s no doubt about it that it’s hard. In terms of my personal story with going out on strike, I come from the very stereotypical Pittsburgh background. Like my dad lost his job at the mill in at the Westinghouse mill in the eighties when it closed. I come from grandfathers on both sides that were union workers. I have a grandfather that was a laborer. I have a grandfather that worked in a union rail yard. He did maintenance on the locomotives for years. So it was never a question I was coming out. And then you look at people like Bob Bats and Steve and Rick and Nolan and Natalie and Ed Bz mean I could name everyone that we’re on strike with and you know that these people are all on the right side of history and you want to be with them. I want to forever have my name mentioned with I stood shoulder to shoulder with Steve Mellon. I mean, I can’t imagine it being any other way. So there’s that, and you look at the people that are scabs and I think a lot of the scabs that are most responsible for keeping this going, I mean obviously the reason that the strike is still ongoing is because the Bloc family is unwilling to end this strike. They can do this, they could have done this at any point. They won’t do it. They want to make a point here and we’re not going to let that happen. If you look at some of our scabs, our worst scab offenders if you will, it’s the sports department. It’s guys like Jerry Lac who are cornerstone parts of this newspaper. They walk into that Steeler locker room, which Jerry walks in there to a Steeler locker room that is unionized by the way, and talks to these guys and makes it seem to the public, as I’m wearing my Steeler hat, makes it seem to the public that it’s business as usual.

It’s not, and it’s just whenever at the end of the day you get down to it, whose side do you want to be on? Want to be on the side of the owners of this newspaper who have time and time again for seven years, as you referenced at the top of the podcast, broken federal labor law. That’s not the type of person I want to be with. I want to be with Bob Batz, the interim editor of the Pittsburgh Union Progress. It’s an honor to stand with Bob Batz, an honor to stand with Natalie. And that’s what keeps me going because like I said, there’s no part of this that’s been easy. It’s been hard every day, every minute, every hour that we’ve been out on strike. And it’s that going back and forth between being, man, I’m fucking struggling and man, this is a fucking honor. I’m sorry for cursing. I don’t know if that’s allowed, but

Mel Buer:

Totally fine.

John Santa:

That’s just, that’s the truth of the matter, and that’s the way I feel.

Mel Buer:

That’s the power of solidarity. There’s nothing quite like it, frankly.

Rick Nowlin:

Yeah, and I want to take off on that too because as I’ve met, this is not my first strike. I was with Giant Eagle, which is the region’s largest grocery chain in 1991. As we went out for contract reasons, and I also do have some of the labor background, my mother was a teacher mostly in Wilkinsburg schools. That’s where she spent her career. And when we went out, we contemplated going out. I asked her for her advice, she gave me one piece. She said, don’t cross picket line, and that’s all I need to hear because frankly, I saw the proposals that the company was offering us back then, and my first reaction is they’re not going to accept this and they didn’t. So we went on for six weeks. One thing that helped us, I will say is that the customer’s boycotting. So yeah, this is not my first go around with stripes, but I do believe, and John mentioned to you is that we’re doing the right thing. Standing up for what I believe is justice. We’ve been doing it for two years is hard, but if when we go back to the newsroom, and I’ve said this in our Zoom meetings a number of times, we’re going to own it because we’ll be going to be tough. We’re going to be tried and tested once we go back in the newsroom. I can’t say how, of course, when is it going to happen, but we’re going to be the leaders in the newsroom when we go back because we’ve been through the ringer, we’ve been through the fire, we know what it’s like. We’ve been through the struggle. And the struggle is what makes us who we are.

Mel Buer:

Well said, well said. I think a lot about despite maybe because of these betrayals by these strike breakers, when you get back into the newsroom after victory, I think it’ll be maybe gratifying to know that this victory was one for them as well, despite their, I dunno how to put this nicely, inability to maintain their own piece of the picket line. They will still benefit, right? And I think that in itself is also a really good piece to kind of keep in the back of your mind as you’re out there on the picket line. It sucks that they’re not there, but you’re still fighting for them too and hopefully they appreciate that when they see the benefits that end up in their contract when you are finished negotiating this round,

Rick Nowlin:

And that’s the attack that many of us who have actually spoken with the strike breakers to Theca have gone back in, have been trying to come across. We’re not doing this simply for us. You’re going to benefit from us too.

Mel Buer:

Right? A hundred percent. Bob, I’d like to take a little bit of a sideways jump here. We’ve talked a little bit about the Pittsburgh Union progress, the strike paper that you’ve put together collectively since you’ve walked out in the last two years. I really personally would like to say that I think it’s one of the best strike papers in labor’s recent history. There is a long and storied history of American strike papers and what those do, it’s not just strike papers written by Newspapermen who’ve gone out. These are ways to communicate among striking workers, particularly for long haul strikes. And at some point, hopefully I’ll be able to do a couple part episode with working people about the history of strike papers because it is so cool and it’s like it hits the right nerd space in my brain about it. But I really want to, I’m going to start with you Bob, but I would also like to open this up to anyone else who has thoughts. What has it been like contributing to this paper the last two years? What are some of the things that you’ve learned in the course of publishing it? Has it changed the way you think about journalism? And I know that in terms of solidarity, there have been individuals in the community both in positions of power and just community members who have chosen to speak only to PUP and not speak to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. And so I want to get your thoughts about that. A lot of questions there, but pick and choose what you’d like.

Bob Batz Jr.:

All right, and I’ll be quick and I can turn it over to these guys. They’re all part of this too. I mean, we went on strike on October 18th and we had our first edition of Pup published on October 20th. We were the first strike paper of the digital age, whatever the hell that means. But we didn’t have to worry about printing it and sending it out, and we knew we were going to withhold our labor, but we didn’t want to withhold what we do because we still wanted to do what we do. It mattered to us. We wanted to write about things that mattered to us. We wanted to write about things that our community cared about, so that’s separate from the labor issue with our bad bosses. And so that’s what we did. And we never tried to be a replacement for the Post Gazette, the big daily metro.

We didn’t have the bodies for that even at the start. As Steve said, there’s a lot to unpack the first weeks and months of being on strike where you don’t know where your healthcare is going to come from and you don’t know there’s a lot of other work to be done, but we got off to a good strong start and we’ve never looked back. And I think I would say, and this Steve and I have deep talks about this all the time. We have from the beginning set out to do just journalism. That’s what we did when we got paid for it, and that’s what we do for free and it’s straight up the kind of stuff we do could run in any good journalistic publication, but we have found our sweet spot reaching out to communities that are overlooked or other people that are struggling.

We sort of have a new empathy certainly for labor issues, and our strike has coincided with a lot of other people going through these struggles as well. So we found sort of a new mission in reaching out to some of these other communities and individuals and neighborhoods and movements. And one of Steve’s stories is one of the things that I think we’re all proudest of is his ongoing coverage of East Palestinian, Ohio and after the trendy realm there. And that’s something that’s what we want to do. That’s the pure stuff that we do. We do all kinds of other stuff. Natalie had a great story about L-G-B-T-Q bar in a neighborhood that doesn’t get a lot of coverage. Sometime Johnny Santa goes out on Friday night to football games with other grandkids and great grandkids with mill workers. That’s what we do and those are things that are all important to us.

So I don’t know what to say. I’m happy for it to go out of business in a lot of ways because these people, Johnny San is going to work all Friday night and he’s going to work all day Saturday on college football and he doesn’t get paid. The Honor is mine to a work with him and with Steve and to do this work because that’s always mattered to me, but we want to get paid for doing this, so that’s the part that we have to finish up and get back to getting a paycheck is nice. A last word on being an unpaid journalist, though I keep saying this, it’s like journalism drugs. You’re not beholden to a boss, you’re not beholden to a company, you’re not beholden to a founder or a foundation. It’s just not something that you can do for two years when you’re not getting paid. So I hope we can keep doing what we do maybe with a little bit of strike flavor on it, but I would like to get paid for it as well and get benefits.

Mel Buer:

I will say before I pass it along, I worked as sort of part-time independent. I say I was in grad school at the time, but I was also working as an independent journalist and not getting paid for it because working as a freelancer is a godawful profession and I never want to do it again. And I commend to the people who sell their stories and their photos piecemeal and try to strong arm these publications into paying them a decent rate. I was not very good at it, but I will say that didn’t stop me from doing the work. There’s something unique about having some skills that maybe other folks in the community don’t have access to, and being able to tell a cogent story about a beautiful thing that’s happening to the humans around you and to have them trust you with that is extremely, it’s a privilege and I think about it a lot in the context of the strike paper and of strike papers in general.

It is a labor of love. No one’s getting paid for it, especially not in the digital era where you can pay five bucks to host a website for three months or what have you. And I think it’s an important thing to kind of point out is that you’re doing this voluntarily because you have the skills and you care about the community that you’re covering, and that translates as well to the work that you do at the Post Gazette when you’re getting paid for it. It’s the same thoughts, it’s just nice to have a paycheck and I will be the first to tell you that I really do appreciate being a union journalist and having a contract that guarantees a living wage. It’s very, very nice and I hope that you can get back to that soon. I will pass it along. I just wanted to offer my thoughts about it. Natalie, you were about to speak.

Natalie Duleba:

Yeah, I mean, I don’t want to toot my small little popcorn horn here because Steve and John and Bob have contributed infinitely more than I have, but Bob saying that it’s kind of like we get to decide what we cover and the stuff that I have done has been just things that I thought were cool. I did the Polar plunge into one of our rivers here on New Year’s Day, two years in a row. I’m hoping it’s not going to be three for the Pup, but that was something that I saw and I wanted to do, and I was like, Hey, is it okay? I’m not even sure if I told Bob beforehand that I was going to write about it. I was just like, Hey, I did this thing. Here’s photos and a story. And I talk to people and I’m sure that we all know that New Year’s Day is sometimes a slower Newsday.

Maybe there was some gratitude there to have something to run, or the story that I wrote about, it’s a they bar instead of a gay or a lesbian bar. I just thought it was a cool place and I told Bob I was working on a secret story, I would get it to him and he was like, cool, just turn it in. And knowing that we’re shaping it ourselves, I know that it’ll be an adjustment to have to listen to these managers and editors that haven’t advocated for us at all or in any meaningful way. I think that one of our strikers was in contact with a quote manager who doesn’t manage anybody, and that will have to go back to working with them and listening to their directives and that’ll be an adjustment, but we all know now what it can really feel like when it’s a truly collaborative, supportive environment that is journalists driven and story driven, not just, oh, we have to hit these bases. We have to talk about this because it’s important to Pittsburgh, which is, I guess it’s kind of that weird determination of the paper determining what’s important to Pittsburgh instead of Pittsburgh community determining what’s important to itself. And I think that we’ve done a really amazing job with that, with having it be community led and story led and journalist passion led instead of, I don’t know, being the record of paper. I mean the paper of record.

Steve Mellon:

That’s a good point, Natalie, and one of the things that’s been interesting to me to write for the strike paper is that it’s not only unburdening ourselves from the institution of the Post Gazette and all the being supported by a big newspaper has the advantages of you have resources and you have a built-in readership. It also comes with some weight, and that’s not always beneficial to your work as a journalist. I remember in 2020 during the George Floyd protest, the publishers, the editors of the paper made some really stupid decisions and you can Google that and figure that for yourself, but what that did is that it signaled to the community where the newspaper stood on these issues, and I was going out to cover some of these protests a number of times and people, I’ve covered these communities for years and people that I know were coming up to me and saying, Steve, we don’t want you here.

And I’d say, look where I’m coming from. You know how I write and how I cover these things. And I was told, it doesn’t matter. You’re working for the man. And those same people, those same people now are calling me. I think they recognize and appreciate that we have taken that have made a sacrifice to help not just ourselves, but for our colleagues and for the community that Pittsburgh will not benefit from a newspaper that treats its workers like shit and becomes a piece of garbage that’s not a benefit to the community and people, we tell people that they understand that and I think they appreciate that. The conversations I have with people are different now because I think they’re more trusting from the communities that I’m interested in covering. I like Bob says, I spent a lot of time in East Palestine and I was treated there the first several weeks I was up there to write to cover things.

I was treated as every other journalist. There were a certain number of journalists up there. I think once people, I didn’t talk about who I was or why I was up there. I was just Steve Mellon from the Pittsburgh Union Progress, and once people figure out that this was part of a strike effort, that we weren’t getting paid for it, that we were publishing the strike paper because we realized that there were stories that needed to be told that weren’t being told or that were being told from a corporate standpoint, they were being shaped by editors who sent maybe naive reporters who hadn’t spent enough time in the community to kind of figure out what was what, and that there was a realization that we were in this for the right purpose. I don’t want to sound self-righteous here, but I’m going to claim that mantle because you go on strike and you don’t like the paycheck and you do these stories, you work your ass off to cover these things, you put up a bunch of shit.

It’s because we believe in this and we have a lot of people who have taken the strike pledge. One thing I want to mention is that we’ve all stuck together and there’s a lot of solidarity in our group and people have spoke very ELO about that today, but we’ve also had a lot of support out in the community, and it’s the people that we’ve talked to that supported us that have come to us with stories. I never come up with a story idea anymore. We have so many story ideas coming into us that we don’t have time to fit around and think about what’s a good story. But we’ve had support too from, and everybody here, but maybe you, Mel, will recognize the name of Ali Batt and she is a member. She works for the United Steelworkers, but she has helped us raise money. They’re always out helping message us. This is a labor town, and we’ve been able to do this for two years because we’ve had each other to lean on, but we’ve also had members of this community that have stepped up to us when we’ve really needed it and backed us both financially and with just providing good vibes to us.

John Santa:

Yeah, I should say with the pop specifically, it’s sort of like a buzzword these days, but local journalism really gets thrown around a lot. Pop is living proof that local journalism really matters and how important it is not just tooting Steve Mellon’s horn because I’m in awe of him and he’s sitting in front of me. There’s no better coverage of East Palestine, not the New York Times, not the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. It’s the best there is. I mean, Google it and look, it’s astounding. I mean, Natalie was being gracious, but her story about Harold’s Haunt, I mean, that’s vital to our community. That’s a safe space. That’s a fun place for people. These are important stories that we’re not going to get to read otherwise wise.

Being a member of the sports team at the put, we are very intentional every day about telling local stories. It’s not about what the Steelers are doing. The scab column this at the Post Gazette, Jason Mackey can go off and have fun covering the pirates and sealers, and we really know that that’s what he’s about. It’s about the experience for him, not about the experience for the readers. Bob Bats instills that in us every day, how critical that is. We follow that example. That’s really the feedback I hear most about the Pup is this is truly, you truly are focused on what’s happening locally, and I think that’s the greatest Laura we can get from this. I mean, we care about this community. We love this community. We are this community. We’re not taking advantage of it, and that’s what makes me really proud. Seriously, go look at Steve’s Z policy and coverage. It is astounding.

Mel Buer:

Rick, did you have any thoughts about the union progress and about being a part of this incredible strike paper?

Rick Nowlin:

Well, I have not written for at all. So because

Bob Batz Jr.:

Yeah, Rick, I wanted to talk to you about that. I’ll catch you after this podcast.

Mel Buer:

There you go. Get a chance to kind of join in and enjoy the progress. As a sort of final thought before we head into this last question about what our audience, my audience can do to help support the strike is I’m in awe of the work that you do every day, and I feel very proud to be a member of the same union that is keeping the strike going. And I just want to say that in terms of the strike paper, it really is an example of what happens when community members come together to collectively create something important and impactful for the community that you live in. And it says a lot about the future of journalism that this is the kind of space where folks can really feel like they’re actually connecting to the community. And hopefully you can bring that collaborative spirit back into the newsroom when you’re done with the strike and maybe cajole a couple more editors into taking stories that actually people actually give a shit about. And hopefully that will also mean that these community members who maybe have a soured relationship with the post cassette can maybe rebuild some trust with these individuals who did such a good job with Union Progress with Pup, when this is all said and done and over, that would be the hope, right? That’s the optimistic sort of space. Okay, so this is an open question, anyone who would like to talk about this, but what can my listeners do to help you as you head into the, oh my God, third year of your strike?

It could be financially, it could be locals or folks who live within driving distance of Pittsburgh. What are some things that folks can do to kind of keep you in mind and keep you going?

Natalie Duleba:

Well, I mean this is going to be, we do still have a Stryker fund. You can donate that if as a one-time donor or as recurring donor, that money in terms of giving money that will go one-to-one to support people. That fund helps people pay their bills. It’s not just it’s going to disappear into a PR machine or anything like that. That is money that goes into our pockets when we need it. And you can get all this at union progress.com/donate. You can also subscribe to the union progress. That’s always really great to have a lot of eyes and supporters for our work. It shows the Post Gazette that these are stories that the community wants and that people wanted to read and that they should want us back in the newsroom writing their stories. And also, if you sign the Strike Solidarity Pledge, you’ll get on the email list that anytime you have an action, you’ll get an email. All of this is kind of all going to be clustered into on the union progress.com website. There’s a whole section to donate, subscribe, sign the Strike Solidarity Pledge, which is putting your name committing to support us and not to talk to the Post Gazette. And that way you can get on our mailing list when we have rallies, if you are within driving distance or local or feel like flying into Pittsburgh. And it’s a cool town, and we’ll show you a good time if you come.

And when we have actions, we always are pretty active on our social medias, so engagement with that retweets, posting to your stories, things like that are helpful and can be done just from your phone. All of this I just said, you can all do just from your phone and just continue to support union labor in general. We’re not the only strike that is there’s probably another strike happening right now. We saw the power of the Shoreman Strike strike recently that if we could put the fear of God into the Post Gazette the way that they did to the nation, that’d be great. And even though we’ve been in for this long, we’re still so proud and in awe of every other newspaper newsroom who go out on strike. We’re happy that their strikes are so much shorter than ours, but it still takes, we know the bravery in the sacrifice it takes to walk out even for a single day. So yeah, that’s my little spiel here. Anybody else have anything?

Bob Batz Jr.:

Mel? One thing I’ll say is, and we appreciate labor journalism and more than we ever would’ve before, so we appreciate you. We are glad that you and Max and other people don’t just forget about us because there’s just something about that if you’re doing it and people don’t even know you’re on strike. But one of the things I see going forward is we need more journalism about what it means to go on strike, why you don’t cross a picket line. What is the NLRB and how does it work? How should it work? A lot of the problems that we’re dealing with are just, we know that the Post Gazette is hiring people while we’re out that don’t even know what that means. Or maybe they’re not even being told there’s a strike, but there’s a lot of just education that has to happen. And I think people like you and Max, we’re doing our part now, but we need to just continue to keep that word out there about how this stuff works and doesn’t work and how it should work.

And that might help people down the road. I don’t wish any of the scabs, well that I feel like I’m fighting right now, but it’s easier for me to look ahead to some of the young college kids that we’re working with, had interns and we have writers, and I want to have a post Gazette that works for all my colleagues and for myself working there. But what I really want is for it to be a place that a real journalist of the future could work and have, do really good work and work that really matters, and also not have to work three jobs and not have any healthcare. But I think that the kind of work that you do can help make strikes shorter and maybe not happening as often in the future. That would be my hope.

Mel Buer:

Well, that’s kind of part of the mission that I have here as a co-host working people, is to really kind of draw back the curtain on union organizing and the contemporary sort of US labor movement and what that means to be a part of a union and what that looks like from election to bargaining, to contract to strike to. So hopefully in the future there is more of that chance for us to have these conversations. And I leave the door open for you, the experts on a long haul strike to come back and talk about what it means to be on strike for as long as you have, and especially after victory. You’re going to come back on and we’re going to celebrate. It’s going to happen. And yeah. Any final thoughts before I close it out, or is this a great way to end it?

Thank you so much, all Thank you so much. So much. Yeah, thanks so much for coming on. Thank you for sharing your experience and for talking about the good, the bad, and the ugly of what it means to be on strike. And as always, I want to thank you, my listeners for listening, and thank you for caring. We’ll see you all back here next week for another episode of Working People. And if you can’t wait that long, then go subscribe to our Patreon and check out the awesome bonus episodes we’ve got there for our patrons. And please go explore all the great work we’re doing at the Real News Network where we do grassroots journalism, lifting up the voices and stories from the front lines of struggle. Sign up for the Real News Newsletter so that you never miss a story and help us do more work like this by going to the real news.com/donate and becoming a supporter today. Once again, I’m Mel Buer and with much love and solidarity, I’ll see you next time.

While Maximillian Alvarez was inside the Labor Notes conference this past April, attending panels and sharing space with intelligent, hard working organizers, Mel Buer was wandering the conference grounds outside, meeting folks and talking about the joy of being a member of the working class as they sat in the grass and ate their lunches and talked with friends, old and new. There’s something to be said about the people you meet when you’re sharing cigarettes outside a conference center–one such person was today’s guest, adorned in UFCW buttons and sharing his poetry with Mel while they smoked together on a bench near the conference. On this week’s episode of Working People, Mel sat down with labor poet and union grocer George Fish, a wonderful man full of stories about his life and work, his experiences growing up and ultimately leaving the Catholic Church, his politics–honed through decades of life experience–and his relationship to his writing and poetry.

Additional links/info below…

• To hear more about our time at LN 2024 – check out our Dispatches from Labor Notes episode

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Featured Music…

• Jules Taylor, “Working People” Theme Song

Studio Production: Mel Buer
Post-Production: Jules Taylor

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Mel Buer:

Hey everybody, it’s your host, Mel Buer, and welcome back everyone to another episode of Working People, a podcast about the lives, dreams, jobs, and struggles of the working class today. Brought to you in partnership with In These Times magazine and The Real News Network produced by Jules Taylor and made possible by the support of listeners like you.

Working People is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network. If you love what we do and are looking for more worker and labor-focused shows like ours, follow the link in the show notes and go check out the other great shows in our network, and please support the work we’re doing here at Working People because we can’t keep going without you. Share our episodes with your coworkers, friends, and family members. Leave positive reviews of the show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and reach out to us if you have recommendations for working folks you’d like us to talk to. And please support the work we do at The Real News by going to therealnews.com/donate, especially if you want to see more reporting from the front lines of struggle around the US and across the world.

I first met George Fish at the Labor Notes Conference in April where we shared a cigarette break outside of the conference hotel and talked briefly about what it meant to us to be part of the labor movement. The energy of the conference was incredible, and the optimism surrounding such a gathering was truly infectious. Before he went back inside to attend the conference, George shared with me some of his poetry about working in a union grocery store. Fascinated by his work and his life experience I shared my contact information and thus began the journey of getting him onto the show. For this episode, we had an interesting conversation about his life, his work as a freelance writer, and his current work as a unionized grocer. At the end of the conversation, George was kind enough to read one of his poems. Welcome to the show, George.

George Fish:

I’m George Fish. I’m a published writer and poet. I also work as an essential worker in the produce department at Kroger here in Indianapolis, Indiana, also known as Indianoplace, the World’s largest county seed. And I’m active in my union, UFCW Local 700, the Indiana Mega Local. I’m in Essential Workers for Democracy. And I view myself as a Gramscian organic intellectual. I didn’t go into my job to organize the working class. I went into my job because I needed a paycheck, and I’m very glad I published two poems so far in Blue Collar Review, the Journal of Progressive Working Class Literature. I have a wonderful editor there, Al Markowitz. By the way, you can look it up, Blue Collar Review is out of Norfolk, Virginia, and it’s an honor to use my poetry to reach my fellow workers, and I’m also reaching my fellow workers on my jam right now because our contract comes up in a year. We got a very pro-company contract and a lot of people are dissatisfied, so I’m trying to organize people to talk about the contract, so in a year we can get a better one.

Mel Buer:

Great. Welcome to the show. I think a great way to just start off this short conversation is to talk a little bit more about your work at Kroger, and your work with the UFCW. When did you start organizing with the UFCW?

George Fish:

Actually, I never started organizing. I got a job there very late in life in 2015. I had applied at Kroger many times before and almost got hired in the late eighties, but didn’t need to hire basically because I was considered too “introvert” according to their personality tests we had to take, but they needed people in 2015, and I got hired, and once I was in the union… By the way, on my first day of orientation, I joined the union and have been an active member since, and being with…

And about a year, a year and a half ago, I got in contact with Essential Workers for Democracy. We were very dissatisfied with our 2022 contract, which a lot of us found great pro-company, and it passed on two votes, the first vote it got roundly rejected, but the union insisted on another vote, saying that only fewer than 10% of those eligible to vote have voted on it. The second time it went through, but 40% voted against it, so there’s a lot of good basis for opposing that contract among my fellow workers, justifiably, and I’ve talked to my fellow workers, they’re concerned about pay, about COLAs, about more time off, about paid sick days, other matters too.

So, I’ve been talking to my fellow workers, just low-key, and following the advice I heard from Labor Notes of 80% listen, 20% talk, which I don’t always do, but getting to know my fellow workers. And I think I’m well regarded there as a union activist who has good things to say, and I hope to encourage them because the contract still weighs weight, and Indiana and Indianapolis do not have a tradition of activism, but we need it. And part of what I feel why is important is letting my fellow workers know that they are the union, it’s not the union rep. By the way, we have a very, very good union rep, a black woman. She doesn’t take any guff from management.

And it’s not the officials, and it’s not the international union officials, it’s not the stewards, it is us, the rank and file. And I think that a lot of people have taken inspiration from what the Teamsters and what the UFCW were able to do because they had a rank-and-file voice. And that’s what I’m trying to do within the UFCW. And I’m proud to be a union member, and I’m very glad to be a union member because I have protections that I worked… I worked 14 years in non-union shops as a temp, and, of course, had no rights. And we always dreaded they’d say, “Management wants to talk to you,” then they dress you down, and dismiss you from your job. And if you were lucky, you got unemployment compensation. If you weren’t lucky, you didn’t. But I’ve got this job security, and I tell you what, unions are a working man or woman’s best friend.

Mel Buer:

I agree. Yeah. I didn’t have union representation until I started this job at The Real News. The difference between the work I was doing in non-union shops or teaching or working as a freelance journalist, it’s night and day, and I really appreciate the ability to be able to have a bit more say in how the workplace runs and to be respected for that. So, I definitely appreciate the union difference here, and I’m glad that you have also noticed that. We met outside of Labor Notes, sharing a cigarette, and you had showed me some of your poetry, and you have just described yourself as a Gramscian intellectual working-class poet. When did you start writing poetry? What inspired you to start writing?

George Fish:

Actually, I had for a long time wanted to write. I wanted to be a writer. Unfortunately, I had an alcohol habit, so I was drunkenly talking about writing instead of really writing. Back in the fall of 1980, I was in my early thirties. I was in forced sobriety for lack of money, and I actually wrote a short story to get published, and I was so excited that I started pursuing it from then on. And then, in 1984, had my first article, In These Times, that was followed by an article Monthly Review. So I started writing for the National Left Brass. I worked on a staff of a small magazine here in Indianapolis.

I started poetry, Christmas Eve 2004, I was in an angry mood from my ex-Catholicism, and I wrote a bunch of very angry irreligious poems just as therapy, and then put them aside and looked at them two weeks later and saw that a couple of them really worked out. So then, I started pursuing poetry and published my first poem in 2007 in the Indianapolis area-based Tipton Poetry Journal. And I’ve had about 30 poems published nationally, mostly in small Indiana publications, but also in the website, New Politics, and also, Blue Collar Review.

So I combine both working and writing, and unfortunately, writing doesn’t pay anymore, so I have to keep my day job at Kroger, where I’m a produce stocker, and I’m an older worker. I’m now in my late seventies, and I can’t afford to retire because of a poor work record for 38 years, so I don’t get that much in social security. But I do get a small pension for the union, and thanks to the union, which even though I was still working, contacted me, says, “You eligible for this pension.” So I was really grateful for the union, making sure that I got my pension money before I was too old to receive it or dead, and so I’m glad for that. And my wages, unfortunately, make up 69% of my income, so I still have to work.

It’s a physical blue-collar job. I’m on my feet eight hours a day, heavy-lifting of 50-pound bags of onions and potatoes, 30-pound bags of onions, 40-pound boxes of bananas. But it gets tiring, and as long as I can hold up to it, I’ll do it because, unfortunately, there is so little social safety net, even for the elders, that should I be too old to work, I would have such a drastic drop in income that I would really be hurting. So, I combine all three and write whenever I can because writing is my lifeblood. It gives me a sense of wanting to live, and be a part of life, and contribute. And I’m glad to say a lot of people like my writing. They like my ironic sense of humor. You see, I have a sardonic sense of humor. That’s because I have a million one-liners. I keep them so tense like sardines. Yes, I make a pun out of anything. So, I came late in life, but I’m glad, and it’s good to be alive after a rough, rough time growing up.

Mel Buer:

Yeah. Do you explore any of these experiences working at the age that you’re working, or the experiences that you’ve had in just in the last 30 years of your life? Are these some of the themes that you explore in your poetry?

George Fish:

Not yet. My poetry can be very eclectic. I’ve written a lot of things. Basically, yes, they’re all explored indirectly. I had a hellish childhood, being raised Catholic in small towns, a lot of it that was in the Pope Pius, the 12th era, was before Vatican II, and I became an atheist at 18 when I entered college. By the way, I have a Bachelor’s in economics from IU Bloomington, Indiana University Bloomington. But I explore it indirectly because I write a lot of irreligious poetry that my good ex-Catholic friend, that John has said, is theologically correct. So it’s highly irrelevant, but yet it’s theologically correct because I get back at the Catholic Church by skewering on them with my poetry. But you’ve given suggestions on more topics I can write about.

My first poem in Blue Collar Review is based on a true story of an encounter with an obnoxious manager at Kroger, that inspired me to write a poem. And like I said, I was encouraged by Blue Collar Review editor, Al Markowitz, who is a very helpful editor and always takes the time to give you a personal letter of critique if he doesn’t accept something or he wants to change. He’s very good in that realm, and I’m glad to say that every writer really benefits from a good editor.

Mel Buer:

I agree. My editor is here at The Real News, and the editors that I’ve worked with over the last, oh, 10 years or so, are really the reason why I improve, frankly. I know that I’m going to give you time at the end of the episode to read a selection from one of your poems, but I really of want to drive home some of the other themes that maybe you work with, so we’ve already talked about traumatic upbringing within Catholicism. I am also a born and raised Catholic, and grew up in the Catholic Church, probably had quite a different experience than you did, but still walked away from my relationship with that faith at a younger age, in the last 10 years or so.

George Fish:

You’re a lot younger, I can tell by looking at you. You’re a lot younger. You’re a lot younger than me. I’m usually old enough to be your father, if not your grandfather.

Mel Buer:

Yeah, I’m 32. Yep. But I went to high school in the Catholic Church, so I graduated into… I was 18 or 19, and then I went to a Catholic Jesuit University for two years in Colorado, so it was just… I don’t know, natural progression into the various stages of education that is controlled by the Church, and then fell out of it quite quickly, and also had struggles with alcohol and found there was no room for both faith and my addiction at the time. And so, I don’t know, I felt left behind by God and I used to write poetry about the same stuff. You get angry when you grow up in a faith like that and you find that your life circumstances don’t quite match up with what is supposed to happen or what you think is supposed to happen.

And so, I can understand wanting to write back to that. And I think that poetry specifically has this unique characteristic where you can start and have those conversations with the pieces of your life that you are most affected by. And I was wondering, are there other moments in your writing career in the last 30 or so years where you found that writing has particularly helped with, whether it be the alcohol, or the questioning of your faith, or other moments in your 30 years?

George Fish:

Yes, important. When I started writing seriously on a regular basis, I was writing for a number of small magazines that had deadlines. It helped me overcome my horrible previous habit of procrastination because editors just didn’t mess around when you didn’t make deadlines, so it got me off… It helped me break through procrastination because I had to meet deadlines. I had to be good fast, and I think it helped me learn to be good fast because I was an active freelance writer-journalist who had to produce something every week or every month and had to do it, so I did it. You don’t want an editor scorned on your back.

I want to thank you for sharing. We have a very similar parallel experiences. I also want to say that because of my writing, my writer’s biography is in Who’s Who in America for both 2019, 2020, that I know of. So, everybody check that out at the library, and I’m very glad that writing has given me my Andy Warhol 15 minutes of fame, so if I may be egotistical or individualistic on that regard, but every writer, when I think about writing, writing is a very egotistical business because when you’re a writer, you have the chutzpah to believe that what you have to say is so well written and so incisive and so interesting that total strangers will read you. Yeah.

Mel Buer:

Yeah. What are some of the things that you did write about, and you said you got published in In These Times and other publications locally and elsewhere, what was the focus of your journalism beat?

George Fish:

Lots of things. I would be assigned articles by my editors in the magazines. I wrote on things, I wrote for many left publications, Indiana themes. I wrote about how the Indianapolis Colts extorted the city to pay for an expensive stadium. That was the Colts Extortion Board. That article I wrote for Against the Current. I wrote a lot on Indiana issues because that was your Indiana publications. When Indiana signed a Religious Freedom Act that discriminated against gays, I wrote a poem about that, and that was published in New Politics. So, I’ve combined my political and other interests with my poetry and writing, and not just political interest, I also wrote a poem that was published, T.S. Eliot Was Wrong, which starts out with the famous epigraph from T.S. Eliot’s Waste Land, “April was the cruelest month,” and I write that, but T.S. Eliot was wrong, very wrong. Although his language is vivid, picturesque, I say, “April was not the cruelest month. January is because January is cold and freezing and flu season.”

I write on a lot of different themes, but a lot of irreligious themes and a lot of political themes. And I’m a great lover of blues music and punk rock, and also classic rock and roll, including 1950s rock and roll. And I have a special fondness for early ’62 to ’65 Beatles because I think the Beatles did some of the greatest teeny-bop ever been done in rock and roll, early Beatles song. I don’t want to be just a one-dimensional person. I’m more than just a one-dimensional political walk. I just want to be as fully engaged in life as I can, and I’ve been successful at it so that I’m not just a jack of all trades and a master of none. As my old academic advisor, IU Bloomington, he said, and I quote, “Knowledgeable and unusual variety of activities, and that’s wonderful.” Thank you. Yeah.

Mel Buer:

Yeah. Do you ascribe to a certain type of leftist politics? Is there a specific ideology or political tradition that you find you identify with?

George Fish:

Well, for a long time, I was part of the Trotskyist far left, but now I consider myself a social Democrat, a democratic socialist in the sense of Michael Harrington, the left wing of the feasible. I think what’s important now, and of course, as I get older, it becomes more important because I know that my days on this planet are numbered. I want to see results in the here and now for me and for my fellow workers. And one of the big issues that concerns me, of course, is the Republican threats to social security and Medicare, which had my age, 77, I rely on.

But, yes, I would consider myself right now an anti-authoritarian democratic socialist, social Democrat. I was very, very enthusiastic about Bernie Sanders’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns, and wrote an article in New Politics praising Bernie Sanders 2016 candidacy when he announced it in 2015 and started a discussion on that going on in New Politics. So, basically, I think revolution is a will of the wits, I don’t think it’s going to happen, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do things to make our lives better in the here and now, and that’s what my politics is about now.

Mel Buer:

I tend to agree, pragmatic politics at this current moment.

George Fish:

And that was one of the things always so exciting about the Labor Notes Conference this past April 19th to 21st, is that it’s obvious now to me that the left wing of the labor movement is now a mainstream part of the labor movement. It’s not a fringe. It’s when 4,700 union activists from all over the country gather in one spot, you know you’re not a fringe. You may be a minority voice, but you are an important voice in the labor movement itself now, which is so different from the old Meany-Kirkland AFL-CIO I remember.

Mel Buer:

I was going to ask, in the last couple of years, there is this resurgence of… Not just in the popularity of, or I would say positive thinking about labor organizing, but also the new organizing and a… Oh, I don’t know, it’s like the clouds broke and the sun came out for the first time in a long time. What is the most exciting thing based on your experience of unions in the past and what we’re seeing in the last couple of years? What is the most exciting thing about seeing this resurgence in labor activity?

George Fish:

I think in the emergence of the organization active in Essential Workers for Democracy, taking a cue from what was done in the Teamsters and the UAW and trying to democratize a very top-down union, the UFCW, which represents over a million people and a lot of in the groceries and food processing who really need good unionism. And I think that’s been an honor to be able to participate with EW for the Essential Workers for Democracy and the good people who are involved with it, who are seasoned union militants, mostly on the West Coast, especially in the UFCW mega local, Local 3000, which represents Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, but also strong base in California. And we are all over the country, even in the Midwest, which lacks in activist culture.

Mel Buer:

Yeah, I see a lot of what UFCW 3000 is doing here on the West Coast because I’m based in Los Angeles currently. And it’s really exciting to see that not just the UFCW, but other unions are taking on this inspiration of creating reform movements inside of unions. They care so much about the way the union operates and they want to see it improve. They want this to be a new generation of union activists who are participating democratically within the institution of the labor union. And I think that is a really exciting piece of the new era of union organizing, this more modern era of union organizing.

George Fish:

Oh, yes, in for a long haul, it took a long time for UAW, for democracy, to win, but it did with Shawn Fain, it took a long time for TDU, Teams for Democratic Union, to make a difference, but it did. And one man, one vote, which encourages the rank and file to participate, and as I said before, it’s… Give us a sense that we are the union, it’s not the officials, it’s not the union rep, it’s not the stewards, it’s we ourselves, the rank and file, and when we have a voice, we really feel empowered to make a difference in our unions I feel.

Mel Buer:

Absolutely. Well, we’re getting to the end of our conversation, but I did want to give you time to… I would say we probably have time for one poem, or one selection from one of your poems. Which one would you like to read, and go ahead when you’re ready?

George Fish:

I would read my very first one, which is a show one, it’s only one page based on a true story that happened to be at Kroger in 2021, during the time of COVID when we had to wear mask and my mask inadvertently came… Wasn’t on my face that I got chewed up by a manager, and then a non-union shop would’ve gotten fired for what I did, but had protection because there the union, and was in Blue Collar Review in the spring of 2022. It’s called, I’m so glad I’m working in the union workplace.

Mel Buer:

All right, go ahead.

George Fish:

This was especially given home to me during the height of COVID when upset because the heavy box on an ill-stacked pallet nearly fell on my foot. I was so upset I forgot to pull up my face mask. It was on my face, attached over my ears, but in my upset, I’d forgotten to pull it up. Was obnoxiously reprimanded it by obnoxious assistant manager, and I blew up angrily in his face, in a non-union workplace, I would’ve been fired, perhaps some, barely. Instead, rather than have to face that assistant manager the following day, I simply went to the store manager and requested a personal day off, which was granted because the ability to do so was part of the union contract. Going home, I immediately applied through the union for a month’s disability lead, which was also granted. In the meantime, the nasty assistant manager was forced to take a vacation, and when I came back to work a month later, not only had I calmed down, he had too. He wasn’t hassling me any longer as he had, and even more beneficially, I had a job to return to. That is what union protection is all about. Ensuring you don’t pay through the nose for an inadvertent mistake by getting fired for.

And that is the poem I read to great satisfaction and appreciation at the Great Labor Arts Exchange, at the Labor Notes Conference, and I’m very proud of that all.

Mel Buer:

You should be. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk about your writing, to talk about your poetry, and it’s been a joy talking to you, and I’m really glad that we finally, after a couple of months, got a chance to sit down and really discuss what makes your writing and your life experience unique. So, thank you so much for coming on, George. I really appreciate it.

George Fish:

Great. Appreciate it. And please send me an email with the link to the video so I can share it with others.

Mel Buer:

Absolutely. And as always, I want to thank you all for listening, and thank you for caring.

We’ll see you all back here next week for another episode of Working People. And if you can’t wait that long, then go subscribe to our Patreon and check out the awesome bonus episodes we’ve got going there for our patrons. And go explore all the great work that we’re doing at The Real News Network, where we do grassroots journalism, lifting up the voices and stories from the front lines of struggle. Sign up for The Real News newsletters so you never miss a story, and help us do more work like this by going to therealnews.com/donate and becoming a supporter today.

Once again, I’m Mel Buer, and we’ll see you next time.

The death toll in Gaza continues to climb, with conservative estimates putting the numbers of dead around 40,000, but a recent report in the British medical journal The Lancet estimates the actual death toll could be 186,000 or even higher—that’s roughly 8% of Gaza’s population. And with each passing day, the humanitarian crises unfolding in Gaza and the West Bank gets orders of magnitude worse.

Seeing the dire situation in Palestine, seven major US labor unions collectively drafted, signed, and sent a letter to President Biden demanding that US military aid to Israel stop immediately. The letter reads, in part: “Large numbers of Palestinian civilians, many of them children, continue to be killed, reportedly often with US-manufactured bombs. Rising tensions in the region threaten to ensnare even more innocent civilians in a wider war. And the humanitarian crisis deepens by the day, with famine, mass displacement, and destruction of basic infrastructure including schools and hospitals. We have spoken directly to leaders of Palestinian trade unions who told us heart-wrenching stories of the conditions faced by working people in Gaza.”

In this episode, TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez and Staff Reporter Mel Buer speak with George Waksmunski, president of the United Electrical, Radio, & Machine Workers of America (UE), Eastern Region, and Brandon Mancilla, Region 9A Director for the United Auto Workers, about why their unions signed onto this call for an end to US aid to Israel and what organized labor can do to end the genocide in Gaza.

Additional links/info below…

• UAW website, Facebook page, Twitter/X page, and Instagram
• UE website, Facebook page, Twitter/X page, and Instagram
• Michael Sainato, The Guardian, “Seven major US labor unions call on Biden to ‘shut off military aid to Israel’“
• Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network, “UAW endorses Harris, but won’t stop fighting for ceasefire in Gaza“
• Mel Buer, The Real News Network, “Organized labor shows up for Palestine“
• Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network, “Labor organizers explain why they’re marching on DC for Palestine“
• Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network, “Tortured Palestinian activist describes military and settler carnage in the West Bank“

Permanent links below…

• Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!
• Labor Radio / Podcast Network website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• In These Times website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• The Real News Network website, YouTube channel, podcast feeds, Facebook page, and Twitter page

Featured Music…
Jules Taylor, “Working People” Theme Song

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

George Waksmunski:

Hello, my name’s George Waksmunkski. I’m the UE Eastern Region President. That’s the United Electrical Radio Machine Workers of America, UE. I oversee 14 states for UE from North Carolina, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and New York and all the way up through New England and everything in between. I’m very happy to be here and be part of this conversation. Thank you.

Brandon Mancilla:

I’m Brandon Mancilla, the UAW Region 9A director. We represent 50,000 active and retired members from New York to Maine and Puerto Rico and Region 9A director sits on the International Executive Board of the International UAW.

Mel Buer:

Welcome back everyone to another episode of Working People, a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams and struggles of the working class today. Brought to you in partnership with In These Times magazine and The Real News Network, produced by Jules Taylor and made possible by the support of listeners like you. Working People is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network. If you’re hungry for more worker and labor focus shows like ours, follow the link in the show notes and go check out the other great shows in our network. And please support the work we’re doing here at Working People because we can’t keep going without you. Share our episodes with your coworkers, friends and family members. Leave positive reviews of the show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and reach out to us if you have recommendations for working folks you’d like us to talk to.

And please also support the work we do at The Real News Network by going to therealnews.com/donate, especially if you want to see more reporting from the front lines of struggle across the US and across the world. My name is Mel Buer.

Maximillian Alvarez:

And I’m Maximillian Alvarez.

Mel Buer:

And today, we’re bringing the focus back to the ongoing genocide in Palestine and the role that organized labor is playing to try and stop it. In July, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s scorching address to Congress in which he vowed, “Total victory in Palestine,” and called American protesters standing in opposition to the genocide, “Useful idiots,” earned him a standing ovation for many US representatives and underscored, yet again, the deep involvement of the US in the ongoing carnage.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Over the last year, both Mel and I have sat down with many workers and organizers who have been agitating within their unions to pressure leadership to take a public stance against the genocide in Palestine and to draw attention to the US involvement in Israel’s brutal campaign. Since October 7th, the United States government has sent more than $12 billion, that’s billion with a B, to Israel, with billions more earmarked for the next four years. The death toll in Gaza continues to climb with conservative estimates putting the numbers of dead near 40,000, but a recent report in the British Medical Journal, The Lancet, estimates the death toll could be far greater than that, over 186,000 people or more. That’s roughly 8% of Gaza’s population. And with each passing day, the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza gets orders of magnitude worse.

Seeing the dire situation in Palestine seven major US labor unions have collectively drafted, signed and sent a letter to President Biden demanding that US military aid to Israel stop immediately. The letter reads, in part, “Recent reports only underscore the urgency of our demands. Large numbers of Palestinian civilians, many of them children, continue to be killed, reportedly often with US manufactured bombs. Rising tensions in the region threaten to ensnare even more innocent civilians in a wider war. And the humanitarian crisis deepens by the day with famine, mass displacement and destruction of basic infrastructure including schools and hospitals. We have spoken directly to leaders of Palestinian trade unions who told us heart-wrenching stories of the conditions faced by working people in Gaza.”

Mel Buer:

The seven unions, the Association of Flight Attendance Communication Workers of America or AFACWA, the American Postal Workers Union, APWU, the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, IUPAT, the National Education Association, NEA, the Service Employees International Union, SEIU, the United Auto Workers, UAW, and the United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers, UE, collectively represent about 6 million American workers. As Alex Press reported in Jacobin, this letter to Biden is a product of relationships built through the National Labor Network for Ceasefire, a coalition of unions that formed around a statement initially sponsored by UE and UFCW International Union Local 3000, that statement called on Biden and Congress to “push for an immediate ceasefire, an end to the siege of Gaza”, stopping short of calling for an end to US military aid to Israel.

This new letter represents a significant escalation in pressure from the US labor movement and an effort to address this ongoing humanitarian catastrophe with us today to discuss this important escalation in the campaign to pressure the US to end its involvement in Israel are Brandon Mancilla and George Waksmunski.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Well, gentlemen, it’s so great to have you on the show today. We really appreciate you all making time for this. We know how busy you are, but we know that you know how important this issue is to all of us as human beings, as fellow workers and to the unions that you represent and the union members that you represent. And I really want to pick up on that last point Mel was talking about in the introduction about how this has been building over the course of months, if not years, right? This strong forceful push from organized labor to oppose the brutal occupation and genocidal violence happening in Palestine is something that UE has been on the frontlines of, really a leader in the labor movement.

And I was wondering if we could start with George going back there and talk a little bit for our listeners about the Labor Network for Ceasefire, like how it was formed and the UE’s role in pushing this call for a ceasefire and now an end to military aid to Israel within the US labor movement. And then, Brandon, I’d love for you to hop in and talk about UAW as well, your president, Shawn Fain of course being one of the earliest and most vocal union leaders to call for a ceasefire earlier this year. So, George, give our listeners a little background here on UE’s role in this fight and how far that goes back.

George Waksmunski:

Sure. Thank you very much, brother. Well, UE has been in this for a very long time. For many decades, we’ve had a policy about the situation in Palestine and Gaza and as it relates to Israel. So that goes back many decades. And every two years, we have a national convention and we take up resolutions which our members ultimately vote on. And so again, for each of those conventions over the decades, similar resolutions were passed. In 2015, we passed a resolution called Justice and Peace for the People of Palestine and Israel and that called for an end military aid to Israel back then. It also endorsed BDS, boycott, divest and sanction, because we believe that Israel is acting similar to an apartheid state and that’s how apartheid was dismantled, at least one part of it. And so we were the first union to sign onto that back in 2015.

And again, every two years since then when we’ve had our conventions and we’ve had similar resolutions regarding military aid to Israel and calling for peace between the two parties, calling for a two-state solution. So this last convention in 2023, that resolution come up again, and again, we passed that resolution, calling for an end to all military aid to Israel. And that was about two weeks before the horrific attack of the citizens of Israel that occurred. So even prior to that, we were already calling for an end to military aid to Israel. So once the attack occurred and after several weeks of seeing how this was playing out, we were already in a position, long held, to be able to take the lead on it and that’s what we did.

As you mentioned, we initiated along with the UFCW 3000 a petition to get all labor unions signed onto to call for a ceasefire. Since then, our members have been out in the streets rallying, protesting on college campuses, at congressmen and senators’ offices, doors, wherever we can catch those folks to give them help. And fortunately, Congresswoman Summer Lee here in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is a strong advocate for peace in the Middle East and a two-state solution, so we’ve got a good congresswoman here. But so again, as the months have gone on, yes, we’ve been part of the National Labor Network for Ceasefire, working and gathering other unions into the coalition and we weren’t seeing any …

I mean, we got a lot of false hope given to us about a potential ceasefire and about a potential ceasefire and about a potential ceasefire, but it never happened. And we knew it never was going to happen, because Netanyahu, that’s not his goal, that’s not his road to success and the United States just backs Israel no matter what and even if it means that we’re going to be involved in genocide, supporting it with our bombs that we make. So again, we’ve put together our coalition to now put forward this letter to President Biden, going more than just calling for a ceasefire, but an end to all military aid to Israel, especially during this time.

So we’ve always been at the forefront of this and we’re very proud and excited by the number of national unions that you read off and especially the UAW and being part of this. And we are excited, because in the past, these things took years and years to get a coalition together. In this, it took seven months. So there’s a change going on, I think, not only in our membership, but at the leadership levels as well, to understand that the injury to one is an injury to all. Because there was a time in our history back during the Red Scare when McCarthyism, part of that was to silence unions from being active in political affairs, international affairs such as this. And for a long time, that worked. And although UE has never been silent on it, a lot of other unions on various issues have been.

So we’re very excited to see the other unions stepping forward as quickly as they are, even though in some cases it might seem like it’s been too long, but it is progress and we’re excited by it. Thanks.

Brandon Mancilla:

Thanks for having me on. I think just to add to George, unions like UE and Mark Dimondstein, his leadership with the postal workers and some of the other unions originally listed in that letter that UE helped lead really paved the way. I think it was really smart to realize that this moment was, number one, the demand needed to be serious of our government and of our elected officials to be held accountable to find a pathway to peace and the retaliatory violence that Israel was going to set upon after the October 7th attack by Hamas, right? But I think they also realized that it wasn’t going to be enough to just rally the same unions that have internationalist stance or a solid progressive stance on this issue. It needed to be an opening to the rest of the labor movement and I really commend, I think, UE and Mark and so many others for doing that because I think it forced the rest of the labor movement to have this conversation.

So I think intertwined with that is the fact that the international UAW has been going through its own reform process over the last few years. The election of Shawn Fain after one member, one vote, and my slate, which we ran with Shawn and the big three, Stand Up Strike and our commitment to new organizing, I think this is another chapter in that story. I think it’s in the same book that we’re writing and I think that’s been powered by our members. So I think two things played a factor in us joining that call in December, one being that a lot of our members, especially in Regions, 9A, mine, and Region 6, but also in places like Dearborn, Michigan, took to the streets and demanded peace, demanded a ceasefire from October 8th, right?

And why October 8th? Because everyone knew what was coming after October 7th, right? So they didn’t have to wait until November, December, January to know the scale of the violence that was going to be unleashed on the people at Gaza, right? So what happened thereafter was a lot of street protests demanding that we wouldn’t see the scale of suffering. That didn’t happen, of course. We supplied the weapons. Israel began its counteroffensive and led to the death of tens of thousands, which the numbers only increased and I do think that it’s far higher than the conservative estimate of the round 38,000 to 40,000 that most media outlets report nowadays.

And I think, with those members going out to the streets, they were demanding that their union, I think realign their own politics around this issue. I think that’s the key part of this. It wasn’t just, “Oh, I just happened to be a UAW member,” or, “I happen to be a union member,” or, “I happen to be a university staff member,” “I am doing this. I’m out on the streets also as a member of my union, not just as an average citizen, as an average worker. I want my protest also to be seen as a demand of my own union to join this explicitly,” right? And I think those were the conversations that started to happen, within local unions, within our political councils. Eventually 5 and 9A, explicitly as political councils, came out in support of a ceasefire sign on to the letter that UE mobilized and that gave myself and Director Mike Miller the leverage to be able to take that to the International Executive Board, have conversations with people like Shawn Fain and others on the International Executive Board to educate and inform.

Shawn was very supportive from the very beginning on being vocal on this. We just needed to find new way to do it. And at the International Executive Board at the end of November, we decided to sign on. So between October and December 1st when we finally came out. We were definitely early on in the sense that a lot of the major unions who have usually been silent or ignorant or on Israel’s side, on critically on this when these bombing campaigns would happen. We’re early in breaking with that silence or changing course, but we weren’t the first ones obviously, but I think our leadership on this, when we did come out, did allow an even further opening of the door for other unions to come out.

And I think that’s when you saw the numerous local unions, central labor councils, international unions, and then eventually, the AFL-CIO itself come out for a ceasefire. And now I think the discussion is like, “Well, listen, we’re now seven months after this kind of momentous moment of labor union ceasefire statements. What’s next?” right? And I think that’s what this escalation is with the letter to call for halt of arms. And I just think the key thing to remember through this process is that it is a process of political education for our own unions, right? It’s not fast enough, but it’s also historic. So those both things are happening at the same time, and at the end of the day, this is not going to end until peace is secured and there’s a true path to justice for the Palestinian people.

Mel Buer:

Thank you for that. Brandon, I wanted to direct this question to you first. We’ve talked about why calls for permanent ceasefire were really the start or temporary, a ceasefire, and now we’re seeing through, what is it now, months of negotiations, almost reaching an agreement or one side agreeing and then Israel walking back or broken promises that the Biden administration has spent a lot of time saying, “We’re close,” or these negotiations are breaking down for one reason or another, or at some point, it seems like almost a cynical sort of ploy for votes in November sometimes, right? And so I really want to drive home, one, Israel is receiving at least every year until 2028 3.8 billion in military funding from the United States. I think it’s something like 15% of the Israeli defense budget is made up of money that comes from the United States, which is wild to me, right?

I guess I want to ask, why do you think this is the appropriate pressure on Israel to really hone in on the US pulling back its military aid in a way to pressure them to actually accept the terms of a permanent ceasefire in this conflict?

Brandon Mancilla:

I think that’s a great question. I think there’s a few reasons. The first one that comes to mind is precisely because of what you pointed out, that the amount of political backing, arms, resources we supply and arms we supply to the state of Israel is astronomical, right? I think it’s not an exaggeration to say that President Biden could make a phone call and end this war today, right? How the state of Israel reacts to that is a separate question, but they cannot carry out the scale of violence without our support as the United States as a country, right? At the UN, it’s a countless international bodies, right? In front of the international courts. We are consistently one of few allies that the state of Israel has to give what it’s doing right now, legitimacy or coverup, right?

And I think that’s really important for us as leaders within the labor movement to emphasize for our own membership and for our ability to wage our own political stance, is to say, “We know we are complicit and responsible in ways in which we are not over the actions of a group like Hamas. And we are not and disproportionately in this conflict over so many others,” right? This is why it’s not because people want to talk about Israel more than other countries, it’s because we are directly involved and complicit in ways that really far outweigh anything else. So I think that’s really important.

I think, second, the fact that this opens up the door to talk about the fact about our defense budget, right? The fact that we spend so much on defense, on military spending in lieu of actually trying to solve deep social crises in this country of inequality, of healthcare, of food access, of education, of so many social goods that working people need, union and non-union alike, to be able to survive and make stable good lives in this country. So these things are all intertwined to each other. And I think, even though the majority of the defense industry is not unionized, there is some union representation within defense, right?

So we don’t make the corporate decisions that these defense contractors and manufacturers make and we’re not out there signing the contracts with foreign governments, our own government about supplying weapons, but ultimately, many workers do make the arms that end up getting sent, the bombs, the arms, tanks, etcetera to different foreign wars and conflicts. And I think that means that we have also responsibility to say, “We have to have an economy that is able to run in a different way under humane principles.”

Maximillian Alvarez:

I want to hop in here and definitely ask both of you from your respective vantage points at the UE and UAW, what response you’ve gotten from the Biden administration, if any at all, and also from your own members? I’d love to just hear a bit more about that. But, George, I was wondering if we could start with you and if you could tug on that thread a little bit more. When you mentioned the Red Scare, when you mentioned the role that organized labor used to play as a force fighting for social good and fighting for political causes that it’s the labor movement saw as fundamentally intertwined with our ultimate goal to make life better and the world better for working people across the board.

And it seems as if over the past 50, 60, 70 years, and we can’t go into the whole history there about why unions have taken less and less of a strong political stance, deindustrialization, offshoring, the open season on organized labor from the 1980s on, all of these things, of course, compound and put additional pressure on unions to basically be a bit more guarded over what they have while they’re losing so much over the course of the past few decades. But at that same time, unions as political engines for expressing the political will of working people have been largely captured by just this idea that we can endorse a presidential candidate or our job is to endorse and support candidates or parties, but that’s really it.

And yet, you have more independent unions like UE and the International Longshore and Warehouse Workers Union who played a critical role in striking against the apartheid in South Africa. I just wanted to ask if you could tug a little more on that for our listeners and with your experience and your union’s history, if you could say a little more about how unions got so complacent when it came to taking strong political stances like this and how you see that changing now. And then I would love to hear from both of you about what response you’ve gotten from the Biden administration, all the way down to your members.

George Waksmunski:

There’s a lot there for me to cover. Well, we’ve always been a union that believed in independent political action. We’ve never been a union to get in bed with the Democratic Party. We think we’ve long believed that both parties are corrupt and do not serve our best interest, especially since the McCarthyism and the Red Scare when the unions were divided and they just busted up the militancy of the labor movement to the degree that unions were running scared because of the McCarthy effect and UE was attacked severely. We were almost killed. It’s taken us decades to overcome all of that.

So an example, I think we were a pretty good example to other unions about why you need to fall in line. And I can’t speak for other unions or what their history is or what their thinking was, but we’ve always seen ourselves as being a union that is not in the mainstream and it comes from our principles of aggressive struggle and militancy and the members have to run the union from the bottom to the top. When the members are running the union from the bottom to the top and it’s their nickels and dimes they’re fighting for, they tend to be a little more militant about it when they believe that they have some investment in their union, some control over their union. And they really do in UE. Anything that happens at the local level is all the members business. We don’t get involved with that.

So we’ve always had this history of being militant and being aggressive. It’s written into our preamble and that the members run the union. So the feedback we’ve gotten from our members has been positive for our positions for the most part. Certainly, there’s every once in a while some member who’s expressing his right to speak hot and disagree with us and that’s okay. That’s healthy. We embrace that. But for the most part and overall, members from coast to coast are out in the street on their own with our support and approval. We have to give them approval. They run the union, but they’re out there in the street and on the campuses picketing and protesting. I’m leaving right now after this to go speak at a rally over to University of Pittsburgh.

So again, during that period of McCarthyism, it just really destroyed the labor movement because there was factions that were very militant and those factions were one by one annihilated. And we were one of the only ones surviving, us, the Longshoremen, maybe the United Mine Workers. I’m not sure if they were in there as well, but there aren’t too many of us left. And the other unions, they fell in line. They signed the pledge, the non-Communist pledge, which we refused to do for many, many years. Ultimately, we had to surrender or we would’ve died. So we’ve been through some tough struggles in our history and we’ve learned some hard lessons, some good lessons, lessons we always knew, but sometimes you got to stand up for your principles and even if it costs you and it nearly costs us, but we still have our principles and we are thriving today even after all of that.

So on response from the Biden administration, to my knowledge, we’ve not gotten any. I think I would’ve been notified of that. I did talk to our national president, Carl Rosen, in the last 24 hours about this call. So he did brief me on some things that I should know or share with you and he did not say anything about a response. So I don’t believe we got anything.

Mel Buer:

Brandon, do you want to share? I don’t know if Fain has gotten any sort of notification from the administration that they even acknowledged that the letter freaking exists or has there been communication just from the rank and file in general about the direction that the UAW and this coalition are moving towards in terms of their call for ending military aid? What has been the response that you’ve gotten on your end?

Brandon Mancilla:

Yeah, so as you can imagine, when we did not endorse Biden last year and also had our Stand Up Strike, which had a lot to do with the way that subsidies to companies were being dished out by the Biden administration for the transition to EVs and battery plant assembly, etcetera, the Biden administration took note of that and got very involved in our contract negotiations. They did not … Ultimately, that’s not what made the difference, right? What made the difference was our strike and our membership power, but we opened the door to the Biden administration in order to basically set a new tone, which is to say, “From now on when you build these new assembly plants for EVs and batteries, etcetera, you’re going to have to keep labor in mind. You’re going to have to set labor standards. You’re going to have to regulate these places for health and safety standards. They’re really dangerous plants. And also you’re going to have to make this a just transition. If we’re going to actually accelerate EV production, it’s going to have to be a just transition,” right?

So I think that was the beginning I think of conversations with the Biden administration, and then of course, October 7th and the war on Gaza came right around this time, right in the middle towards the end of our strike, right? So when we passed our ceasefire resolution, and since then, Shawn has been very blunt with the president, President Biden about our union’s position. I personally had a little bit of a flareup with Biden’s staff when I wasn’t allowed to go on stage with my ceasefire stickers on. I was ultimately, but they threatened that Biden would leave if I was up there. I didn’t give that up. And ultimately, nothing happened. He went up there, gave a speech for our endorsement and also I had my stickers on. But after that, Shawn has been very clear to him, this is especially after the uncommitted vote in Michigan especially, that, “You’re going to lose this election in places like Michigan because there’s no change in direction,” right?

And unfortunately, we haven’t seen a dramatic change in course. Some rhetorical I think changes, I think a commitment to find a framework and negotiate towards a ceasefire, but no real actual I think leverage from the government to actually make it happen. And recently in conversations with the Harris team, since Biden stepped down from the candidacy, I know that President Fain has also brought up the fact that we have to see a change in course on Gaza and we also have sent that letter demanding and to arm shipments and did not expect the Harris team nor anyone in the administration to immediately, I think, change course because of those things, right? It’s going to be continued pressure and growing to movement that’s going to ultimately, I think, deliver.

But I think, in part, what we saw from Kamala Harris in that press conference she gave after she met with Netanyahu, I think that is in part because of the continual pressure, right? Because of pressure from the labor unions and generally just I think the US public, is at a place where they just don’t want to see this happening anymore. So a ceasefire, I think, if you poll the majority of Americans, they want to see an end to war and genocide and that’s it, right? So I think you can call that political calculation. I don’t know what you can call it, whatever, but I think they’ve taken note of it. And I think we just have to see now with continued pressure, continued mobilization, how much the Democratic Party will want to change course.

And I think events that happened this week in Iran, I think, are going to be really indicative how the US responds to the assassination of a key Hamas leader through the peace talks.

Mel Buer:

I think that’s a really good of segue into our final question to wrap up the conversation. This question is for both of you, Brandon, if you’d like to start. Now that the letter has been published and we see groups like Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine also picking up this thread to calling for an end to US military aid to Israel, I think it’s an important way to end this conversation by really bringing it back to a call to action for those who are listening. What can rank-and-file union members or organizers workers, individuals who care, what can they do to join this anti-genocide movement and how can we continue to keep this pressure up? What are the things that you think of?

Brandon Mancilla:

Well, I think just to start from the UAW side, the UAW 4811, the 48,000 academic workers of the University of California, I think that something historic in going on strike against the unfair labor practices that the university committed when they repressed protests and silence speech on campus during the encampment period. So I think the fact that we had our first ever … George, you can correct me, but I think it was the first ever authorized strike for Palestine. I think that’s a historic breakthrough. So what UAW 4811, I think that it goes … Honestly, to me, it’s like the biggest advancement of this movement beyond statements and letters, which are all important, but to actually go out on the line defending your co-workers for the simple right to speak out against injustices is crucial because that’s what the labor should be about, aside from also fighting for our benefits and our wages and so many other protections we need on the job. This one’s just as important.

So I would say, for workers across different industries, just know that having a voice on the job is protected. That’s important, right? And if your boss is retaliating against you for political activity, union activity, you have rights and you can organize around that and I think that’s really important. Similarly, I think this wasn’t a strike, but Local 2325 in my region represents public defenders and legal services workers across New York City. Many of those unions, those units within the amalgamated local have passed their own ceasefire resolutions. Ultimately, this became a solidarity resolution that then some of our pro-Israel members sued the local four, which made us exploded it into a whole legal fiasco, which to me was ridiculous because this is a internal democratic union decision of members, not something to bring the courts.

And of course, the reactionaries in Congress caught onto this and brought the president forward to a deposition and there was a hearing about this, and this is just ridiculous. This is the kind of stuff that is reminiscent of the McCarthyist period in this country. So I think workers and folks should know that. I think, number one, the strongest protection you’re going to have is a union in all of this because there will be retaliation. We take risks and speak out politically, but there’s no stronger defense than a union that’s going to have your back in these situations. But second, we need to take those risks. We need to step up and stand up and speak out on all of these issues, because if we don’t do it, no one’s going to do it, right?

And I think the solidarity movement for Palestine in this country I think has really, I think, constantly spoken about how labor entering the fight has really changed the dynamic, right? Because it’s not just a protest of groups that have usually come out for these things, now it’s got another added muscle to it, which is the labor movement. So don’t get discouraged, is my kind of message at the end of this.

George Waksmunski:

First we got to have discussions. We have to be talking to each other worker to worker have to have … Workers on the shop floor, they’re having these discussions and they have like-minded people. Those like-minded people should bring themselves together, come to their union meeting, exercise their rights within the union too to speak at those meetings and make your voices be heard that we need to express ourselves on this issue, because again, an injury to one is an injury to all. These are workers who are being murdered and injured and starved in Palestine, in Gaza, in the West Bank. And so it is a workers’ issue and we should take these conversations to our locals, seek for them to pass resolutions in support of a ceasefire and in support of end of all military aid to Israel.

Workers can be seeking out community groups. There’s rallies in every city, in every town at some point, maybe not every town, but almost anywhere you go, you could find a rally in support of the people of Palestine and go to a rally, find somebody. Find a group who sponsored that rally. Get involved with that group and they can share information with you that you could take back to your local union and have more discussions and more conversations about this very important issue. And we got to educate people. We got to mobilize people. That takes time. We got to get people out of their comfort zone because, “Why is this important to me? That’s way over there. I have nothing to do with that. Why should I care?”

Well, we got to educate people on that and we got to get them out of this decades’ old way of thinking that, “What is happening over there don’t affect me,” because it does affect us. We’re paying the taxes. We’re building the bombs, we’re sending the bombs, we’re sending the bombs and the bombs are dropping on innocent children and women and men, citizens indiscriminately. And that has to end because what happens there can happen here and we’re in a living in a crazy time. Our country’s under a severe attack and this political season is very scary. We’ve seen an attempted assassination right here in Western Pennsylvania and we’ve seen multiple other acts of violence against political leaders all across the country.

So we really have to be talking to each other, taking it to our union meetings, having these discussions, educating people, getting involved. There’s all kind of ways. You can go to the National Labor Network for Ceasefire. You could come, look up the UE’s website at ueunion.org, reach out to us. We will try to find you somebody to get in touch with. Many of our locals are active. Like I said, I’m going today here in Pittsburgh area. We have three or four locals who are very active in the struggle. A lot of them aren’t active, but here we definitely have a few who are out there all the time, but thank you.

Maximillian Alvarez:

All right, gang, that’s going to wrap it up for us here at Working People. I want to thank our incredible guest, Brandon Mancilla, UAW Region 9A director, and George Waksmunski, Eastern Region president of the United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers, for coming on the show today and talking to us about this important issue. And I want to thank the great Mel Buer for co-hosting with me. Mel and I want to do more of these conversations. We want to keep talking to more folks, union and non-union and getting more perspectives on these and other issues as we continue into the election season and beyond. So please do reach out to us if you have recommendations for folks you’d like us to talk to or topics that you want us to discuss.

And as always, I want to thank you all for listening and I want to thank you for caring. We’ll see you all back here next week for another episode of Working People. And if you can’t wait that long, then go subscribe to our Patreon and check out the great bonus episodes that we’ve got there for our patrons. And of course, go explore all the other great work that we’re doing at The Real News Network where we do grassroots journalism that lifts up the voices and stories from the frontlines of struggle. Sign up for The Real News newsletter so you never miss a story and help us do more work like this by going to therealnews.com/donate and becoming a supporter today. It really makes a difference. I’m Maximillian Alvarez.

Mel Buer:

And I’m Mel Buer.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. Solidarity forever.

After a week of protests, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets for a final March on the DNC, marching within sight and sound of the United Center on the concluding day of the 2024 Democratic National Convention. The demands of marchers and the Coalition to March on the DNC were clear: they called on the Biden Administration, the Democratic aarty, and the Harris campaign to take action to secure an immediate, permanent ceasefire in Gaza, and to end US aid for Israel. TRNN’s Mel Buer reports on the ground from Union Park and speaks with march attendees.

Video/Post-Production: David Hebden

Transcript

Protesters:  Hey, hey! Ho, ho! The occupation’s got to go!

Hey, hey! Ho, ho! The occupation’s got to go!

Mel Buer:  Over the last four days, thousands of demonstrators have gathered in the streets to march within sight and sound of the DNC to make their demands known that a permanent ceasefire in Palestine and an arms embargo against Israel are the only ways to end this genocide.

Today we are walking around to talk to demonstrators about the last four days and why they are out here today.

Speaker 3:  As someone of the Afghan diaspora, it is beautiful to see so many people come together and advocate for Palestinian human rights, something I just never imagined that folks would come together and push forward.

As an environmental science teacher, what is happening is an ecocide, and it’s environmental destruction. And so we also think about the rights of nature. And so, nature’s rights are being violated, too. And so we’re looking at various types of rights being violated, and how do we protect our environment? And nature includes us as well.

Mel Buer:  And for you?

Speaker 4:  I think it’s incredible to see the numbers that we’re seeing this week, and I think, as someone that’s new to the labor movement, we’re seeing a lot of people coming together for different causes and seeing how all of these issues are connected. And we cannot stand for labor rights, we cannot stand for environmental rights without standing for Palestinian liberation.

Mel Buer:  So we’ve been out here, I’ve been out here every day since Sunday. I’ve been seeing thousands of demonstrators come out to this park and elsewhere in the city, and it’s been really heartening to see just how big the crowds are. On a personal level, beyond just the policy and being part of the labor movement, what is it like to be a part of this?

Speaker 3:  It’s surreal. I think a lot of us who have been part of movements like these since we’ve been young, because we’ve been impacted by war or our generations of communities that have been impacted by war, and we’re here, seeing the diverse community build and come together, and educators, teachers that I wish I had growing up, that advocated for me when we were at war with Afghanistan. But seeing folks being able to speak up and learn and educate and uplift our most marginalized voices has been very powerful and moving. It gives me a lot of hope.

Speaker 4:  For me, it’s been really reinvigorating coming to these events, being around such an intergenerational community that is fighting for Palestine. I think it’s incredible, and it really pushes me every day to work harder and think about and reflect on what I’m doing in this larger movement.

Mel Buer:  Now that we’re at the end of the DNC, day four, last night, what is one message that you would like to send straight into the convention center to the Harris campaign?

Speaker 3:  Let’s humanize Palestinian voices. Let’s make sure Palestinian voices are able to be uplifted on that stage. The time is now.

Speaker 4:  Words mean nothing if you don’t commit to taking tangible action, like stopping funds to Israel, stopping arms to Israel. We need to make moves now.

Speaker 5:  This coalition put together the march on the first day and also the last day. It was important that we set the tone of the week by having that march on Monday. And it’s important that we set the final impression of the week as well with the march today.

And so, we’re really happy with the turnout on Monday. We’re really happy with the turnout today. We’ve brought together people from all over society, all different sectors of the movement, and united under these demands of standing with Palestine and ending US aid to Israel.

Mel Buer:  So the DNC has been going on for four days, and we’ve seen a lot come out of the convention, and we’ve seen a lot happening on the ground here outside the convention. What is one of the main messages that you want this march to bring back to the DNC before they leave today?

Speaker 5:  I think what we want from the DNC, or what we want the DNC and the Democratic Party leadership to hear and see is that there is an organized movement of the very people that they claim to represent that don’t stand with them in this genocide, that want an end to US aid to Israel.

And at the same time, we want to see a stop to a deterioration in our rights. We need our rights defended. And the reality is that the Democratic Party has overseen a deterioration. And so, we want people to also know that there’s a mass movement, to join the mass movement, and to be willing to fight for more. Because if there is change, it’s because we forced it to happen.

Mel Buer:  Now, there’s been a huge police presence at every single march. I’ve been out here since Sunday. It’s kind of wild to watch. What are your thoughts about the police response in the city of Chicago for the last couple of days? And what does that say about where we’re at currently?

Speaker 5:  The police only have one role, and it’s do not infringe on our First Amendment right to protest. We know how to keep us safe. We’ve gone to great lengths to ensure that we can have a safe protest because we have people from all walks of life at this protest, people of all ages, people of all ability, statuses, undocumented people, and we know how to keep our own protest safe, so they need to stay as far away as possible. That’s our view.

Mel Buer:  Do you have any other message that you would like to share with our audience before I let you go?

Speaker 5:  Yeah. We believe that the movement for a free Palestine, the movement to end this genocide, it has shown that people in this country are outraged. People in this country are of conscience, most people. We’ve seen continuous mobilization every week in Chicago especially, but all over the country. And it’s been people in vast numbers from all different communities. And it shows that there is a sizable movement for justice, and we need to come together, unite all our demands, and also push for a free Palestine.

Speaker 6:  Well, the main tenet of our organization is to stop war. So I’m out here saying, spending billions and billions of dollars to kill people anywhere, but especially now Gaza, Palestine, is an utter waste of resources, utter waste of, well, monetary as well as human resources. And it makes no sense to me.

We have 20% of the children going to bed hungry right here in this country, but we don’t have any money for that. But we always have money for war. So that’s why I’m here. And also, I guess, I don’t guess, one of my mottoes is keep planting seeds, and so I’m here planting seeds of peace. Sometimes they take, sometimes they don’t, but you gotta keep planting.

Mel Buer:  So there’s been a big mass movement the last couple of days. We’ve seen people out here every night. I’ve been out here every night. How do you feel personally about seeing the movement, as it is, out in the streets in the last couple of days?

Speaker 6:  I’m very grateful. I was in the infantry in Vietnam, and I saw a lot of children. And so when I see these clips of children being massacred, it’s just beyond me, and it takes me to another spot, and I gotta do what I can to stop this. I’m very glad these people are out here.

I talked to a musician the other night, and he spends a lot of his time in Europe, and he says they have demonstrations in most of the nations in Europe every day, if 10, 20,000, every day. On the weekends, 100,000. He just can’t believe the US is so… People just don’t know. The news media, other than you guys and a few others, don’t carry it. They carry all these fluff stories, and they carry the pro-Israel stories, which are just lies, but they don’t carry the truth. So it’s good to see folks out here. It does my heart good.

Mel Buer:  What is one message that you would have for the folks attending the DNC or for the Harris campaign or the Biden administration?

Speaker 6:  Spend money on we the people, not on war.

Maximillian Alvarez:  Thank you so much for watching The Real News Network, where we lift up the voices, stories, and struggles that you care about most. And we need your help to keep doing this work. So please tap your screen now, subscribe, and donate to The Real News Network. Solidarity forever.

On Aug 22, dozens of labor organizers and allies joined the thousands of demonstrators marching within sight and sound of the DNC for the final March on the DNC action in Chicago, Illinois. The Real News spoke with union members who showed up to demand a permanent ceasefire in Palestine and an end to military aid for Israel about why they felt it was important for labor to be represented in the movement for Palestinian Liberation.

Video/Post-Production: David Hebden

Transcript

Mel Buer:  We’re here at the fourth and final day of the Democratic National Convention, outside at Union Park for the final night of the March on the DNC. For the last week, we’ve seen thousands of demonstrators stream into this park, all demanding an arms embargo on Israel and a ceasefire — Permanent ceasefire — In Palestine.

Today, a large contingent of the Chicago Labor for Palestine Coalition have come out today to support the March on the DNC and its demands. We talked to a number of members of various unions about why they’ve come out today, and what they think labor can do for this movement in the future.

So, we see a huge crowd out here, the Labor for Palestine, particularly the Chicago Labor for Palestine. Why is it important for you to be out here, part of this group, and be represented at the march today?

Speaker 1:  Well, Palestine is a labor issue because we should care about humans no matter what part of the world they live in. And what’s happening in Gaza and the West Bank now is a crisis, a humanitarian crisis. It’s a genocide that our tax dollars are paying for. So, there’s just that. It’s wrong on that standpoint.

The fact that it’s our tax dollars paying for it is even worse. The fact that we’re spending money on that. And in this country we have people who don’t have healthcare, that don’t have proper housing, they’re struggling to buy milk and eggs because prices are through the roof, rent is through the roof, and pay has not gone up with that.

And so, there’s money to destroy, to maim, to murder children, women, men in Gaza and the West Bank, and yet we don’t have money for healthcare. We don’t have money for housing, transportation, all the things that people in this city deserve and work very hard for.

So, I think those are reasons why we’re out here today. We want to stop arming Israel. We want an immediate end to aid to Israel. And we should be funding our communities and healing them, not providing genocidal war funding.

Speaker 2:  I think witnessing a genocide unfold in real time on my phone has permanently changed me. And I can’t look my students or my children in the face, after knowing intimately what dead toddlers look like, and then seeing… I would doomscroll through my phone every night and then sneak into my children’s room to give them a kiss and make sure they were okay. And that’s just not a world that I can be okay with. I cannot look in the faces of my children and my students if I’m not doing something about it.

Speaker 3:  Well, in my experience, I was on strike last year. I’ve been to many picket lines. Workers stand in solidarity with other workers around the world, and we’re just here to show our support for the Palestinian trade unionists, and also the people of Palestine and their right to self-determination.

And we just want to make sure that our presence is known, that it’s here. We support a ceasefire, we support an end to sending military aid and weapons that contributes to the genocide in Gaza.

It’s our tax dollars that are funding this. That’s the way I talk about it with people, with other workers, that might not understand or know exactly what’s going on. They’re like, why does this matter? Why should this matter to me? I’m like, well, we look at our neighborhoods and our communities, and my daughter’s school’s falling apart. And they say, oh, there’s no money to fix anything in our infrastructure. But we have billions of dollars to fund a genocide, and that’s not right.

Mel Buer:  As a member of the UAW, how do you feel about your international president not only speaking at the DNC, but also continuing to advocate for a ceasefire and an arms embargo in Israel?

Speaker 3:  Yeah. Well, I’m glad that he did mention that. Just wish it would’ve gone a little bit further. Even with AOC’s remarks today, the uncommitted delegates are demanding to have a Palestinian voice in the DNC, in the convention, and they were denied, so they’re doing a sit-in. One of my friends, who’s a delegate, is also there, participating.

And I wish they would’ve not just mentioned a ceasefire, but also ending the aid to Israel, ending the… No more bombs, no more weapons, no more money to fund this war, or this genocide.

Mel Buer:  So, the last four days have been full of these incredible marches. I’ve been out here every day since Sunday watching these thousands of people walking in the streets. How does it feel, on a personal level, to be part of this movement?

Speaker 1:  It’s inspiring. The Democratic Party does not talk about Palestine. I was listening to one of the panels chaired by Zogby, and the only time Palestine ever got mentioned was when Jesse Jackson was running for president as part of the Rainbow Coalition. It’s absolutely stunning. I had no idea. It’s fitting. Both parties have backed Israel to the hilt because it’s part of the US international policy and project for many years. So it’s heartening that those ideas are being challenged by so many people.

The fact that they’re having to talk about it now, within the DNC spaces and without the DNC, is a testament to all the work that people are doing. Because they’ve been moved by what they’re seeing in Gaza, they’ve been moved by what they’re seeing in the West Bank, they have to act. They have to get out in the streets. And so, it’s inspiring to me that people are seeing that regular people can stand up and make a difference. At least it’s just getting the issue to the forefront.

I think the next step for us is, how do we start to actually put pressure on the decision makers to do what’s right and stop arming Israel immediately? That’s going to be the more difficult challenge. Because we’ve had these protests, we’ve had mass movements in this country since October.

In my own union, Chicago Teachers Union, Nov. 1 at our House of Delegates, we passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire, which is one of the earlier unions to do so. But the city of Chicago also passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire, but obviously Netanyahu and his war buddies, war criminals, really, don’t care about that.

And so, the question, I think, for us, as workers in this country, as citizens, as activists, as people who live in the city, not just citizens, but anybody, how do we take it to the next level so that we can actually stop this funding and this material support for this awful genocide?

Speaker 2:  I think labor has a unique ability to mobilize a lot of people, and a lot of people quickly. As a proud CTU member, I have seen the ways that we can get tens of thousands of people into the streets at a moment’s notice. And I have also, having been teaching for about a decade, and involved in CTU for about a decade, have been really proud to see the ways that CTU has evolved over the years, evolved in our politics, evolved in our engagement with our communities, and I am just excited to be part of this campaign.

Mel Buer:  As a member of the labor movement, do you have any thoughts about how the labor movement can continue to put that pressure, or escalate that pressure?

Speaker 1:  Yeah. I think one of the things we’ve done in the Chicago Labor Network for Palestine is start with education. The mass media, the politicians, give this story that this all started on Oct. 7. Hamas just sprung out of the ground out of nowhere and launched this unprovoked attack on Israel. And that’s just fiction. This goes back to ’48. It goes back even before then, earlier, if you really want to get into history.

So, one of the things we’re trying to do is just educate people, saying, here’s actually what is going on. We had a forum over at the Chicago Teachers Union. We brought educators, Palestinian educators, talking to about 150 unionists about what the history of Palestine is, what the history of Israel is, how Zionism is not a religion, but a political project, and how we as people in this country should learn what our country has supported.

Why is it that we should be against political Zionism? Why we should oppose funding the state of Israel. And I think those kinds of things are a start to get people’s minds changed, to get them educated.

And then, I think, further, we have to do things like take action within our unions. Are our unions investing in Israel? Are there pension funds that our unions contribute to that may be associated with either war profiteers or the state of Israel itself? Is there work action that we can take, like docks that are providing shipping services to bring material to Israel’s war?

Those are the kinds of things I think we should start to talk about and organize and activate around now to support this Palestinian struggle.

Mel Buer:  Any of the delegates, the attendees at the DNC, the Harris campaign, is there a message that you would like to send to them as a member of the labor movement also involved in this kind of work?

Speaker 3:  Yeah, for sure. To demand that, not only to call for a ceasefire, but to also stop sending aid to Israel. Stop sending bombs and weapons.

We want amnesty for all our newcomers, our new arrivals. I was just at a rally in Lockport for Julian Electric. They’re trying to join the UAW. Most of those workers are undocumented, so we need to stand in solidarity together, because all these issues are related, and let’s hold these electives accountable.

They’re not going to get a guaranteed vote from everyone just because we don’t want Trump. Obviously we don’t. Nobody wants another four years of that nonsense, but it’s sad that these are our only two options. I see Kamala as just Biden 2.0, and we need to have a Labor Party. We need to have other parties that can have candidates that people will want to vote for, and not just have this two-party system.

Maximillian Alvarez:  Thank you so much for watching The Real News Network, where we lift up the voices, stories, and struggles that you care about most. And we need your help to keep doing this work. So please tap your screen now, subscribe, and donate to The Real News Network. Solidarity forever.

Hours before the Democratic National Convention officially began on Monday, Aug. 19, thousands of people gathered in Chicago’s Union Park for a rally and march organized by the Coalition to March on the DNC. “Democratic Party leadership switching out their presidential nominee does not wash the blood of over 50,000 Palestinians off their hands,” the coalition’s website states. “It is a matter of historical urgency that all organizations who fight for the rights of working and oppressed people in the US join us in this demonstration to stand in solidarity with Palestine.” The Real News reports from the streets of Chicago, speaking with march organizers and attendees.

Interviewer: Mel Buer
Videography: Camero Granadino, David Hebden, Kayla Rivara, Maximillian Alvarez
Post-Production: Cameron Granadino
Audio Mastering: David Hebden

Transcript

Crowd:  If we don’t get it, shut it down!

If we don’t get it, shut it down!

If we don’t get it!

Shut it down!

Maximillian Alvarez:  We’re here on the ground in Chicago, just blocks away from the United Center, where tonight the Democratic National Convention is set to begin.

But as you can see behind me, the march on the DNC has already begun, with thousands of protesters filling the street. They began the march in Union Park down the road, and now they are currently making their way, slowly but surely ,through the protest route.

But as Mel and I reported for The Real News a couple of weeks ago, this march almost didn’t happen, right Mel?

Mel Buer:  Yeah. The organizations have been in the middle of a year-long battle to get permits for this march from the city. Finally, in the last two days, permits were granted for a rally space, for speakers, for a stage, and a protest route was part of the deal.

Maximillian Alvarez:  So Hatem, as we discussed weeks ago, this march almost didn’t happen. What do you think it says about the strength of the coalition that you are marching in the streets of Chicago right now within sight and sound of the DNC?

Hatem Abudayyeh (Coalition to March on the DNC):  Yeah, I mean, we had every expectation that this is what was going to happen. We’re professional organizers. We’ve been doing this stuff for a long time. We’ve organized every single RNC and DNC protest since 2008. So I was confident that this was going to happen. We ran into some challenges, of course, but we did what we do. We worked with the community, we worked with allies, we worked with people that were close to the administration, and we put some pressure on them. And it worked.

Maximillian Alvarez:  And what can folks expect from the rest of the week from the coalition?

Hatem Abudayyeh (Coalition to March on the DNC):  Listen, I think we hit close to 15,000 today. And Wednesday, we’ll have a good crowd. Thursday, we’ll have a good crowd. We’re definitely going to get the tens of thousands that we said we were going to get this week. This is a really, really great start.

I was a little bit worried. It was about 11:45 and there were only a couple thousand people there, and I got really, really nervous. But the community came through, my community came through, all the other communities came through. And people from the oppressed communities know that sometimes we start things a few minutes late. So folks got here a few minutes late, but we made up for it.

Maximillian Alvarez:  So we expect more marches throughout the week. The Coalition to March on the DNC, representing over 200 organizations that helped organize this march are going to be back here on Thursday, on the day that Kamala Harris speaks. The Real News will be there, and we’re going to take you on the ground right now inside the march itself.

Amanda (protest attendee):  So I’ve come out, basically, to send a message that the Democrats need to earn our votes. They don’t just get to have them from us based off of our identity or theirs.

And what I mean by earning our vote is materially making any progress at all, actually, the bar is quite low, towards ending the genocide in Gaza, and also to stop the racist policies that the Democratic Party has continued to perpetuate despite all of their marketing efforts to say otherwise.

I’m really just disappointed in the weaponization of identity politics. And what I mean by that is putting this woman of color up there and being like, oh yeah, she’s like for Black and Brown people. And she’s not. She’s made her career off of incarcerating Black men in California. And it’s sad to see that some people are falling for that.

Real solidarity between different groups includes eliminating carceral structures in the United States, or at the very least reducing the amount of funds towards them. And so just putting a Black or Brown face in a high place is not going to help us, and we really need to fight for material change.

Mel Buer:  And you have hope for that, yeah?

Amanda (protest attendee):  I do have hope for that. Yeah, I absolutely do. I mean, I think now is the time to push the Democrats and to tell them if they don’t change their policies, we’re going to vote for someone else. And hopefully that’s enough for them because they’re supposed to care about democracy, so yeah.

Hatem Abudayyeh (Coalition to March on the DNC):  And this is what they’re afraid of. They’re afraid of all of us. They’re afraid of the unity between Black and Palestinian people in this country. They’re afraid of the unity between Palestinian people and undocumented immigrants in this country. They’re afraid of the unity of the working class and the rank and file workers and the Palestinian people in this country.

So I want to thank every single one of you for being here. I want to thank you for what you do for us and for our families and for our people in Palestine.

Mona (Palestinian Feminist Collective):  We have screamed in agony as we witnessed the brutal slaughter of Palestinian children, mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers. We marched, we demanded, we wrote, and we prayed for our people in Palestine only to be met, only to be met with nothing but empty platitudes and contempt from our elected officials. Enough.

Nick Tilson (NDN Collective):  We’re an international organization based out of Oceti Sakowin lands, from my home lands in South Dakota. And we’re here showing solidarity, reminding America that this election’s happening on the stolen land of Indigenous people. And here within the Land Back movement, we stand in deep solidarity with the Palestinian people. And we’re here to continue to call for a ceasefire and stop the funding of the military aid to Israel.

We’re also here fighting and reminding folks to support the movement of the return of Indigenous lands back into Indigenous hands.

And then the third campaign that we’re really focused on is we’re fighting for executive clemency for Leonard Peltier, who is the longest existing Indigenous political prisoner in history. So we’re calling on President Biden for executive clemency for Leonard Peltier.

Mel Buer:  So we’re standing here. This crowd is just getting bigger and bigger. What is the thing that you’re most excited about being out here today and representing your organization?

Nick Tilson (NDN Collective):  I think the biggest thing is we’re out here showing the diversity that makes up this country. There’s been active efforts to erase Indigenous people from the political process, from the narrative process. They tend to try to say that, as we fight for liberation and freedom for all Indigenous peoples, that they make efforts to try to erase us.

And so our purposes here is to show that a multiracial democracy is possible, but we have to be fighting for real politics, like stopping the genocide, like fighting for Indigenous land back, like freeing all of our political prisoners.

Mel Buer:  Is there anything else that you would like our audience to know about why you’re here, your organization, why you think it’s important to continue to come out and support this kind of event?

Nick Tilson (NDN Collective):  Well, NDN Collective is dedicated to building Indigenous power. And we do that through a multifaceted approach by investing into the self-determination of Indigenous people. Because throughout settler colonialism, our lands, our decision-making process over our lives and our lands has been slowly taken from us. And the Land Back movement is about rebuilding those things.

And so we’re over here reminding America that if it’s ever going to be able to look at itself in the mirror, it is going to have to return, begin to return Indigenous lands back into Indigenous hands. There’s no way that they can get rid of us. They’ve tried everything that they possibly could to get rid of Indigenous peoples in the building of America. And now Indigenous peoples are building an uprising, a movement for structural change for this country.

And that’s what Land Back’s all about. Not just getting actual lands back, but also dismantling the systems that are responsible for the stealing of our lands and responsible for maintaining the continued theft of our lands.

And so as we come out here all throughout Indian country, we live in some of the poorest places in this country. This country prides itself on its human rights record, prides itself on its democracy, yet it never has even begun to get its relationship with Indigenous people right.

And so we’re here to remind this country and America of that, and to stand in solidarity with our Palestinian brothers, to stand in solidarity with our Black brothers and sisters who are fighting for Black reparations, ’cause the Land Back movement not only believes a future where Indigenous lands get returned back into Indigenous hands, but we believe in a future that includes Black reparations too.

Christine Boardman (protest attendee):  I’m mainly out here because I’m pissed off at the way the US has been supporting Israel and the destruction of Gaza. That’s the main reason I’m out here. But there’s a lot of good reasons to be out here because the Democratic Party is really just tailing after Israel. Not right.

Mel Buer:  How about you?

Kate Thompson (protest attendee):  And I would say something very similar. I can’t stand watching day after day the carnage in Gaza and on the West Bank, and I think our government has to cut aid to Israel. We are funding all that carnage.

Christine Boardman (protest attendee):  Actually Kate made a really good point. Think about how many people are still just buried in those buildings that they’ve never been able to get out. So when they say that 38,000 civilians have died, I don’t even think that that’s half of it because there used to be more than a million people living there.

Kate Thompson (protest attendee):  Yeah. I’ve heard people say, I think up to 150,000 if you include everybody under the rubble and all the people who are going to die from disease and from starvation.

Mel Buer:  How do you feel about being out here amongst crowds of, it looks like a thousand, couple thousand. How does it feel to be out here supporting?

Christine Boardman (protest attendee):  Well, it feels great. I just wish there were more people out here because that’s what they need to do if we don’t protest. But I think people are disgusted with the way that we can’t get next to the United Center, where all of them are going to be voting on an agenda which is still going to support Israel.

Mel Buer:  How do you feel?

Kate Thompson (protest attendee):  It feels great. I go every Saturday. There are Palestinian demonstrations downtown, and I go to all of them. And those feel good too, but they’re smaller, so it’s nice to see a bigger crowd. And I hope there will be even a bigger crowd. I think people are still arriving, so hopefully there will be even more.

Mel Buer:  Yeah, there’s definitely still people coming into the park. It’s really cool to be out here and to see what’s going on and to talk to folks like you. Is there anything that we haven’t discussed already that you would like our listeners to know?

Christine Boardman (protest attendee):  I guess about voting, that I think I’m still not decided. I think I most likely will vote for Kamala just because I’m afraid of Trump, but I’m not sure yet. I want to find out. I want to see how much we can push her to change her policy before I make up my mind, and…

Kate Thompson (protest attendee):  I am voting for her, but that’s just because the alternative is Trump. And if you want to see fascism arrive, that’s going to be the step.

Montana Hirsch (MIRAC):  Yeah. We’re here with the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee. We’re also here with a larger national network called Legalization for All Network. And we’re here because we are marching for legalization for all. We stand in solidarity with Palestine and Palestinian Liberation as well. But yeah, we’re an immigrant rights group local to Minnesota, and we fight for equality in all areas of life for all immigrants.

Mel Buer:  What is one message that you would like to send off to the DNC as you’re standing out here today?

Montana Hirsch (MIRAC):  I think we just want them to know that we want legalization for everyone. And even if the Democrats say that they’re going to do better for immigrants in the country, we want to uphold them to that. And I know that there’s been some stuff about being strong on the border just like Trump is, and we want them to know that we’re not cool with that. And immigrants are people too, and they deserve to have their rights respected and upheld.

Mel Buer:  What is one thing that you really want folks to know as you’re talking to the individuals that come up to ask about your organization?

Esper Garcia (MIRAC):  We marched on the RNC in Milwaukee last month as well. We are here to hold whoever’s in power accountable, and we haven’t seen the Democrats do much better.

I was on a delegation to the US-Mexico border last spring, and the border wall was still being built under the Biden administration. So we know that we have to be out here in the streets fighting every step of the way for immigrant rights in order for them to take us seriously.

Maximillian Alvarez:  Thank you so much for watching The Real News Network, where we lift up the voices, stories, and struggles that you care about most. And we need your help to keep doing this work. So, please, tap your screen now, subscribe, and donate to The Real News Network. Solidarity forever.

Since the start of the pandemic (and really, before that), frontline health care workers have been rightfully lauded for the tireless work that they have done to keep the health care system from cratering in this country. This is no easy task, as we have seen the devastation that the pandemic has wrought among our communities, and especially within the health care field. In Southern California, the cost of living crisis has filtered into the workplace, with many health care workers finding themselves priced out of their neighborhoods due to rising costs and unchecked gentrification, their stagnant wages and dwindling access to health care benefits compounding an already untenable situation. More than 2,200 health care workers at Keck Medicine at the University of Southern California are fighting for improved working conditions and a chance to combat the cost of living crisis with a new contract. So far, they have been met with an aggressive management that is hellbent on freezing wages and striking some of the most important benefits that health care workers enjoy from the contract. Represented by the National Union of Healthcare Workers, or NUHW, these workers —medical technicians, respiratory therapists, licensed vocational nurses, housekeepers, and nursing assistants— have made clear their demands for improved working conditions at multiple USC health care facilities across Los Angeles, and we’ve brought on Francisco Cendejas and Noemi Aguirre, two worker-organizers at Keck Medicine, to talk about the ongoing contract negotiations.

Note: This episode was recorded on July 18, 2024. Negotiations with Keck-USC are still ongoing.

Additional links/info below…

• NUHW – Keck-USC Negotiations Factsheet
• Penn Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, “How Inadequate Hospital Staffing Continues to Burn Out Nurses and Threaten Patients”
• National Union of Healthcare Workers – Main Site

Permanent links below…

• Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!
• Labor Radio / Podcast Network website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• In These Times website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• The Real News Network website, YouTube channel, podcast feeds, Facebook page, and Twitter page

Featured Music…

• Jules Taylor, “Working People” Theme Song

Studio Production: Mel Buer
Post-Production: Jules Taylor

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Francisco Cendejas:

Hi, morning. I’m Francisco Cendejas, I’m the director of our hospital division for our union here in Southern California.

Noemi Aguirre:

Hi, good morning. I’m Noemi Aguirre. I work as respiratory therapist at Keck USC. Also, I do hold a position within the union as an executive board member, as well as a steward in my department.

Mel Buer:

Welcome back everyone to another episode of Working People, a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class today. Brought to you in partnership within these Times magazine and the Real News Network produced by Jules Taylor and made possible by the support of listeners like you. Working People is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network. If you love what we do and are looking for more worker and labor-focused shows like ours, follow the link in the show notes and go check out the other great shows in our network. And please support the work we’re doing here at Working People because we can’t keep going without you. Share our episodes with your coworkers, friends and family members. Leave positive reviews for the show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and reach out to us if you have recommendations for working folks you’d like us to talk to. And please support the work that we do with The Real News by going to therealnews.com/donate, especially if you want to see more reporting from the front lines of struggle around the US and across the world.

Since the start of the pandemic and really before that, frontline healthcare workers have been rightfully lauded for the tireless work that they have done to keep the healthcare system from cratering in this country. This is no easy task as we have seen the devastation that the pandemic has wrought among our communities and especially within the healthcare field. In Southern California, the cost of living crisis is filtered into the workplace with many healthcare workers finding themselves priced out of their neighborhoods due to rising costs and unchecked gentrification, their stagnant wages and dwindling access to healthcare benefits compounding in already untenable situation. More than 2200 healthcare workers at Keck Medicine at the University of Southern California are fighting for improved working conditions in a chance to combat the cost of living crisis with a new contract.

So far, they have been met with an aggressive management that has hell-bent on freezing wages and striking some of the most important benefits that healthcare workers enjoy from their contract. Represented by the National Union of Healthcare Workers or NUHW, these workers, medical technicians, respiratory therapists, licensed vocational nurses, housekeepers and nursing assistants among them have made clear their demands for improved working conditions at multiple USC health care facilities across Los Angeles. And we’ve got two worker organizers here today to discuss this important negotiation. To start off this conversation, I think it would be probably a good idea to give our listeners an idea of what your working conditions look like. What are the issues that you’re currently working through on a daily basis? What does your regular workday look like for you?

Noemi Aguirre:

Sure. Hi everybody. This is Noemi again from Respiratory. I’m a respiratory therapist here at Keck. I’ve been here since 2002, so it’s been a minute. Obviously, it’s changed a lot throughout the years, but ever since the pandemic a little bit more recently, my workday consists of, well, any of a million things because respiratory therapists, they come in and they basically get assigned to go to different ICUs or areas in the hospital. I specifically will go to a specialty area today, for example, I would go to the bronchoscopy suite and we will have had scheduled outpatient visits for procedures. Usually, it’s every two hours. They’re spaced by two hours, so sometimes it’s 7:00, 9:00, 11:00, 1:00, 3:00. This is a lab that’s been growing in the last two and a half years because of COVID it was interrupted, so we had started growing the lab and then COVID came.

Because interventional pulmonology is a growing field, it’s a bit of a hit or miss for us in terms of how we’re doing these bronchoscopies and what the physicians are expecting. But basically we are going nonstop, so we don’t have any particular lunch that’s pre-planned, we just are winging it. It’s starting to lose its luster because in the beginning it was like, “Don’t worry. Once this becomes a well-oiled machine, so to speak, like cath lab or something, then everything will be… It is going to fall into place.” But two and a half years later, we’re still waiting to fall into place and we haven’t fallen into place. What we’ve fallen into is losing a lot of therapists to other facilities that pay better and do a lot less work. And who wouldn’t want to get paid more money to do a lot less work? And this being a specialty hospital, they just think that using their name is a laurel that they’ve been resting on for way too long that people are going to be working in their place because it’s such a great name, “I want to be associated with it.”

But after quite some time and a lot of changes in leadership, it doesn’t seem to change much. I’ll have an eight o’clock case, a 10 o’clock case, we set up, we assist in the procedure, we break everything down. We do an initial wipe down before EVS comes in and the housekeeping cleans the room, sterilizes it. And then we take all the samples that we took, whether it’s a biopsy or any kind of washings, and then we get those samples together. We label them all, we log them all in. We take them to their perspective areas, whether it’s pathology, cytology, microbiology. And then after we do that, we come back, we set up for the next case. A lot of times we are by ourselves sometimes on Mondays and Wednesdays when it’s busier, we do have two therapists, but it just barely hits the minimum at the moment as to, we’re not even thinking about lunch until you start to feel hungry.

And then it’s like, “Hey, when are we going to take a break?” We do have staffing issues. We do have issues with when we’re going to sign our breaks and we’re trying to keep up with what is interventional pulmonology out in other facilities like UCLA and other places that have it a little bit more down pat but we’re still waiting. And it doesn’t help that we’re in the middle of negotiations. I also am part of the bargaining team, and it doesn’t help to have their reactions or the looks on their faces when you’re asking for just basic stuff, which is more money because of the inflation you mentioned and also to have a better structured department, and they just look at you like, “Why haven’t you done this for yourself?” Well, here we are.

Mel Buer:

Francisco, I did want to really dive in here and really talk about one of the bigger issues that… Let me give you some context. My mom is a retired OR surgical nurse who throughout my entire life really had something to say about staffing issues at these hospitals that she worked at. And I really do believe, and I’m sure you agree, that when you have a staffing shortage or when you have workers who are putting in extreme hours handling caseloads that are way above normal, that what it translates to is a reduction in the quality of patient care.

When you’re talking about wanting to improve the working conditions for the workers in these hospitals through better pay, because yes, I got some information about starting wages for some of the workers in your unit and way too low for the speciality that they’re doing. But also really just this draw attention to, skeleton crews mean the work is not… You’re not being given the time to be able to really spend that time that you need with patients to be able to take care of these cases on a case by case basis in a way that provides high quality care. Would you agree that when you have these better working conditions and better staffing, that you really do have a better quality of care for the people who come through your hospitals?

Francisco Cendejas:

I think that it’s obvious, and it’s clear that that’s true. The rate of burnout of healthcare workers starting with the pandemic, even after the pandemic has just been, it’s unmatched. It’s never been as bad as now. And so knowing that is the case and the employer, Keck Medicine of USC having literally over 100 open positions at any given moment knows that what is being offered now knows that what’s on the table currently isn’t sufficient and is having the effect of just increasing the workload for so many other people, and it’s driving them out of the industry as well. And it’s just this vicious cycle.

Now, Keck is also, Keck Hospital and Norris Cancer Center are two highly specialized hospitals that do pride themselves in the specialties that they operate in and the quality of care there. But how is it able to be maintained as long as we’ve got this persistent, almost structural staffing crisis? This is why we make the proposals that we do. This has got to be fixed, and it doesn’t require individual efforts. It means that we need to have a contract that actually builds in fair wages, better control over workloads, guarantees that people have a reason to stay at their-

Francisco Cendejas:

… owns, guarantees that people have a reason to stay at this hospital for the length of their career. If the company’s not willing to agree to that, then they’re saying that they’re not willing to agree to having stability in their staffing, which is so necessary for the quality of care that patients do deserve.

Mel Buer:

Noemi, you had mentioned too, it’s not enough to be able to see that you’re at this illustrious hospital. The name is not enough to keep you around. The reputation of the name is that this is a hospital that has presented high quality of care, that is highly specialized in providing life-giving cancer care, right? Things of that nature. But for an employee there, eventually you start to look somewhere else, especially when a university like the University of California and UCLA’s Healthcare Centers offer 10 to 19% more in starting wages based on specialty, right?

The question that I want to ask then is throughout these negotiations and the proposals that you’ve brought to the table, not only are you talking about retention of the talent that you have and being able to keep people fed and keep them feeling like they are being respected and wanted in the workplace, but also trying to attract new talent that can help kind of shore up these staffing shortages. As of right now, it doesn’t seem like the reputation of Keck is that it’s a good place to work. Does that seem accurate?

Noemi Aguirre:

I mean, I think so. I’ve seen it with the new hires. We have a lead who’s like, “Hey, my wife just got hired at Kaiser, 10 bucks above me, and I’m a lead here. I’m the leading supervisor of the shift with a nighttime differential.” So we all laughed actually as we presented that across the table. But it’s one more thing that’s laughable almost about a place like this because you see their mottos, that’s the one that kills me, right? And for some reason in my mind, they have these mottos that are ever-changing, right? Like, “Exceptional, beyond exceptional care.” And you’re just like, “Okay.” And then, “Now, we’re limitless.” And it’s not that you don’t feel that your work is good work, right? It’s just that they’re seeing themselves in a way that makes you laugh because you know how quickly you did something that you should have taken a little bit more time with, right?

And it just, in my own mind, when I look at those things and I laugh inside, it just reminds me of Enron. When they used to ask associates like, “Well, you saw this all going down, didn’t you?” “Yeah.” Well, they’ve got all these mottos that sound like, “Beyond exceptional, limitless.” And so now it’s so extremely out there that it’s almost a running joke. When we’re going to start to do something and, “Oh, I’m missing this. I couldn’t start.” “Well, we’re limitless.” That’s why we run out of this. Or when we had supply issues, right? We had all these supply chain issues during COVID, of course, that’s no fault to the university, but then you start to hear these whispers that they’re just hoarding this stuff, should something else happen, but they don’t want to use it. And you’re just like, “How much stuff can you store when you need it now?” And you’re just like, we look at each other and we go, “Well, we are limitless.”

And so then when you’re working, and it’s a little bit sad too, because I don’t want to work in an organization where I’m almost like, “I feel like it’s a bit of a running joke.” But it’s a running joke to the workers because we’re here, right? It shouldn’t be good if I’m an administrator to hear that someone’s like, “Hey, our new model is limitless.” We’re like, “Yeah, limitless ability to be short on this, limitless short staffing, limitless low pay.” And so your own motto for your own company is the joke to your workers. It’s like, “Come on, dude.” It’s like, “It sucks.”

Mel Buer:

Yeah, yeah. Let it be known to all our listeners that you don’t give a shit about your job, right? You care very much, right? And you wouldn’t be asking for these things at the bargaining table if you didn’t care about what’s going on at the hospitals that you work.

Noemi Aguirre:

And we’re still going and getting the education. I, for one, before I came here, I didn’t have these little interventional pulmonology, one more year, get a certificate, just to assist. We have people that are actually really engaged in what they do, and they want to learn what’s out there and we’re constantly getting education on our own, even though they cover very little of it, we still go out and do it because I would feel like I’m doing a disservice. If my mom walked in the door and I have to do something and I don’t even know what the doctor is doing.

I’ve got to learn everything to make sure I could be able to function and make sure that if the doc has a moment where he needs something, I can sort of already know in advance what it is they need, so we can keep it smooth and make sure that everyone’s getting the best care that they’re getting, but it’s a trade-off. How do you do it? These are people you’re dealing with. You’re not… And I don’t think management sees it. That’s how we feel. We feel like we go and they forget they’re not making T-shirts that say “USC” on them. They’re actually taking care of people.

Mel Buer:

Well, I mean, that’s something that my mom, God bless her, used to talk about all the time that these patients aren’t patients, they’re just numbers of people who come through the door, right? And it’s unfortunate that our healthcare system, in large part, due to our insurance system, is set up that way. When you know that every worker who is coming through that door to take care of patients is there specifically to do that job and to take that seriously.

So when there’s a breakdown in scheduling or in staffing in general, and suddenly you’re finding yourself between a rock and a hard place, trying to take care of as many patients, up to 20 patients per shift, which is obscene. It’s tough to handle that caseload when, as you say, you might be the only person in that section of the hospital on that floor for eight hours. That’s incredibly… I don’t know how you do it, power to you, and I really hope that that can change.

Speaking of that changing, Francisco or Noemi, do you want to talk about how the negotiations have been going? What are the demands that you’ve brought to the administration? How has management responded? I got a little fact sheet and the way that management seems to be responding is frustrating, to say the least, so if you would like to talk about how those negotiations are going?

Francisco Cendejas:

Yeah, I can give you a quick summary. Look, this is the first contract to be negotiated at this hospital since getting over the worst of the pandemic, right? In that time, almost 20% inflation in three years, which is the duration of the last contract, right? So this is a time where the employees are looking for a way to not just fix everything that has been wrong for years now, right? But then also, yeah, make back everything that they lost as their wages just declined and declined and declined in their actual value, right?

So what are we looking for? Wages that actually match the premier hospital employers in LA County, right? It’s one thing for Keck Medicine of USC to say that they’re top of the market, leading hospital, and it’s another thing to actually recognize that in terms of compensation to employees. So yeah, that’s one thing.

Maintaining benefits for all members. How absurd that hospital workers have to be fighting for free family healthcare, right? Which our members do have. But this is something that the employer wants to take away based on their proposals. We’ve also proposed to ensure that we are properly recognizing people’s loyalty and time of service with the company, which is something that they’ve also been rejecting.

But see, what we’re looking for here is, of course, to maintain a strong contract that’s been in place for a long time, make the necessary improvements to make up for the last three years of terrible inflation. And what we’ve seen from other hospital employers is that look, they know that something has to be fixed, so they come to the bargaining table and they say, “All right, look, this is after the pandemic, those were strange times, and this is now a unique occasion and we need to fix things.” That’s been the posture that we’ve seen from a lot of other employers, and that’s why healthcare workers and in other industries too, right? Union members are winning better contracts than have happened before.

And instead, what we’re seeing from Keck, is just tons of takeaway proposals, which are terrible on their own, but just wildly misplaced considering just the strength of unions and the labor movement now, right? Shocking to think that they’re going to propose, for example, that union members can’t meet with their union reps in the break rooms, right? That’s an absurd thing. It’s an absurd thing at any point that they would propose to get rid of seniority-based hiring, right? And say, “Well, we want to have more discretion in determining whether someone is more skilled and therefore more qualified.” Right? Things like being able to dredge up old disciplines that are more than a year old to be able to stack on top of current issues…

Francisco Cendejas:

… stack on top of current issues, and instead of letting old disciplines expire over time, which is in the contract currently. But I think maybe even just maybe some of this is some of the most shocking that now would be the time that the employer would say, “We want to be able to subcontract all of your jobs, not without bargaining, but we want to send any position that we want over to another company to do.” Or if Keck were to sell a hospital or a clinic, can’t guarantee you that your job is still going to be there. We want to get rid of what’s called a successorship guarantee. Right? That your job and your union contracts or union representation would stay in the proposing to get rid of that too.

These are the kinds of things that are just, like I said, they’re terrible takeaway proposals to issue to union members at any point, especially now when folks are so ready to fight for the contract that they deserve. I mean, here’s the thing about our history with this company. We’ve never settled a contract with Keck Medicine of USC without at least authorizing a strike against them. And at times, even going out. It doesn’t look to be different this time, it doesn’t look like they want it to be different this time. And it’s shocking to think that that’s what you would want to have happen, as we emerge out of the worst of the pandemic, the first contract to be negotiated after the worst of it.

Mel Buer:

Has management given any sort of rationale for why they would submit these takeaway proposals? Is there some sort of perceived economic reason for this or anything at all that would clue you in as to at least what they’re attempting to present as the reason for why they’ve asked to do include these?

Francisco Cendejas:

I mean that the company gives reasons, sure, they give reasons. But they give the same reasons about whether they’re talking about hospitals or whether they’re talking about any other industry, and say, “Well, we need to have greater flexibility in operations. Management needs the rights to be able to determine staffing levels, and that’s why we can’t agree to add a few more positions in your department where you are so sorely understaffed.” And so on and so on. So we could be talking about a widget factory, we could be talking about a clinic. And the reasons are the same, that they’re saying, that any boss is saying to a union bargaining committee of just, “Well, we want to have more power here in the workplace.” So sure, they’ve got their reasons and they’re not new ones.

Mel Buer:

Right. Yeah, that’s a good point, and it’s something that I bring up a lot when I talk to union workers who are in the midst of contract negotiations or organizing drives. Noemi I’m sure you have these conversations with your fellow workers on the floor. It comes down to power, because often when we’re about these corporations, whether it’s a hospital or Kellogg’s or Amazon or Starbucks or whatever, it could be a small business down the road. But oftentimes they either give you that more flexibility excuse where they tell you there’s not enough money for those proposals. But what it comes down to is, they don’t like it when workers come together collectively to organize for better working conditions and assert their rights in the workplace.

And it is really a power struggle. And so, I think it’s good to kind of zoom this out a little bit and to give that context to our listeners. What is the biggest thing that you want our listeners to know about perhaps this contract struggle, but maybe about healthcare work organizing in general that you think is really important for folks to know who have not had the same exposure to it that you and I may have had?

Noemi Aguirre:

I mean, healthcare is the only place that I’ve been in, so I can’t really say as it compares to something else. But what would I want folks to know? What I want them to know is that at the end of the day, since this is a power struggle, you just have to find the more clever way of letting them know that this is what’s going to happen while maintaining that they feel like they’re still in control. Because it doesn’t seem like their power hunger ever ends.

We’ve been negotiating under NUHW for our contracts since 2009, its inception into the union world. But it’s the same thing every time. They want to rewrite the whole book. They want to rewrite from start to finish. Why do we still have to argue about whether the entrance is on the north side or the south side? All this stuff that is seemingly unimportant, when people say, “Hey, well, how’s it going in bargaining?” How’s it going in bargaining? It’s not. It’s slow. It sucks and it makes no sense.

And then you think, “Well, maybe they’re just that much smarter than you. You start to question yourself, but don’t question yourself. Because you start to think, “Maybe what I’m asking for either doesn’t make sense or I’m not getting the bigger picture.” And it’s not true because the turnover rate, even for admin, is the same as the turnover rate for the workers. So, what’s happening in the bigger picture? This organization that calls itself USC, does the right hand know what the left hand’s doing? I don’t know. It’s because they entrust all these people that, at the end of the day, are human. And even if it’s a smaller department, as long as they’re overseeing two or three people, we cannot trust them to do the right thing. I don’t know why we still are where we are.

An employer like USC, that’s humongous, still has to be forced to do the right thing. Every single time we have to, “Oh, we’re going to strike you. Oh, we’re going to this you. Oh, we’re going to that you.” Why haven’t we already knocked out… Why don’t we already know where we’re parking? We should. We park in the same place. Maybe a block over, maybe not a block over. What does it matter? Why are we still discussing things? Why do we rewrite this entire thing every time? And one of our negotiations, a couple of contracts ago, we had a second year anniversary for negotiations. What the hell’s going on?

And then they look at you when you get something that’s status quo, they’re like, “Oh, you see, you got your parking back.” What are you talking about? You are the one that opened up the can of worms that should have never been opened so that we could talk about what’s happening now in 2024 or whatever year it is that we’re negotiating. We need to talk about our circumstances now and the climate and how crazy everything is getting, so that we can deal with people that are tired of working just in general. Or even everybody in respiratory, everybody in nursing, even the people that PCTs and EBS workers that had to clean during COVID that just saw… I mean, it’s not normal. I mean, unless we’re in a war zone, which we didn’t think we signed up for, it’s not normal to see people just being carted off and carted off. And you couldn’t do anything and you couldn’t do anything. And you’re just like, “What is going on?” It just doesn’t make any sense.

So, it is a power trip. And don’t let it sway you and think that you’re not doing what you’re supposed to be doing, because you’ve been doing what you’re supposed to be doing all along. It’s just these human beings that think that if the trustee is giving money and he wants more bang for his buck, he needs to make more money. And in the end, what do we do? Oh, we get our towels are cheaper. Our linen is cheaper. Because if they only cut 10 cents here, they can make more money. And you’re just like, “Okay, great. Now I need two sets of linen because the patient’s freezing because you switched the thick blanket for the thinner blanket. But now I got to use two.”

So, it’s like this common sense stuff. And you think to yourself, “What is going on here?” Do they care? No. They just want to be able to tell you what to do. It is nothing but power. Do not second guess yourself. You know what you’re doing, you’re good at it, and you should exert your rights. You should always exert your rights. But anyway.

Mel Buer:

Yeah. Well, and those small cuts, and Francisco, I’m sure you can speak to this too, those small cuts and the cheapness or the quality of supplies, for example, don’t do anything to pad the pockets of the workers. It’s not like they’re making those cuts to save money so they can raise wages. I’m staring at executive salaries to the tune of millions of dollars per year that have not changed, I’m sure, except to go up. While your average Keck healthcare worker makes $61,000 a year, which after taxes in California, it’s probably what, less than 50 take home. That’s untenable. It’s not a livable situation in a county like Los Angeles, because the cost of living here is way too high.

And so, I guess here’s a question just to kind of drag all those nebulous thoughts together so that you actually have something to respond to. Francisco, you talked about the fact that every contract has at least had a strike authorization. If you would like to talk about that, do you see that in the future for this one as well? Or are you hoping to avoid that and to actually have a fruitful negotiation that doesn’t end up there?

Francisco Cendejas:

Yeah. I mean, anyone on the bargaining committee will tell you, what we’re trying to do is get to a fair contract that is good for the membership. Right? Anyone will tell you that that’s the first thing that they want to see happen. Also, the history with this employer is the history with this employer. And their proposals right now are what they are. Right? So, is this noticeably better than in the past? Absolutely not. It’s…

Francisco Cendejas:

… Is this noticeably better than in the past? Absolutely not. I think these takeaways are terrible and the thing is our members are not going to tolerate them. So as a strike authorization possible, it’s absolutely possible. And it’s a decision that our bargaining committee who are elected by their coworkers because that’s who our union is, right, all the decisions about whether a strike is going to happen or going to be called for, it’s going to be for up to our bargaining committee.

And I don’t see it going in the direction where we’re not going to having to ask ourselves that question. I mean, just remembering who USC is here, they’re the largest private sector employer in LA. The tone that is established then in these negotiations is felt far beyond just what happens in this clinic or within this one unit in the hospital. Because of their sheer size, they are a premier employer in certain aspects, just not in the ones where they don’t want to be in, the ones that really impact the thousands of members that we represent there that do the actual work of keeping LA healthy. So where is this going? I think our members are going to have to answer that question pretty soon.

Mel Buer:

Thank you so much, both of you, for coming on and talking about this really important negotiation. Before I get your final thoughts, I will say just listening to this conversation and talking about what it means to be a premier sort of healthcare employer in the city, Keck has the ability to really set itself up to be a community leader in this way. And there’s nothing here that says that coming to a fair agreement with its workers is going to not do that.

And if they care about their reputation, both as an employer and as a trusted and safe set of hospitals and healthcare clinics that can actually take care of some of patients who are in the worst sort of illnesses of their lives, this is an important piece I think. So those are kind of my final thoughts and I really appreciate you both coming on. Before I do my little outro, do either of you have any final thoughts that you would love for our listeners to know? Is there a way to reach out to your union to offer support? Any major dates coming up in terms of negotiations or information sessions or anything that you think our listeners might be interested in?

Noemi Aguirre:

I can do my last thought and then Francisco can give you the important dates.

Mel Buer:

Cool.

Noemi Aguirre:

Okay. Just as an example, I wanted to let you know that priorities… I mean, again, biggest employer in Southern California. Are their employees a priority? Well, doesn’t feel that way. They interrupted… Our contract expired in April. We started negotiations in March. We had beaucoup dates in March. We were not getting anywhere, but at least we had dates. Come April, they basically blocked us out for an entire month because they interrupted our negotiations to run and see if they can go and do something football related. Because that is where their priorities lie. And we know it and we felt it. And when people ask why didn’t we meet in April? We’re like, “Well, they have bigger priorities, their football team.” That money over there has bigger priorities. So we’ve felt that. We felt that the entire time. And it’s a symptom of everything and it’s the bigger picture all the time.

But what I am happy about and I want everybody to know that I am happy to know that it does feel like labor is having the sort of a rebirth, a renaissance because of everything we see. So people are actually excited to go out there and fight. And they’re not afraid right now. They weren’t afraid last year. They weren’t afraid this year. And I think that that momentum hopefully holds and it feels like it is going to hold that when you look up employment, you know what? I don’t want to leave this place. I want to hold [inaudible 00:34:28] accountable to what they need to do to my coworkers and to everybody else in this hospital. I could very easily go to county. I could very easily go to UCLA. I have the experience. I know people… Every community is a small community when you just take it for itself and we can go anywhere and get more money and work less, but I’m not going to.

I like my commute. I’ve done a lot here. I think there’s still a lot to do. I think there’s still a lot to learn because we learn something every day and I’m glad. I’m glad that labor has this great awakening and that we’re no longer afraid that if I lose my job, I’m going to be a destitute next week because I feel like I have learned enough and I’m capable enough that I can just go somewhere else. And that absence of fear is also what’s been driving… And I guess we could thank COVID for that. That there’s a lot of some jobs in certain sectors. But that’s the great part about it, is that more people are willing to speak up and I love it. So I think keep it up. Working people should keep it up because we’re the ones that have to dictate everything. We’re the ones here.

Francisco Cendejas:

Noemi said it right. Look, we are still in negotiations. We have bargaining dates both multiple this week and next week too. So this is a very much evolving situation. Techuschealthbeforewealth.nhw.org, that’s where the public can see some of the updates about our bargaining and also of course following us on social media. But this is an important critical time for the labor movement, in LA, in our state across the country, And this fight is hopefully one more drop in the big wave that is necessary for the rebirth of our movement. Thanks a lot for having us on.

Mel Buer:

Absolutely. And we’ll make sure to put that link in the show notes and any relevant of informational… I got some good informational packets as part of doing this research for this. So for any of our listeners either in Southern California or elsewhere in the country who want to see the updates and get a sense of what’s been going on in healthcare organizing, I will make sure that those end up in our show notes. Thank you as always for coming on and taking the time to talk about this. I think this is an extremely important piece of contemporary labor organizing, which is why I’ve even brought on working people to really talk about is the struggles that are happening now that are affecting the material conditions of workers, union organizers, and folks in the community that these workers serve. So thank you so much for coming on you both.

As always, I want to thank you all for listening and thank you for caring. We’ll see you back here next week for another episode of Working People. And if you can’t wait that long, then go subscribe to our Patreon and check out the awesome bonus episodes we’ve got there for our patrons. And please go explore all the great work we’re doing at the Real News Network where we do grassroots journalism, lifting up the voices and stories of the front lines of struggle. Sign up for the Real News Network newsletter so that you never miss a story and help us do more work like this by going to therealnews.com/donate and become a supporter today. Once again, I’m Mel Buer and we’ll see you next time.

In 2024, Working People officially crossed the 300 episode mark! Since we published our first episode back in 2018, the show has grown in ways we never could have imagined, and the world itself has changed in radical, hopeful, terrifying ways, the labor movement has undergone incredible changes, and we’ve done our best to document that change and this moment in history through the conversations we’ve had with workers across industries, from all walks of life, about their lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles.

Over the past seven seasons of the show, we’ve interviewed working people, young, old, and middle-aged, union and non-union, worker-owners at worker cooperatives, workers who were just laid off, workers on strike, workers unionizing, families of workers who were killed by their jobs, Indigenous workers living on reservations, workers whose children were murdered in a school shooting, sex workers, academic workers, manufacturing workers, railroad and airline workers, educators, yoga instructors and professional massage therapists, social workers, baristas, journalists, healthcare workers, service workers, construction workers, coal miners, lumberjacks, Amazon workers. We’ve spoken with working people in Cuba, Canada, Brazil, Slovenia, Turkey, Myanmar, the UK, France, and more. In this special episode commemorating 300 episodes of Working People, Max and new cohost Mel Buer reflect on how far the show has come and where we’re going next.

To all of our listeners and supporters, to those who have been with us since the beginning and to those who found the show at some point over the past 7 seasons, to everyone who has ever listened to the show, shared our episodes, donated to our Patreon, to everyone who ever reached out to remind us that someone was listening and encouraged us to keep going, to everyone who has supported us , THANK YOU. We love you, and we wouldn’t be here without you. We hope to keep making you and all our fellow workers proud with this show, and it’s an honor to be in this struggle with you.

Additional links/info below…

• Maximillian Alvarez, Current Affairs, “Can the Working Class Speak?“
• Working People, “Jesus Alvarez” (the first episode)
• Mel Buer’s TRNN Author Page and Twitter/X profile
• Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!

Permanent links below…

• Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!
• Labor Radio / Podcast Network website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• In These Times website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• The Real News Network website, YouTube channel, podcast feeds, Facebook page, and Twitter page

Featured Music…

• Jules Taylor, “Working People” Theme Song

Studio Production: Mel Buer
Post-Production: Jules Taylor

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Maximillian Alvarez:

All right. Welcome everyone to another episode of Working People, a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class today. Brought to you in partnership with In These Times Magazine and The Real News Network produced by Jules Taylor and made possible by the support of listeners like you.

Working People is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast network. If you’re hungry for more worker and labor focused shows like ours, follow the link in the show notes and go check out the other great shows in our network and please support the work that we’re doing here at Working People because we can’t keep going without you.

Share our episodes with your co-workers, your friends and family members, leave positive reviews of the show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and reach out to us if you have recommendations for working folks you’d like us to talk to or stories you’d like us to investigate. And please support the work that we do with The Real News Network by going to therealnews.com\donate, especially if you want to see more reporting from the front lines of struggle around the U.S. and across the world.

My name is Maximilian Alvarez

Mel Buer:

And my name’s Mel Buer.

Maximillian Alvarez:

And Mel and I have got a special little update episode for y’all today, and we’ve got some big announcements regarding the show. Now, in one sense, this is kind of a prelude to a larger celebration that we’re going to work on over the summer. As you guys probably noticed, we recently crossed a pretty significant milestone on Working People. In 2024, we officially crossed the 300 episode mark since I recorded, edited, and published that very first episode with my dad, Jesus Alvarez, back in 2018 we’ve been on a wild ride.

The show has grown in ways that I frankly never could have imagined back then when I was producing it as a broke grad student with rented equipment from the library. The world has changed in radical, hopeful, terrifying, violent, unpredictable, and in fact very predictable ways. And my own life has changed in dramatic, beautiful, intense, fortunate and devastating ways, and the labor movement in this country has undergone incredible changes, and we’ve done our best to document that change and what it’s like to live through this moment in history through the conversations that we’ve had with workers across industries from all walks of life about their lives, their jobs, their dreams and struggles.

Over the past seven seasons of the show, I’ve interviewed working people, young, old, and middle-aged. Union and non-union worker owners, worker cooperatives, workers who were just laid off, workers on strike, workers unionizing, families of workers who were killed by their jobs, indigenous workers living on reservations, workers whose children were murdered in a school shooting, sex workers, academic workers, manufacturing workers, railroad and airline workers, educators, yoga instructors and professional massage therapists, social workers, baristas journalists, healthcare workers, service workers, construction workers, coal miners, lumberjacks, Amazon workers. I mean, I’ve interviewed working people in Cuba, Canada, Brazil, Slovenia, Turkey Myanmar, the UK, France, and more.

I’ve never made any money from this show, we’ve only ever brought in enough Patreon earnings to pay Jules and to support other independent shows and journalists. And to be honest, I’ve struggled and failed to make the show anything resembling a commercial success, but I am incredibly proud of this work and I’m incredibly excited about where we’re going to take the show over the next 300 episodes. And that’s what we’re going to do today, we’re going to reflect a bit on how far the show has come and give y’all a sense of where we’re going next, but as we annoying journalists love to say, “We don’t want to bury the lead.” And I figured that we should start with the big announcement, does that sound good to you, Mel?

Mel Buer:

That sounds pretty good, I think. I do want to take a small moment, if I can leave the audience in suspense for a little bit longer, just to really hammer home what a monumental achievement the last 300 episodes have been of this podcast. Just hearing you talk about the myriad people that you have invited onto this platform to share their stories, their personal struggles, their triumphs, their moments where they have come to know solidarity for the first time is nothing short of amazing.

And I know that Working People was sort of born out of this inspiration of what would it be like if Studs Terkel had a podcast? And I think that you have done his memory extremely proud, and the work that you have contributed is there’s no understating how important it is. So I just want to just really hammer that home.

Congratulations on 300 episodes, that is mind-blowing, how cool that is, truly. And fuck it being a commercial success to be honest, because that’s just a small marker in what is a really truly impactful piece of work that you’ve been working on these last, what, six years now? I think that’s incredible. So congratulations, Max, that’s so cool.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Thank you, Mel, that really means the world to me. And it’s hard, frankly, to wrap my head around it, but just once I start thinking about all the people that I’ve met through doing this show, yourself included, I mean as a fellow podcaster, that’s kind of how our paths eventually intertwine. And that was also what set me on the path and for us to both end up eventually at The Real News. And when I start thinking about it in those terms, when I start thinking about the people I know, the connections I have, the things that I’ve learned, the ways that I’ve developed as a person through this show, then yeah, I really start to get a sense of just kind of what a monumental undertaking this has been and how much of a collective effort it’s been.

I mean, everyone who’s ever listened to and shared the show, anyone who’s ever recommended the show or put in a good word for me so that I could get an interview with someone who had no idea who I was, just there are too many people to thank. But truly, if you’ve ever helped me on this show, if you’ve ever helped me and Jules, if you’ve ever done anything to help us keep going on this quixotic endeavor, trust me when I say it means the world to us and we would not be here without you guys.

And yeah, to sort of build on that, like we were saying, this show led me and Mel to connect years ago. And as you guys know from this show and the work we’ve done at The Real News in recent years, that led me and Mel to get really invested in covering the ongoing labor struggle on the nation’s railroad system. And we interviewed countless railroad workers two years ago in the midst of their intense contract fight with the Class I rail carriers. We don’t have to go over that whole saga, and I think we all remember what happened, looked like was going to be a strike or a lockout and Biden and Congress conspired to crush a potential rail strike, and then two months later, East Palestine, Ohio happens.

And as you guys know from listening to our coverage over the past year, our railroad coverage led me directly to East Palestine and I have not left, frankly. My heart in many ways is still in East Palestine because you can’t hear what those folks are going through, you can’t know all that from the interviews that we’ve done about how the railroad system has gotten to where it is now and how we are all in danger and have been put at hazard because of relentless corporate greed and government under regulation. But these people in East Palestine are the ones paying the price for all that corporate greed, just like working people across this country are paying the price for corporate greed, and deregulation, and government disinvestment, and the systematic devaluation of labor and life itself.

And so I say that all to say is that, as I’ve gotten into reporting on the struggles of our fellow workers living in and around East Palestine, Ohio where the Norfolk Southern Train derailed on February 3rd, 2023, this has become something of an obsession of mine. East Palestine led me to investigate more cases of working class folks living and working in what we ghoulishly call sacrifice zones. These are areas where people live that where life is becoming unlivable because of industrial pollution, because of contamination from government sites like Department of Defense, Department of Energy. But also areas where life as we know it is being sacrificed to the elements. And that could also mean the climate chaos that we’re experiencing right now in areas that people inhabit that have just been sort of given up on. And folks there have been left to flounder like so many other working people in so many different areas of this country.

And so that is really where my focus needs to be and in order to give that coverage the focus that it needs, and to do the research, make the contacts, talk to folks living not just in East Palestine, not just in areas like South Baltimore here where we are, where I’ve been interviewing folks there who are being industrially poisoned by rail companies as well as other polluters, but that has led me to Portsmouth Ohio where we also interviewed Vina Colley, who’s a former electrician who worked at the Gaseous Diffusion Plant there and has been fighting for half a century to get her community the recompense that they deserve for the poisoning that’s happened there.

That led me to Red Hill in Hawaii and back to Navajo Nation where the uranium gold rush left generations of indigenous people poisoned and cancer-ridden. That led me to ‘Cancer Alley’ Louisiana where poor and working-class, predominantly black communities are being systematically sacrificed by industry and their own government. That led me back to West Virginia and the mining and fracking booms that have decimated the ability of some of the most beautiful parts of our country, some of the most beautiful parts of the world where people can’t drink the water.

Speaking of drinking the water Flint, people in Flint still don’t have water that they can trust to drink or serve their children coming out of their faucets. To say nothing of Jackson Mississippi, North Carolina where PFAS is in basically all of the water. Rural parts of Maryland, Wisconsin, Iowa where concentrated animal feeding operations and the off-run of those operations is contaminating the water and poisoning the environment. This issue, this problem, is so monumental in scale and so monumental and devastating in terms of the human and non-human impacts that are already being felt across this country that are being felt across the world.

Frankly, Americans have no idea how poisoned we already are, and I feel like I’m at the very beginning of a very long journey into this dark side of our history and our present, and I want to keep talking to working folks, living and working and fighting for justice in these areas. I want to help put those communities in touch, I want to help folks understand that this is all of our problem just as we’ve tried to do in East Palestine. But that’s obviously going to mean that I can’t give that my full attention, I can’t juggle all the responsibilities I’m juggling as editor-in-chief here at The Real News and co-executive director here, and also continue to cover contemporary shop floor and labor organizing stories with the full rigor that I’ve been able to over the past seasons.

And so that is why I couldn’t be more excited to be bringing Mel onto the show as a co-host, we’re going to be tag-teaming this while I go deeper into our sacrificed series. And so you can expect a lot more coverage from me in that vein. Mel has graciously agreed to come on the show and really help us stay on top of worker and organizer focused interviews that really keep you up to date on the critical labor struggles that are happening all around us right now.

I mean, autoworker, union drives in the South, Amazon Labor Union just affiliated with the Teamsters there are huge contracts up for hundreds of thousands of postal workers with the American Postal Workers Union and National Rural Letter Carriers Association. We’ve got questions about the role unions have played and we’ll continue to play in fighting against war and genocide. What a second Biden or Trump term will mean for the National Labor Relations Board and for unions and for working people in general. How things like AI and climate chaos are reshaping our working and non-working lives and how working people are fighting back.

There’s so much here to cover, and I’m so excited that Mel is going to be coming on and helping us basically bring you guys these two critical areas of coverage on the podcast. And Mel, I just wanted to kind of toss it to you and ask if you could say a little bit since we’re in a reflective mode here, I was wondering if you could say a little bit about how your own path into labor reporting has brought you to this point, and what you’ve seen in the labor world over these past couple years, and what you’re really looking forward to covering on this show this year and beyond.

Mel Buer:

I came into labor reporting because there was a strike in my community in 2021, Kellogg’s went out on strike. One of the big manufacturing plants that makes cereal is in Omaha Nebraska, and I had a unique connection to that plant. I drove past it every single day on the way to school, it was part of our backyard where I grew up it’s always been there, and it was a unique moment to be able to sort of step beyond the gates that we always drove by and see the people who were making the food that we eat and they were on strike.

Prior to that, I was in mostly movement reporting and I had a sort of widening interest in what the labor movement does in the U.S. and how it operates and who benefits and who could benefit and this was the sort of trial by fire, you know? And I was just freelancing at the time, and Max graciously paid me a decent amount of money to write an article, and I got a chance to sit down and talk to my literal neighbors about working conditions. And it was a revolutionizing sort of moment for me. And I came to the realization that when I was still living in the Midwest, as you know, I’m living in Los Angeles now, but when I was still living in the Midwest, there was something unique about being able to reach across this perceived union fence, if you will, and to really kind of reach into the lives of folks who really care a lot about the work that they do. And as you know, Max, that is a really radicalizing sort of thing just to be able to have these conversations with people that you probably wouldn’t meet otherwise.

And my journey further into labor reporting has led me to all sorts of places to the middle of Iowa, small towns in Iowa to talk to railroad workers and to manufacturers of tractors who are on strike. And now I’m in on the West coast, which has unique sort of and vibrant organizing around entertainment, and media, and fast food workers, and healthcare workers, and service workers, and academic workers, and I’ve been able to see the sort of transformative power that solidarity has on the sort of micro bits of the movement and how they all kind of fit together.

And now, I mean, I’m still trying to wrap my head around this week and last week’s Supreme Court decisions about dismantling the administrative state essentially and what that does for the NLRB and how folks are going to react to that within the labor movement and the organizing spheres that I now can sort of rub elbows with.

But it’s clear to me that as we move farther into sort of worsening material conditions that our latest stage of capitalism has presented to us that labor organizing is no small part of what it means to sort of build community in the face of that. And I think that in the future, the more earnest conversations that we have about the organizing that is happening right now and the lessons that we can take from both the triumphs and the failures of these both high profile and not so high profile organizing drives, and strikes, and pickets, and all of those things, I think is going to be invaluable information into how we can push back against what I believe to be the fascist creep turn sprint frankly, in this country. And imagine new ways that we can participate in the social fabric of this country and I mean that in a holistic sense that includes the sort of materialist analysis that the communists in the audience would love us to talk about.

But in the grand scheme of things, I’m no Kim Kelly, I haven’t been writing about labor for 10 years like Sarah Jaffe, you know what I mean? Alix Prest has got her amazing sort of work, but I am hoping to contribute something and this is where I can be in this sphere talking about this kind of work and hopefully putting it not only in the contemporary world that we’re living in and helping the audience, our audience now, get outside of themselves and throw open the curtains and be able to see what’s outside of your immediate concerns and how your neighbors and community members and people who look, and sound, and work, just like you are taking on this challenge and what we can get out of that.

So yeah, I mean, I’m stoked. I was very surprised to get this invite and I’m very honored and I feel like this is a very unique privilege to be able to contribute something to a project that I think is very invaluable in our current shit hole media landscape. So I don’t know, should I be cussing? Are we putting this on the radio?

Maximillian Alvarez:

No, for right now we’re still a cussing podcast. But that is one of the things that we want to do moving forward is we want to get working people on more radio stations, like parts of the show do end up on the radio through our friends at the Labor Radio Podcast Network, so some of y’all may have found us through the radio. But we want to get this show syndicated on more stations, which may mean that we may have to cut down on the cursing a little or rely a little more on bleeping knowing me and Mel, it’ll probably be the latter, but-

Mel Buer:

Incoherent screaming every time we talk about corporations.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Yeah, I mean it’s the most natural thing in the world to cover what we cover and let the expletives fly because yeah, I mean so much of what we cover is fucked up. But also so much of what we cover is just so astonishingly beautiful and inspiring, and I think that one thing that Mel and I both agree on and we’ve talked about is that that’s the thing that gets us through the really rough days, the days when the weight of the world itself as we descend more into like nakedly corrupt corporate oligarchy and fascistic gangsterism in our own country, to say nothing of climate chaos and increased war around the world, it’s a lot. We understand that believe us, we’re in the news, we work here and it fucking sucks and it’s really depressing. But the connections that you make with other working people and the stories that you hear, the fight that you see and learn about and hopefully that we are able to communicate to you guys on the show, I mean, that is where you find hope.

And I wanted to kind of just say something about that because I really loved how you were talking about why that matters and it really spoke to where this show came from in the first place. It’s funny that over the years we’ve become more known, you and I as union folks, labor folks, people who are in the know, on the organized labor movement, and you get to be that way by reporting on it and learning about it and learning from a lot of other people who told us a lot of stuff that we did not know a few years ago.

But to be honest, this show, it was never meant to be a union show, I didn’t know a whole lot about unions when I did that first interview with my dad. As I’ve talked about many times, I didn’t have a union job until I was a grad student and our family was not a union family and so there was a lot that I had to learn myself about how unions worked, labor law worked, how to report accurately on things like strikes and organizing drives. But going back to that very kind of core idealism of the beginning of this show, again, I didn’t want to do this show because I wanted to get everyone to join a union, although you should join a union if you don’t have one to join, you should start one.

But I started the show from a much more basic place. I started this show because of what was happening to my family, because of what I myself was going through and we were all going through in the Great Recession. And not only the economic hardships, not only losing our house, not only working any low-wage jobs we could just to try to keep what we had, but also just the deep soul rot that comes with that, that comes with living in a country that we will throw all of its resources around protecting the big banks while letting millions of families like mine just fall through the cracks and lose everything. Living in a country where in most states you can get fired just because the boss doesn’t like your face right, or who you are as a person. And most people don’t even know they have rights in the workplace, let alone the courage or wherewithal, or frankly the practical ability to exercise them in the workplace.

That’s where the show grew out of is from that general condition that so many working people are in this country and the ways that we start to convince ourselves that we’re worth that, that we’re worth as little as the system tells us we’re worth, that we’re worth as little as we get paid, that we’re as small as the customers and managers who berate us, lead us to believe, and that the society leads us to believe. That’s why I started the show is because I wanted working people to believe that they were worth more than their lot in life in this shit hole society. I wanted my dad to not go to his grave feeling like a failure and to not feeling alone. And that was really just the star that guided me through from the beginning to now. I’ve learned a lot since then, but that’s really what it’s all about.

And that’s where you naturally end up reporting more on organizing efforts, whether they be union efforts or non-union efforts to lead a walkout or to form a worker cooperative. There are many ways that working people can organize and fight to change their circumstances, but what I have found just endlessly inspiring and heroic in the stories that we’ve covered on this show, the stories that Mel has covered at The Real News, is just that effort, that decision by working people to say, “I’m not going to accept this and this is unacceptable, and I’m going to do something to change my circumstances, rather than just roll over and accept whatever the bosses and the powers that be give me. I did not know that I had more options as a low-wage worker than just staying at my job and sucking it up or quitting and trying to find something else. I really didn’t.”

And that’s why I will always find it so incredible whenever I talk to another working person who along with their co-workers has made that jump to say, “No, we’re going to do something about this in our workplaces.” And it starts there, but the more that you start to organize and work with your fellow workers and build power and fight through adversity and build solidarity, you start to realize the power that working people have collectively, and you start fighting to build more of it beyond the shop floor.

And in fact, if we can work and organize to change our circumstances at our jobs, we can do the same in our neighborhoods, in our communities, in our apartment buildings, in our cities, our towns, country, and beyond. It’s that spark of getting yourself to believe that you are the change you’ve been waiting for. That is the spark of hope that you hear throughout this show, throughout the struggles of our fellow workers across the world. And that’s the thing that Mel and I have seen that, yeah, even though we didn’t get formal training in journalism school or weren’t trained as union organizers or what have you, that’s the thing that we follow and we learn so much from the stories that people tell us.

Mel Buer:

I think it’s also important to note that what we’re talking about is really simple. We live in a society that everyone, you can feel the sort of, as the materialists like to say, the alienation, the atomization of people, you feel like you’re walled off from yourself, you feel like you’re walled off from your family, from your neighbors, from the people that you go to school with, from your co-workers. And it is a wholly isolating, lonely experience to be a working person, a member of the working class in the western world, surrounded by distraction, surrounded by rampant sort of consumerism that is purpose-built to sort of take your eye line elsewhere from the problems that are causing such deep troubling experiences within yourself.

And to anyone who’s organized even a potluck with your neighbors for 4th of July. There is something about that feeling of being connected to someone outside of yourself, outside of your immediate circle, that is absolutely intoxicating. And building that sort of whether you’re in a union, or you’re deciding to march on the boss who’s stealing your tips, or you collectively assert your sort of humanity within the workplace or outside of the workplace, once you get a small taste of what that can feel like, you never want to go back to whatever nightmare you were living before.

And I think in my short time, the last couple of years, three years or so, reporting on the labor movement and talking particularly in the Midwest, talking to workers who are either organizing union drives or out on the picket line, they’ve never experienced a sit down with someone on a different shift at the same job before where they had the time to sit together in front of a barrel, a fire barrel, and just talk about life. And you realize that their kids go to the same school, or you may have gone to the same football games, or you attend the same church, you just had no idea that you also worked in the same place and you were experiencing the same sort of herring working conditions. And now the two of you from first shift and second shift are sitting on a picket line and you get to have that moment where you get to reach across just these gulfs of relation where you have this void to be able to build that.

So when we talk about building community, when we talk about solidarity, and when we talk about mutual aid, these aren’t these theoretical concepts that left us to throw out into the ether when we’re talking about how to respond to the sort of nightmare conditions that are being perpetuated by people who have amassed massive power in this country. These are real concepts, and you do them every day whether you think you do or not, and if you put a little bit more effort into it, I’m going to get off my soapbox here in a second, but if you really try to reach through whatever fear you have about organizing, about talking to your coworkers, about talking to your neighbors, about going to a community event and just reach through whatever fear and anxiety you have about it and actually try and meet people where they’re at, you’ll find that they’re trying to do the same thing, and you have a lot more in common than you think, and that is what the powers that be, whatever you want to call it, are fucking scared of.

They don’t want that to happen because that really is a truly powerful moment and that little bit of euphoria that you feel is magnified fucking a million times over and I don’t know, I think that it’s really for my part sitting as a quote outsider in the media, I’m sure Max, you feel this as well, we still feel that warmth, what the sunlight of solidarity can do. And we have these skills as journalists, as podcasters, whatever you want to call us, media individuals and we hope to share those stories so that more people can understand that sometimes all it takes is just hearing about someone similar to you doing something that maybe you were too afraid to or didn’t know that you could do.

So, hopefully that’s what we can do with this podcast, and hopefully I can provide examples of one way in which to build that sort of power in your community. I’m off my soapbox, so that’s all I got.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Hell yeah. No, no, hopefully about it, baby. I know you’re going to, and it’s going to be incredible and I’m super excited again, started this show in my dinky little apartment in Ann Arbor never knowing that we’d make it to 300 episodes, let alone that we’d be talking about the next 300. So even just the fact that we’re here now, bringing you on as co-hosts is just really, really exciting for me. And I hope our listeners are just as excited, and I hope that you guys are just as excited as Mel and I are about how we’re going to be able to grow the show in this way. And I wanted to sort of round out by kind of talking about that places we want to go and appeals we want to send to our listeners right now because we want you guys to reach out to us. We want to make this show always what is the most useful for you as you struggle to get what you’re worth and to fight for a future worth living in for yourselves, for all of us, for our children.

And so we want this show to be that resource. We want it to be a place where you can feel that solidarity, where you can learn about struggles that your fellow workers are going through that you didn’t know others were going through, you’re learning about how they and their coworkers are and winning. Or when they are fighting and losing, what can we learn from those experiences? How do we keep the struggle going? And we want to hear from you guys about the kinds of working people you want us to talk to here in the U.S. and around the world. This show has been growing internationally as well, and certainly we want to continue that growth on this show and at The Real News, we are all ears.

And as you guys know from the past 300 episodes, whether we’re talking explicitly about a strike or whether we’re more talking about a person’s life and the work that they do, or something that they in their community are going through even if we’re not necessarily talking about their jobs, but they’re still working class people dealing with the realities of working class life like here in capitalist America. I mean, we try to take a really broad scope here in trying to cover again, the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of our fellow workers wherever those stories may lead.

And so Mel just wanted to ask, yeah, if you had any sort of prompts or ideas that you wanted to just toss out to the audience about what you are going to be looking into, or what sort of areas you’re excited to expand into, or the kinds of folks you want to reach out to us?

Mel Buer:

A bit of a broad sort of ask for me. Not only do I want to hear about the picket lines, the strikes, the contract negotiations, the minutiae around organizing drives, the various things that are kind of the capital U Union sort of news. It doesn’t matter where it is, if it’s in SoCal, I’ll see you in person, if it’s elsewhere in the country or in the world let’s get on Zoom and let’s talk about it. My email will be in the description of this episode, it’s Mel, M-E-L @therealnews.com. Send me an email. Even if you think it might not be a story, I guarantee you it’s interesting to me and it will be interesting to our audience, so talk to me about that.

But not only do I want that, I want to hear about the sort of small triumphs that maybe you as a union member, or you as a labor adjacent person, or someone who is affected by some sort of moment of solidarity around the labor movement in your community, hit us up about that.

Did a union hold a fundraiser for someone who was ill? Did you have a really fun softball tournament that allowed you to reach out and start to build these bonds of solidarity between union locals? It doesn’t matter. If it seems minor, it’s likely not. But what I am hoping is that we can kind of build this conversation around not only just the sort of “official contemporary labor struggles” in the United States and elsewhere, but to also kind of, again, draw the curtain back on what it means to be a union member. What it can do for your life, who it can affect in your life or around your life, and what that community looks like. Especially if you’re a union member who really feels that sort of community, let’s talk about it and let’s give folks ideas on how to build something in their own backyard.

And this is just an offhand ask, and it’s not really something that I’m expecting will come through my email, but if you’re a freaking laborer historian nerd and you want to talk about an anniversary coming up, or you can draw these parallels between say, Amazon delivery drivers and some obscure Teamsters fact that from a hundred years ago, hit me up, let’s talk about it. Let’s really try and build this place to be one of the many podcasts that kind of helps us demystify what it means to be a member of the labor movement in the United States, and to be part of an international coalition that really builds international solidarity, let’s talk about it.

And again, my email is melattherealnews.com. Do not send me a DM on social media, I won’t read it, my Twitter DMs are closed. You just got to send me an email or you can hit me up and ask for my signal number and we’ll get on the phone and talk about it. All right, that’s my ask, thank you.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Hell yes, all right, gang, reach out to us and again, we want to make this show more interactive too, right? I mean, send us voice messages, we always include a link to our digital voicemail service in the show notes we always want to hear from you. What we’d love to do, and I’ve expressed this desire and in seasons past, I’d love to start each episode playing a listener submitted a voicemail like either thoughts that you have on a previous show, updates about what’s going on in your neck of the woods, or in your workplace, or at your union local. Just I think the more that we can get, more of y’all’s voices on the show we’d love hearing from you, even if it’s just sharing your thoughts about an episode, your critiques, your suggestions, we want to hear from you. So please, yeah, reach out to Mel, reach out to me, give us story ideas, let us know your thoughts.

But also, yeah, please send in voice messages if you are so inspired to make a piece of art after hearing a story that one of our interviewees has shared, share it with us and we’ll share it with our audience as well on our social media accounts and all that good stuff. We do want to keep making the show as interactive as possible, we want to hear from you guys, and I’m so, so excited to hear the episodes that result from what you guys send into Mel and the things that she’s already investigating.

And for my part, as I said, I want to give this Sacrifice Zone series my full attention, not just because in many ways every sacrifice zones different. In other ways, they are eerily similar or the conditions that working people are left in, the things, the bureaucracy that they have to navigate, the lack of legal recourse that they have, the symptoms that they’re developing. Sadly, a lot of those are very similar. But it’s important to, if I’m going to do this series justice, if I’m going to do the folks that we talk to justice like with East Palestine, I’m going to have to really learn as much as I can about the specifics of each community, the sources of their pollution or their larger sacrifice. Like I said, I want to expand our understanding of sacrifice zones to not just include areas where people live near heavy industry, but to also include zones where life is becoming unlivable because of government sources of pollution.

I mean, one of the most consistent sources of PFAS contamination are military bases across the country. And as I already mentioned, the way that climate chaos continues to get more and more chaotic. And as we were discussing with the great journalist Mike Fox recently, I mean this is already impacting poor and working people across the globe. It’s already turning millions into climate refugees making their sources of food, and water, and their livelihoods unsustainable, where they live, where they’re from, where their roots are. And that’s I think one of the real kind of crucial reasons that I can’t move away from this series is because I think that in our imaginations, we tend to think of, again, working class people and working struggles and labor struggles in one bucket, and then climate disaster and industrial pollution and these other sorts of things in another bucket.

But as Mike Fox and I talked about in that episode about the floods in Brazil, it’s like, who do you think is living in these communities? They are our fellow workers, they are people that you probably go to work with, or that you yourself are experiencing this. The fact that you go work one place and you may be getting polluted or poisoned at work does not negate the struggle that you and your fellow workers are going through at home when you’re being blasted with toxic chemicals or coal dust, or there are contaminants in the water coming out of your faucet that your children are bathing in. I mean, the struggles of working class people do not begin and end on the shop floor.

And so again, that’s why Mel and I are going to really be trying to do a full court press on these two key areas of coverage to give you guys as broad of a swath of coverage as we can on the realities of living and working in modern day America and beyond. And I just wanted to say another by way of rounding out just what I hope really comes across to folks in the reporting that we’ve already done for this sacrifice series, primarily on East Palestine and Portsmouth and South Baltimore, but as we continue to go down this road and in fact this is going to be the focus of my next book of interviews, is working people living in different sacrifice zones.

And the reason that I felt this justified not only committing myself to it in this podcast series, but for another book, is because East Palestine Ohio, as we know, is not an anomaly like many other poor communities in this country, especially Black, Brown, Indigenous, and colonized communities, they already know what it means to be sacrificed` and they have long been familiar with life on the great American chopping block and other White and mixed working class communities have felt it too. And increasingly more communities across this country are learning what that feels like.

I mean, as I already said, four hours away from East Palestine for the past four decades, as you guys heard in our interview with Vina Colley, it’s been people working and living near the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Pike County, and that’s one of Ohio’s poorest counties. In Navajo Nation, it has been generations of Dine’ people poisoned by the Cold War uranium mining gold rush, and who are now being doubly squeezed by climate change and the not so slow moving water crisis in the Southwest, to say nothing of hundreds of years of violent settler colonial domination.

In ‘Cancer Alley’ Louisiana between Baton Rouge and New Orleans it’s the majority black parish communities that have been poisoned by the petrochemical plants surrounding their homes, and that includes the coastal communities where people’s homes and ways of life are already in the process of being sacrificed as the climate crisis intensifies.

In Hawaii, where the U.S. military owns like 200,000 acres of land across the islands, it’s the military native and non-native people living and working in Honolulu near the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility, a U.S. Navy facility that has been leaking fuel and poisoning the local water supply for the past decade, and probably a lot longer than that.

And across the Cape Fear River Basin between Fayetteville and Wilmington and North Carolina, it’s communities of people connected by the same waterways that are just teeming with PFAS that’s coming from multiple sources. So why am I going so deep into this? Because as I said, it’s not just East Palestine, it’s so many other communities and accepting the wholesale sacrifice of communities like East Palestine, like South Baltimore, that in itself should be like in every sense of the word unacceptable.

And yet, in the good old U.S. of A, not only has it been accepted as a thing that corporations, shareholders and policymakers can get away with, but after forty-plus years of runaway deregulation, public disinvestment, and capitalist domination, America’s sacrifice zones are no longer extreme outliers. They are, in my estimation, a harrowing model of the future that lies in stores for most of us, especially as the world continues to spiral further into climate chaos and bringing all the economic, political, and humanitarian crises that come with that. And if these corporate monsters, corporate politicians, and Wall Street vampires poisoning our communities aren’t stopped, that’s where we’re all headed. And it’s going to be us, the ones directly in the path of all this reckless and preventable destruction, working people fighting as one who are going to stop them. I believe that in my heart, and I see it in the folks that I’m talking to, and we’ve got to fight with everything that we’ve got because the depth of pain and injury being inflicted on all of us right now, our people, our planet, it is impossible to communicate in raw numbers.

And because something fundamental in our society and our economy needs to change. And yet we find ourselves in a situation, as Mel said, where the ruling corporate, financial, military, and political classes just currently have our society’s collective foot slammed on the gas barreling in the wrong fucking direction towards more death, more war, more global warming, more unfathomable and preventable misery, and more sacrifice because we have to fight to get what we deserve. And frankly, we deserve so much better than this and that has always been the message of this show. And I am so incredibly grateful to everyone who has stuck with us over these past 300 plus episodes, these past seven seasons, everyone who has been patient with me and with Jules, as we’ve been struggling to keep the show going while keeping our lives going, and jobs, and relationships, and deaths in the family, just your support has really meant the world to me and to us.

And I just can’t thank you guys enough for listening, for caring, for sharing these episodes, sharing the stories of these great folks that have given us their time and shared their life stories so openly with us, that is ultimately what it is all about. And you guys listening to those stories, sharing them, learning from them, that’s the greatest gift that any one of us can give to one another is listening, and seeing each other for our whole human selves when we trust each other enough to open up the way that people open up on this show.

And so I wanted to really end by thanking you guys, the listeners, the folks who have stuck with us from the beginning, the folks who have found us somewhere in the middle or even recently, like thank you for keeping the show going. Thank you for keeping us going even when we wanted to quit. And thank you for constantly inspiring us by fighting for a better world wherever you are, thank you.

Next week, from Aug. 19-22, the much anticipated Democratic National Convention will kick off in Chicago, and protestors from Chicago and around the country are preparing to descend on the DNC in full force. For organizers and the over 200 organizations that comprise the Coalition to March on the DNC, Palestine is at the top of the agenda—and the city of Chicago seems determined to keep protesters from making their dissent known to the nation and the world. For months, march organizers have been locked in a legal battle with the city over protest permits and approved march routes, but Hatem Abudayyeh, a spokesperson for the Coalition to March on the DNC and national chair of the US Palestinian Community Network, says the protests are happening one way or another. What is the current plan for the DNC protests? What should protestors, DNC-goers, and Chicago residents expect during the week of the DNC? The Real News speaks with Abudayyeh to get an insider perspective and the latest updates on the coalition’s plans to march on the DNC.

Studio Production: Maximillian Alvarez
Post-Production: Alina Nehlich

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Welcome everyone to The Real News Network podcast. My name is Maximillian Alvarez. I’m the editor-in-chief here at The Real News.

Mel Buer:

And I’m Mel Buer, staff reporter.

Maximillian Alvarez:

It’s so great to have you all with us. Before we get rolling today, I want to remind y’all that The Real News is an independent viewer and listener-supported grassroots media network. We don’t take corporate cash, we don’t have ads and we never put our reporting behind paywalls. Our team is fiercely dedicated to lifting up the voices and stories from the front lines of struggle across the US and around the world. But we cannot continue to do this work without your support. And we need you to become a supporter of The Real News now. Just head over to therealnews.com/donate and donate today. It really makes a difference.

Mel Buer:

We’re recording this episode on Saturday, August 10th. We are now officially less than three months away from the general election and we are just over a week away from the start of the 2024 Democratic National Convention, which is set to take place in Chicago. The Real News is going to be on the ground reporting from the grassroots, showing you the side of the DNC corporate media won’t. One of the many critical stories we’ll be covering are the organized protest demonstrations that will be taking place in Chicago while the DNC is taking place at the United Center. On Monday, August 19th, I’ll be reporting from what is expected to be the largest protest of the week organized by the Coalition to March on the DNC.

Maximillian Alvarez:

As the March on the DNC website states, “The March on the DNC Coalition fights for the rights and liberation of oppressed people and against the exploitation of workers. Beginning on August 19th 2024, we will march on the Democratic National Convention in Chicago to bring the people’s agenda to within sight and sound of the Democratic Party leadership. Genocide Joe Biden has stepped down from running for president as the Democratic Party nominee. His decision doesn’t change the policies of Democratic Party leadership, specifically their support of the genocide in Palestine. So our movement must continue to apply pressure. On August 19th, we will March on the DNC for Gaza regardless of who gets nominated for the presidency.”

Mel Buer:

Over the last eight months or so, groups like the Coalition to March on the DNC have been fighting the city over permits for their marches. Ultimately ending up in federal court to settle the permitting issue. Multiple groups have sued the city on First Amendment grounds, saying that the city’s denial of march permits is unconstitutional.

Maximillian Alvarez:

With us today is Hatem Abudayyeh, National Chair of the United States Palestinian Community Network and a spokesperson for the Coalition to March on the DNC. We’re going to discuss with Hatem these upcoming marches on the DNC, the latest updates on the permitting situation and what listeners, protest attendees and Chicago residents can expect from the week of the DNC. Hatem, thank you so much for coming on the show in the midst of your crazy schedule right now. We really appreciate it.

Hatem Abudayyeh:

Yeah. I’m really honored to be here as well. And I want to promote your work to the masses too and I hope people can continue to donate and support the great stuff that you do as well.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Thank you so much, man. That means the world to us. It really does. And yeah, our listeners are eager to know about what they can expect. Many of them are going to be attending. If not, they’re going to be watching closely. And so just to jump right into the conversation, I’d like to take a moment to check in and get the latest update on the permitting battle that you and your fellow march organizers have been embroiled in for months. So I guess the big question is have the permits been granted? Like we mentioned in the intro, this has been a protracted battle over the permits that has been largely focused on the march route. The Coalition has proposed a route that would take marchers within sight and sound of the DNC while the city has been trying to relegate the marches to a shorter route, farther away, out of sight and sound from the United Center. So what’s the latest on the marching permits and the march route?

Hatem Abudayyeh:

So the first thing I’ll say is that organizing works and folks from the movement, progressive social justice activists in this country, for decades and decades have proven that. We have already won a part of this battle. They did, as you mentioned, try to bury us four miles away from the United Center when we first submitted our applications. Of course, we rejected that immediately, described how ridiculous it was that they thought that we would accept something like that. And they knew they were going to lose that on First Amendment and constitutional grounds. So finally, after many months after this lawsuit, they rejected a fourth permit application of one of the lead organizations of the Coalition. But this time when they offered an alternative, they did put us within sight and sound. Now, the challenge that we’re dealing with right now is really a common sense political challenge even for the city.

When we say it’s in the best interest of the city as well as the protesters that we need to extend the march, it’s based on decades and decades of experience. Understand that my organization, the United States Palestinian Community Network, the National Alliance against Racism and Political Repression, Students for a Democratic Society, anti-War Committees across the Midwest, Students for Justice in Palestine, Chicago Coalition for Justice in Palestine, all of these organizations, and now there are over 200 who have joined the Coalition. We have decades of experience organizing these things. We’ve been the lead organizers for RNC and DNC protests since 2008 and we were the lead organizers in the 2012 NATO protests in Chicago. So we’re professionals at this sort of thing. Even if you’re not a professional, it only takes a little bit of common sense to recognize that for tens of thousands of people that we expect to have there on Monday, August 19th, you’re not going to be able to put them on a route that’s only a mile long.

Because what will happen is people from the front of the march are going to get back to Union Park, before thousands have even left Union Park. So even though we are within sight and sound, we’re still not upholding the First Amendment and constitutional rights of everybody because the folks in the back are not going to get within sight and sound. The folks in the back are not going to be able to express their messages, which are first and foremost, end USAID to Israel, stop the genocide, free Palestine and stand with Palestine. That is the center of these protests. But it wasn’t always the center of these protests. The other thing to recognize is that USPCN joined this Coalition in April of 2023. The day after they announced that it was going to be in Chicago, we helped form the Coalition to March on the DNC. Because we’re not a one-issue organization and we’re not a one-issue community. Palestinians and Arabs here who have been fighting for decades for Palestinian self-determination and liberation care about all the other issues that the Coalition to March on the DNC cares-

Hatem Abudayyeh:

Care about all the other issues that the coalition of March on at the NC cares about as well, immigrant rights, police accountability, stopping police crimes, black liberation, women’s rights, reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights. All of these issues are also at the forefront. But when October came around, we recognized that this was a US supported genocide. We saw that thousands and thousands were being killed in these massacres and that the US not only was not saying anything about it, they were openly supporting it unequivocally, diplomatically, politically, militarily, financially. We knew. We knew immediately, and everybody in the coalition knew immediately that we were going to have to center Palestine for the DNC. And ever since we have, and all of the 200 organizations that have signed on to this thing have had to say that they accept that we’re centering Palestine here. And that’s why it’s incredible that it’s this big. It’s incredible that it’s this broad. But nobody who has been watching the United States and the rest of the world in the last 10 months should be surprised that Palestinians have such incredibly broad support within the movement.

Mel Buer:

So they’ve still rejected your permits. Are these hearings still happening in federal court? Have you received a ruling from the judge? Because last I checked, you had had a hearing on the fifth about the permitting situation and about the route.

Hatem Abudayyeh:

Yeah, we expected a ruling on that day or within a couple days of that, but the judge has still not ruled. We have a status hearing coming up on the 13th, which is Tuesday at 2:30 Chicago time, and I can’t imagine that she’s not going to rule on that day.

Now, again, they’ve met the legal burden after real strong political and legal pressure. These city attorneys are the same city attorneys who advised Rahm Emanuel mayor one percent to not show the video and disclose the video of the killing of Laquan McDonald in Chicago a few years back, if you remember that case. They are the ones who recommended that he not release that tape. They said, “You will lose the election if you release this tape.” And the tape did not get released before the election. That’s the kind of city attorneys that we’re dealing with here.

They have not been negotiating in good faith with us. They have blindsided us a number of times after making agreements and promises to us. And so, we’re not surprised that that’s happening from that entity. But we also live in a different Chicago now. In fact, I’ve said this to some people kind of laughingly, which I wish it was Rahm Emanuel that was the mayor, because in a battle against a Zionist pig like him, I know that we knock people over the head. But today’s administration in Chicago is a friendly one. It has friends of ours in it. It has people from the movement in it. It has organizers in it. The mayor himself is a former organizer with the Chicago Teachers Union. And so we are negotiating with the city, but at the same time, we’re dealing with this reactionary backwards elements within the city attorney’s office, what they call corporation council in Chicago. And they’ve blindsided us, like I said, a number of times.

What we’re dealing with now is that they have not budged on the issue of the route. The other thing that they’ve done is they’ve made an argument that we needed to turn onto side streets. Again, same thing. You turn onto side streets, you cause a big logjam with these thousands and tens of thousands of people. A logjam potentially for folks like you all and others who are experienced with these kinds of things is going to have people actually stopped for minutes at a time, 10, 15, 20 minutes. And you know what happens inevitably in that situation. Somebody sees that there’s an open street, they want to try to run to it or walk to it or get some space. And we’ve asked the cops directly, what is going to happen when we’re walking down this thoroughfare, Washington Boulevard, and you force us to turn to make two sharp turns onto narrower streets and folks see that the bigger street that we were just on is open and they want to walk to it. Will they be subject to arrest? We asked repeatedly and finally they answered and they said, yes, they’d be subject to arrest.

So we’re saying, why do you want that? We don’t want that. The city doesn’t want that. So just give us the longer route. Give us the wider streets. And they have not budged. They continue to claim that we don’t know where the Secret Service is putting their fencing, but at what point are we going to know that and at what point are you going to disclose that information so it’s on the public record so that you can make an argument and the world can hear why it is that you’re restricting our rights.

Mel Buer:

Seems to me that the city is deliberately creating a dangerous situation for 20 plus thousand people when you’re on side streets with front yards. First off, it’s a nuisance for the people who live there. You’re not trying to create a nuisance for these folks in these neighborhoods. You don’t want people walking over people’s lawns and potentially creating dangerous conditions if someone has a medical emergency in their house or something like that. But yeah, these smaller streets are, if you’re going to be filling it up with 20,000 plus people, the potential for dangerous situations to come from panics in the crowd or any of that nature should be something that is paid attention to. You would think that the city would be wanting to avoid situations like that.

Hatem Abudayyeh:

Yeah, that’s what we’re saying. Ball’s in their court at this point. And Mel, it actually sounds like you might’ve listened to our Instagram video that we made at the last court hearing because we said just that. This is a community that is mostly Black, it’s the west side of Chicago, the historic west side of Chicago, folks who are already going to be burdened so unimaginably by the DNC already. There’s going to be checkpoints. People are going to have to be searched when they’re trying to leave their homes, trying to get back to their homes after work. There’s going to be street closures everywhere. And now they’re saying let’s also allow tens of thousands of people to march on lawns and step on flower beds and that sort of thing. We don’t want to burden that community.

In fact, we have a number of Black-led organizations, including the main Black-led organization, in our coalition, the National Alliance against Racism and Political Repression, together with the Alliance USPCN and many others have been fliering and door knocking in those communities. And people have been great. They’ve been so gracious in accepting us and recognizing how important this DNC is. This relationship between Black communities and Palestinian communities in Chicago especially, but across the country as well, is a very, very important and special relationship. Like Black-Palestinian Solidarity has the people in power up in arms.

When the movement for Black Lives put out a policy position paper a few years back, the Zionists lost their shit, essentially, and they attacked the movement for Black Lives, ADL, and JUF, the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish United Fund and Jewish Federations all across the country came out and just attacked the Black community and the movement for Black Lives for their support of Palestine for calling Israel an apartheid state.

Hatem Abudayyeh:

…Palestine for calling Israel an apartheid state and calling for the end of occupation and colonization. So that’s who we’re dealing with in terms of the support for Israel in this country among the Zionist organizations. But of course, it’s not just Zionist organizations, it’s the top leadership in Congress and of course the Biden and Harris administration as well. So this thing is going to be huge. It’s going to be historic. It’s going to be the largest mobilization for Palestinian rights in the history of Chicago. And it is going up against the strongest, most powerful empire in the history of the world. We recognize who’s in power. We recognize who the enemy is. People are asking, why are you protesting against the Democrats? Well, if the Republicans were in party and the Republicans had the President, then the event of the season would’ve been the RNC.

It turns out that the folks who are most responsible, who are most complicit for the genocide, for the killing of 40,000 people, for the killing of 100 people at another school that was bombed just yesterday by the Israelis, 70,000 people in Khan Yunis in Gaza have been pushed out of their homes again just yesterday. And the responsibility is on genocide Joe and killer Kamala, so that’s why it doesn’t matter that there’s been a change to the top of the ticket. It doesn’t matter to our coalition. It doesn’t matter to the organizations that are joining and have joined the coalition and that are going to be mobilizing. In fact, Netanyahu was here two weeks ago. He met with Biden directly. He met with Harris directly, and then a day later he bombed Beirut and a day after that he violated the territorial integrity of the sovereign state of Iran and killed a Palestinian leader there. The US itself went and bombed I Iraq and they’re all threatening Yemen as well.

That means Netanyahu got the green light directly from Biden and Harris. He must have. The timing of it means that he met with Biden one day, he bombed Beirut the next, he got the permission. And so Netanyahu for months has wanted to expand this into a regional war and we as an anti-war movement in this country, not just Palestine support and Palestine solidarity, but we need to make sure that we stop an expanded war on Lebanon or on Yemen or on Iran. And that’s incumbent upon us and the listeners of this show and the social justice and anti-war movement in this country as well.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Moving to kind of pick up on that and sort of bring it back down to the street level here because I know we got to let you go here in a couple of minutes. I wanted to just bring us back to week of the DNC itself and what folks listening to this can and should expect. Now, of course, as we said at the top, we’re recording this on Saturday, August 10th. We have on Tuesday another critical hearing. Things may change by the time you guys hear this. But Hatem, I wanted to ask just based on everything that we currently know on the existing plans and on where you see this battle going, what should protest attendees and Chicago residents expect on the week of the DNC? How can folks who are planning to be in Chicago get involved and what should they expect on the days of the marches themselves?

Hatem Abudayyeh:

Yeah, so folks who are coming from outside of Chicago and can stay the entire week, should stay the entire week because the largest of the protests on the first day is going to be Monday the 19th at 12 noon. We’re going to be at Union Park. You should probably get there early because like I said, there’ll be tens of thousands of people in that beautiful historic park. It’s historic because if you remember in 2006 when the Immigrant Rights Movement rose up against the racist Census Burnett Bill, that’s where the first protest in the Immigrant Rights Movement first happened. That’s where 500,000 people gathered to protest against those racist policies. And then later that year, 750,000 were in Chicago and a million were in Los Angeles. And it was incredible, we took back May Day for the Immigrant Rights and the Workers’ Rights Movement in that year.

And so I remember those so vividly, and I remember that park so vividly and that’s where we’re going to be. It’s a few blocks away from the United Center where the convention is happening. Like I said, we’re starting at noon but folks should get there early. We got a really, really powerful program. Jamila Woods is joining us, the wonderful singer-songwriter from Chicago who’s like nationally and internationally renowned now. She’s going to be there singing and protesting with us. And we got a great schedule of speakers as well that we’re going to make public in a couple of days. And then we’re going to march. The other thing I’ll say Mel and Maximilian, is that from day one we said, permit or not, we’re going to be marching. We expect that we will have a permit. We expect that we’re going to win this fight of ours.

But people need to be there because the whole world is watching, and it’s very, very important for us to stop the genocide to be able to protest that week. On Thursday we’re book-ending. First day and the last day on Thursday, the Coalition of March on the DNC will organize at 5:00 PM at Union Park as well, kind of a closing protest. On Wednesday evening at 4:00 PM, the local Chicago Coalition for Justice in Palestine of which USPCN is also a leader, will be leading a protest on Wednesday. So there’s a lot of activities going on, a lot of protests going on, and a lot of opportunities for folks to join in. If you can only come for the first day, and we know that working people can’t take four days off to protest necessarily, if you can only come for the first day and you’re coming from across the Midwest or from the West coast and the East Coast and the South, and we know folks are coming from there as well, make sure you come on Monday at noon.

And if you could stay for Wednesday at 4:00, stay for Thursday at 5:00, join us the whole week and continue to put out the call that says, free Palestine. Stand with Palestine, end USA to Israel and stop the genocide.

Mel Buer:

A bit of a follow-up question, what about the folks who can’t make it to Chicago for the DNC? What is your message to people out there about how they can get involved, why they should, what they can do from their home or from a distance to support the coalition and to support these marches while the DNC is happening?

Hatem Abudayyeh:

I think what we need to continue to do, one of the things that has been really incredible about this movement as well is the escalation. I remember vividly a week or so into the genocide in October, USPCN, I believe was the first organization and working with the Chicago Alliance Against Racism and political Repression to shut down a congressperson’s office, Jan Schakowsky in Chicago. We had seven people arrested on that day. The next week we shut down Sean Casten’s office. He represents a huge number of Palestinians in the southwest suburbs of Chicago. We then shut down the street in front of Schakowsky’s House, the street in front of Casten’s House. We shut down Lake Shore Drive in front of Dick Durbin’s house, and Dick Durbin is the second most seen-

Hatem Abudayyeh:

McDermott is the second most senior Democratic senator in the country, represents a huge Arab Palestinian population, pays lip service to how much he cares about us and our rights, and never, ever has stepped up truly and strongly in support of Palestine and in condemnation of Israel. So I think people in other places should pay really close attention to the Coalition to March on the DNC’s social media. There’s a lot of information there, a beautiful toolkit that folks can use with flyers and action alerts and social media storms and all of that sort of thing. How to contact your congresspeople, how to contact the White House and continue to work together with us in making these demands.

But find out who the people in power are, and even if they’re Democrats, and even if they got a little bit of better policies domestically than the Republicans do, which we also recognize and understand, but hold them to account, escalate, go to their offices, do these advanced actions. I think right now, when we see these massacres continue to happen day after day, when we’re up to 40,000 killed, 90,000 injured, 2 million displaced, we do need to escalate.

I know that a lot of your listeners are also organizers and social justice activists, and they know what it means to escalate. Power concedes nothing without a demand, and we have to escalate because the people in power continue to support Israel unequivocally. It’s unacceptable. It’s unacceptable. It’s unacceptable to hear Kamala Harris say we need humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza. To be honest with you, absolutely we knew that we need that. The US is responsible for those people being killed and displaced, so the US is responsible for providing aid.

But the people of Gaza are a very, very proud people. For decades they’ve lived under siege, for almost 80 years they’ve lived under occupation and colonization. They’re not begging for your rice. They don’t want you to drop bombs one day and then try to drop bags of rice the next day. That’s not what we’re asking for. I don’t care about Kamala. Harris saying that maybe she’s a little bit more empathetic to the Palestinian cause than Biden might’ve been. That means nothing to us. What she needs to do is to stop the genocide. What they need to do is utilize the power of the United States in this situation because we know the relationship between the United States and Israel. The US is the imperialist power that supports Israel unequivocally because Israel secures the US interests in the Middle East and in the Arab world. That’s the relationship.

Biden said it himself. If Israel was not there, we would’ve had to manufacture an Israel. And because Israel is a white settler, colonialist, manufactured state that the United States needs to continue to support to secure its interests. So we have the power. This country, this government has the power to stop it. And if they don’t stop it, that means they support it. That’s exactly what our position is. And that means that Biden supports it, that means that Kamala Harris supports it, that means that Antony Blinken supports it and Durbin and Jeffries and Schumer and Pelosi and all of them.

Maximillian Alvarez:

So that once again is Hatem Abudayyeh, National Chair of the United States Palestinian Community Network and a spokesperson for the Coalition to March on the DNC. Hatem, thank you so much again for coming on The Real News Network and giving us this critical update on the Coalition to March on the DNC. Mel and I are greatly looking forward to being there on the ground, covering this for The Real News Network. And we look forward to seeing you and everyone there in person in just over a week.

Hatem Abudayyeh:

Sounds great. Thank you both, Mel and Maximilian, and the Chicagoans and the Coalition are good hosts too. So hit us up as soon as you get here and looking forward to meeting you in person.

Mel Buer:

It’s going to be great. Thanks so much for coming on.

Hatem Abudayyeh:

Of course.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Hell yeah. And to all of you listening right now, we are going to be on the ground, Mel and I, with our team covering the events of the DNC, covering the protests happening around the DNC, talking to working people in Chicago, Palestinian Americans, immigrant communities and regular folks about what they are feeling and thinking about the state of the country right now, the state of the Democratic Party and what they feel we need to do to move forward as a country, as a class. So stay tuned to The Real News Network, subscribe to our YouTube and podcast channels because we got a lot of great work coming for y’all on the week of the DNC and beyond.

For The Real News Network, this is Maximilian Alvarez.

Mel Buer:

And I’m Mel Buer.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Once again, please head over to therealnews.com/support so we can keep bringing you more important coverage and conversations just like this. Take care of yourselves, take care of each other, solidarity forever.

J.D. Vance has tailored his political image to suit an all-American, blue-collar model. There’s just one problem. While the Yale-educated Vice Presidential candidate may be from Appalachia, his journey has also taken him under the patronage of the decidedly elite Peter Thiel, who helped launch Vance’s venture capital career. Thiel has been a longtime supporter of Donald Trump, and over the years, other Silicon Valley billionaires have come around to sharing the PayPal founder’s outlook. The GOP now counts David Sacks, Elon Musk, the Winklevoss brothers, and possibly even Mark Zuckerberg among their supporters. So why is Big Tech aligning behind the Trump ticket, and what does Vance’s inclusion have to do with it? In a special discussion with author and tech critic Paris Marx, we dive into the labyrinth of shady political dealings and patronage relationships undergirding the new covenant between Silicon Valley and the GOP.

Studio Production: David Hebden, Cameron Granadino
Post-Production: Alina Nehlich

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Mel Buer:

Welcome back, my friends, to The Real News Network Podcast. My name is Mel Buer.

Maximillian Alvarez:

I’m Maximillian Alvarez.

Marc Steiner:

And I’m Marc Steiner.

Mel Buer:

And we’ve gotten important and timely episode for you this week. Before we dive into it, I just wanted to take a moment to thank you, our listeners, for your continued support. Whether you’ve got our shows on while you’re making coffee in the morning, put our podcasts on during your commute to and from work, or give us a listen throughout the workday, The Real News Network is committed to bringing you ad-free independent journalism that you can count on.

We care a lot about what we do, and it’s through donations from dedicated listeners like you that we can keep on doing it. Please consider becoming a monthly sustainer of The Real News Network by heading over to therealnews.com/donate. And if you want to stay in touch and get updates about our work, then sign up for our free newsletter at therealnews.com/sign-up. As always, we appreciate your support in whatever form it takes.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Silicon Valley and its league of extraordinary big tech billionaires have long maintained a self-fashioned image as the more liberal, even progressive side of the capitalist class, the purveyors of a cooler, more conscientious capitalism than your typical oil exec or Wall Street investment firm.

But today, with just three months until the 2024 general elections here in the United States, you’ll find some of the loudest voices and largest sums of money supporting Donald Trump and the neo-fascist politics of the far right coming from Silicon Valley itself.

Mel Buer:

As Paris Marx, prominent tech writer, host of the award-winning podcast Tech Won’t Save Us, and our esteemed guest today, recently wrote for their newsletter, Disconnect, For the better part of a year, prominent tech figures cycled through potential presidential contenders they hoped would defeat Joe Biden, finally reaching the inevitable embrace of Donald Trump. Elon Musk met with him back in March.

David Sacks recently held a major fundraiser for him in San Francisco, and far more have been quietly backing and donating to his campaign. But that support became much more public after the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump on July 13th. Despite previously saying he wouldn’t be donating to any candidate this cycle, Musk publicly endorsed Trump after the shooting and has pledged $45 million a month to a pro-Trump Super PAC.

Venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz have informed their staff they’ll be making donations to help elect the Republican candidate. Among Trump’s other supporters are Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, Sequoia partner Shaun Maguire, and the Winklevoss twins. They all have deep pockets that will help fuel a Trump candidacy, which already has momentum heading into the fall.

Marc Steiner:

As someone who’s been covering the rise of the right for some time now, the rise of these new big tech oligarchs and the roles they’re playing in fueling far-right politics today is particularly ominous. Figures like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, the gargantuan sums of money they and their networks possess and all the tech platforms they control have the weight and power to back the right wing in their push to win electorally.

It reminds me, in some respects, of the German election of 1933 or the end of our Reconstruction Period in the 1870s. There’s a real threat to the future of democracy at the hands of these 21st century digital robber barons, and they must be stopped.

Mel Buer:

With us today to discuss the troubling rise of Silicon Valley funded PACs and Trump’s Thiel backed VP Pick is tech critic Paris Marx, host of the Tech Won’t Save Us Podcast and author of Road to Nowhere:What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation. Thanks so much for coming on the show, Paris.

Paris Marx:

Absolutely. Always excited to join you.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Well, we are beyond excited to have you because we got a lot of shit to discuss and you are the perfect person to help us break it all down. And I’m just going to jump right into the big meaty question here that’s on everyone’s minds, which is like what role is big tech and these big tech oligarchs like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, what role are they playing in electoral politics right now?

Because it’s clearly not just campaign donations and your typical lobbying support for their industry. What are people seeing and what are they not seeing when it comes to the long arm of Silicon Valley and the influence that it’s having on our electoral politics in general and this election specifically?

Paris Marx:

Yeah, it’s huge, right? And I think if people are thinking about Peter Thiel, they might be thinking back to the 2016 election and how he was a very vocal and public figure supporting Donald Trump. He spoke at the Republican National Convention. He was very clearly putting money behind Donald Trump and a number of other Republican candidates. This cycle, he has been more in the background, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that his money is still at work.

That even though he said he’s not actively supporting Donald Trump, it seems quite clear that he is, especially now that J.D. Vance has been chosen as his running mate. J.D. Vance is, of course, someone who is very much within Thiel’s network, has received a lot of money from Thiel over the years, and owes a lot of his career to Peter Thiel as well. So if we look at this cycle, what is happening now, sure, we don’t see Thiel as publicly and vocally supporting Donald Trump and the Republican Party, but we see a lot of other tech figures picking up that mantle.

So David Sacks, who has a long relationship with Peter Thiel and Elon Musk going back to PayPal, has been trying to take up that more public role that Peter Thiel held in 2016, holding fundraisers, speaking at the Republican National Convention, trying to encourage other folks in the valley to get behind Donald Trump and to get behind the Republican Party. Elon Musk obviously has become very vocally supportive of Donald Trump. Said so after the assassination attempt that he was going to back Donald Trump.

There were reports that he was giving up to $45 million a month to a Super PAC in support of Trump. He is called that into question. We don’t know how much he’s actually giving, but we do know that he has started a PAC called America PAC that has received a lot of donations from a lot of other people in Silicon Valley that is claiming to register people to vote, but actually using that sort of a tool in order to get people’s voting information in swing states.

And there are Secretaries of State in Michigan and I believe North Carolina looking into that at the moment. But then, of course, the other aspect of this is social media. Elon Musk owns Twitter or X and has made a lot of changes to that platform to elevate right-wing voices by unbanning really far-right figures, by changing the way that the algorithm works so that you see more right-wing content in your feed.

And even over on Facebook, which I feel like we don’t talk about as much anymore, but Mark Zuckerberg has been taking the limits off of say Donald Trump’s accounts. Mark Zuckerberg has not officially endorsed anybody, but Donald Trump has said that Zuckerberg called him, said that he was basically backing him even though not publicly endorsing him and called Donald Trump a badass after the assassination attempt.

So there are many different ways that the tech industry is really getting behind the Republican Party and Donald Trump as they hope to basically use his presidency to serve their own interests.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Just to follow up on that, just one more layer, Paris, how much of this is behind the scenes and how much of it is up front? I mean, because we’ve got Musk’s public persona, but then we’ve got these Super PACs, and we’ve also got these right-wing networks through which someone like J.D. Vance could be absorbed and groomed and supported his political career launched by these networks that may not seem as obvious and in fact may feel a lot more opaque to your average voter than most things.

Paris Marx:

Yeah, absolutely. And it happens on both fronts. And I think after the assassination attempt in particular, we saw a lot of that public support. A lot of these people in Silicon Valley, a lot of these investors, billionaires, CEOs saying, “We back Donald Trump. We’re backing the Republican Party. We want them to win.” But we know that there has been a much longer campaign happening more in the shadows, more behind the scenes, especially when you think of how someone like Peter Thiel and his network operates.

Peter Thiel was not often… 2016 was the exception. He’s not often the person who is out front, who you’re seeing doing all these interviews, who you’re seeing tweeting a lot or something like that. He is someone who operates in the background. He is someone who moves money around and who gets his network to do the same thing in order to serve these broader goals that people like him have. And as you’re saying, that’s exactly what you see with J.D. Vance.

Vance is someone who first ran into Peter Thiel in 2011 when Thiel was speaking at Yale Law School and felt really inspired by what he was saying. In 2016, when he published Hillbilly Elegy, his best-selling book, was when he really officially entered Thiel’s network, working at Mithril Capital first and then founding his own venture capital firm later called Narya Capital, which was funded by $100 million from Thiel and his network to get it started.

And then, of course, when Vance ran for Senate, he received $15 million from Peter Thiel, which was most of the funding he needed for his campaign. So you can see very clearly how there is this linkage there. And there are reports that apparently when Donald Trump was at a fundraiser in San Francisco before he had chosen his vice presidential candidate, it was co-hosted by David Sacks, he was sitting down with a bunch of these tech figures, very rich people, and basically saying, “Who should I choose as my vice presidential candidate?”

And they were all saying J.D. Vance because they wanted him in that position because he is very much a product of their network. And they know that if he is in the White House, if he is the vice president, they will have a lot of influence over the policy direction that the Trump administration or a second theoretical Trump administration will take.

Marc Steiner:

So take off from what you just said and what I said in the intro here that Peter Thiel is infatuated with Hitler. He’s infatuated with 1930s Germany, and he’s talked about it a number of times, written about it, covered Newsweek. And so when you think of that part of Silicon Valley and the politics that they support and what they’re pushing, I’m curious what you think the danger we’re facing, what the possibilities are if they actually win and Thiel and the very far-right Silicon Valley money investors have their way politically?

I mean, it seems that it’s a situation most people don’t know about and I think it almost takes us to an edge of a cliff, politically speaking. So what’s their end game?

Paris Marx:

Yeah, it’s a great question. And Thiel is someone who’s from Germany, and obviously not all German people are bad people.

Marc Steiner:

Yeah, I didn’t go there.

Paris Marx:

I think you could very reasonably ask what his grandparents were doing back in the 1930s and 1940s. We won’t say anything particular because we can’t confirm, but those are questions we can have. But going back to Peter Thiel, he has been very open and very clear for a very long time, going back to his time in Stanford University, that he has very right wing politics influenced by certainly right wing Christian ideas, but also anti-democracy ideas as well.

He’s opposed to democracy. He said that very clearly. He thinks it’s a bad form of government. He also is just generally opposed to minority rights. Even though he’s a gay man, he’s spoken out against gay rights. He’s spoken out against women’s rights and the rights of other minorities in society.

We also saw back in 2016 when Donald Trump was first in the White House that Peter Thiel was pushing for him to make appointments that would have severely reduced say medical regulations and the way that the FDA regulates medicines within the country, pharmaceuticals, so that more tech companies could get involved by just throwing stuff out there and getting people to use them.

So there are many aspects of society where he would like to see a lot of deregulation, meaning the reduction of regulations and laws that actually protect the environment, protect consumers and things like that. And so if we’re looking at what a potential Trump administration would look like with the influence of these people from Silicon Valley, they have been quite clear about it.

Peter Thiel does want to see a more authoritarian state, the reduction of democratic rights, which is something that we see Donald Trump saying very clearly that he is supportive of in his recent rallies. So that’s not a big surprise. But even if you look at the things that other billionaires in Silicon Valley have been saying, people like Elon Musk, but also people like the venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, they’ve been very clear that they want to see deregulation.

They want to see the government putting more money into defense technologies and making sure that those contracts are going to companies in the tech industry, not the traditional defense contractors. They also want to make sure that this push to do antitrust enforcement to stop mergers and acquisitions be ended. They don’t want to see taxes go up on people like them.

And ultimately, they want to position themselves as being key to the continuation of American power and American hegemony into the 21st century by saying that the way that we defend American power is not just with a strong economy and a strong military, but also the technological superiority that the United States is used to having. And that means being very close to Silicon Valley, giving a lot of money to Silicon Valley, listening to its policy priorities, and ultimately giving it a much more powerful role in the actions that the state takes.

Marc Steiner:

It’s a very dire picture given the power they have and the power they will have in the coming four years, eight years, whatever that is. I think until I read all that you wrote, I think most people are not aware of what’s looking under there in this country, which is people are not aware of these things in a larger scale and they need to be aware of what we potentially face.

Paris Marx:

Oh, absolutely. The tech industry is really good and has been really good for a long time at using its marketing arm to make people have a certain picture of what the tech industry is rather than paying attention to what it’s actually doing and what these billionaires are promoting and what their personal politics are.

Certainly we have seen that transformation or realization over the past few with someone like Elon Musk where he was treated as a liberal darling for a long time, as someone who was supposed to be fixing climate change and doing all these great things in the world. And now people are like, oh, he had this transition to the right wing. He’s promoting all these far-right groups.

He’s frequently meeting with far-right heads of states and politicians from around the world, is frequently tweeting in support of these causes in many countries, not just in the United States and the UK or places like that. And people act like that is a shift. It’s something that is completely new, and certainly aspects of that are. He wasn’t so outspoken about these things.

But it doesn’t take long to go back into this history and what he’s been saying to see that these ideas have been around for a very long time, especially someone like Peter Thiel, going back to his college days, his days at Stanford University where he was saying very similar things to what he’s saying today. A lot of these tech figures promoted themselves as libertarians for a long time.

That they were okay with the rights of minorities, that they were okay with certain rights in societies being improved as long as there was deregulation, as long as they were allowed to do what they wanted, as long as taxes were low. But now that they have reached the pinnacle of society where they are some of the richest and most powerful people, not just in the United States, but the world, their demands are growing.

And as the regulations being applied to them and as the scrutiny being applied to them has increased because of the power and wealth that they hold, they’ve been very clear that they’re not okay with that, that they do not want to be held accountable, that they do not want to be taxed, that they do not want to be regulated, and that they will interfere in the political system to ensure that that’s the case.

Mel Buer:

You’ve touched on this a little bit I think just as a point of clarification. So you would say that this right-wing, anti-democratic philosophy is pretty standard for most of the folks that you would find in Silicon Valley. Is that a fair assessment?

Paris Marx:

I think generally yes. And I think some people would probably maybe question that a bit more than I would feel. But I think that when you look across Silicon Valley, what you see is even the people who would be more supportive of say the Democratic Party or more liberal politicians is that a lot of these people still do not want to be taxed. They still want to see a lot of benefits going to the tech industry.

They don’t want to see a lot of these antitrust investigations and ends to mergers and acquisitions. And they certainly want to be able to use their power and wealth to increase their influence on society. Even if you think of some of the big philanthropists like Bill Gates or Melinda French Gates or people like that, these are ultimately still people that have vast hoards of money, that campaign to ensure that they don’t have to pay effective taxes on that money.

That they can use that money to have vast influence on policy, not just in the United States, but around the world, and they do not want to see those levers of power choked off. So even the people who would say we’re supportive of minority rights, of gay rights and things like that, they still want the economic power and they don’t want the democratic rights of the broader public to restrict that.

Mel Buer:

So I know that we’ve touched on J.D. Vance as being the Silicon Valley darling in the GOP side of the current election. Are we seeing some of the same pressures on the left with Kamala Harris’ campaign as well?

Paris Marx:

So there are pressures. They just take a bit of a different form. I don’t think we’re going to see a tech industry chosen VP candidate becoming the person who supports Kamala Harris, but there are different forces at work there. And so we already see that as Kamala Harris has taken over the nomination from Joe Biden, that she has pushed out some of Joe Biden’s campaign officials and added her own. Among those are Tony West, who is her brother-in-law, but also Uber’s chief legal officer.

And David Plouffe or Plouffe, I’m not sure the right pronunciation of his surname, but he worked with Barack Obama, was very key to his campaign and early time in his presidency, but also joined Uber as head of strategy or something like that and was also on their board and did a lot of work campaigning for Uber with government officials because of the relationships that he had from being in the Obama administration to help Uber move forward its goals of ensuring that it did not have to treat its workers as employees, that it could continue to break the rules in a lot of countries around the world.

And so he was actually found to have done illegal lobbying in Chicago with the Mayor Rahm Emanuel. He was known to have built a relationship between Uber and the Obama administration so that the Obama administration would rely on Uber and give it preferential contracts and things like that, and also help to speak to American diplomats in certain European countries as European governments were trying to crack down on Uber to say, “Can you go talk to your counterparts in these European governments,” saying to these American diplomats to help this American company Uber.

So he was really using those relationships in that way. So now these are two of the key figures in Kamala Harris’ campaign. And so that obviously brings a lot of concerns about the influences that’s going to have on the types of policies that she might pursue. But then the other piece of this is on the donor side. Donald Trump has a ton of donors coming from the tech industry, but so does Kamala Harris. She’s a politician who is from California. She’s used to going to these people for money.

People like the former Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, Melinda French Gates, the LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, as well as the former Netflix executive Reed Hastings are all supporting her, as well as many others. Reid Hoffman, in particular, the LinkedIn guy who’s currently on Microsoft’s board, as well as the venture capitalist Vinod Khosla are explicitly demanding that if she becomes president, that she remove Lina Khan in exchange for their support and the support from a lot of these Silicon Valley figures.

Lina Khan is, of course, the head of the Federal Trade Commission who has been moving forward a lot of these antitrust cases and a lot of pro-consumer measures in her tenure there. And that is obviously something that I think a lot of left and progressive forces would not want to see happen, because even though she hasn’t moved everything through and even though antitrust is not like a silver bullet to solving the problems that exist in the United States, what she has been doing has still been very important.

And so to see the influences of these tech billionaires over the potential Harris campaign and a potential future Harris administration is certainly a concern, because of course, her campaign has been asked about her stance on Lina Khan and they have not really defended her other than to say that they haven’t looked at replacing her at the moment. So I think we’d want to see a bit more of a defense of Lina Khan and what she has been doing over the past few years to ensure that that tech money is not influencing the policy direction that Kamala Harris would be pursuing.

Marc Steiner:

The wealth want to protect their wealth.

Mel Buer:

Well, just as a small point of clarification, just a reminder to listeners, we are talking about a tremendous amount of money coming out Silicon Valley in these various pressure campaigns and direct support campaigns through PACS. We’re talking, what, millions, billions of dollars perhaps in pushing the needle or attempting to move the needle in either direction on both sides of this election.

Paris Marx:

Absolutely. And Reed Hastings, who’s formerly at Netflix, was one of those people who was withholding millions of dollars until Joe Biden was removed from the ticket. Then there were questions after that as to whether he would actually support Kamala Harris or become one of these donors who was saying, “We don’t want Harris as well. We’ll withhold our donations until there’s someone who we prefer even more.” Ultimately, he did. I think it was $7 million that he provided to a PAC.

I guess it was in support of the Democrats and Harris after Joe Biden announced that he was going to step off the ticket and that people coalesced around Kamala Harris. And so these people, as you’re saying, have a lot of money in order to influence what is going to happen. And certainly I think that there has been a lot of focus on the relationship that the tech industry has to the Trump campaign because of J.D. Vance, because of the very public support of someone like Elon Musk.

But I think it’s important not to lose focus on the fact that, okay, while yes, it would be better to have the Democrats in office, there still needs to be a fight there to ensure that the Democrats are going to do good things and not just give in to all this corporate pressure that is going to come from the many millions of dollars that are going to come from many industries. And because of all the wealth that exists in the tech industry, they are going to be one of the major players here as well.

Maximillian Alvarez:

So as we’ve been teasing out over the course of this conversation and as you have shown on your amazing show that everyone should listen to, Tech Won’t Save Us, it’s not so much that this is a extreme rightward shift in Silicon Valley, and it’s more revealing of who Silicon Valley and what Silicon Valley always was. That being said, in terms of the right-wing politics that were maybe more latent that have become much more explicit and had been articulated more vocally by big tech figures like Elon Musk, the “war on wokeness” has played an outsized role here.

And the culture war attacks on what is called wokeness, which could be anything from the outfit that your postal worker wears, to what you can buy at a Target, to having pronouns on your social media profile, wokeness, much like political correctness before that, has become a catch-all term for the right to articulate everything and everyone that they have a cultural grievance against. But it has enabled big tech figures to really capitalize on this extreme right wing shift that’s happening in the nation writ large.

I wanted to ask if you could just say a little bit about what the “war on wokeness,” what role that has played in everything that we’re talking about here. What license does that politics give Silicon Valley to push its own self-interested capitalist a big money politics while also creating a much darker political scene in the country thing?

Paris Marx:

Sure thing, and I think it’s an important question to ask. And I think part of this exists on a personal level, but part of it is much bigger than that. You can see people like Elon Musk or Bill Ackman, of course, who have embraced some of this stuff. In part it seems because of not supporting what their own children are doing. Elon Musk, of course, has been very vocally transphobic toward his own transgender daughter.

That has seemed to help inspire part of his more open embrace of these really extreme right politics that we’ve seen him embrace in the past couple of years. He, of course, said that she was brainwashed in school by communists and neo-Marxists and all this kind of stuff. Bill Ackman has said something similar about his own kids going to universities and being brainwashed by Marxists and things like that. So you can see this piece of it.

But I think if you zoom out even further, you can see how this broader supposed war on woke, which is really like a war on minority rights and basically anything that they think threatens their own political project or their own power or influence or what have you, is very beneficial to people like billionaires in Silicon Valley just as it’s beneficial to billionaires anywhere.

Because it helps to say the problems in society are caused not by the power and the influence that is wielded by billionaires, by people who have hundreds of millions of dollars like Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk or pick your massive billionaire there, but rather the problems in society are caused by the refugees that are coming in who have no power in society and are escaping from the worst conditions that you could possibly imagine, or because transgender people are gaining a few more rights now that they didn’t have in the past, or gay people can finally get married.

It’s like these are apparently the reasons why society is falling apart, not because of four decades of neoliberalism and the massive power of wealth that has been accumulated by these incredibly rich and powerful people who are fighting tooth and nail to ensure that they don’t need to pay much tax on that wealth, that they will not be held to account for the harm that they cause toward their workers, toward the environment, toward the broader society.

And so it’s very much in their interest to say, look, it’s all this woke-ism that’s causing all these problems, not us and everything that we are doing to have this power and wealth and to protect it at all costs. And you can very clearly see that playing out day to day. Elon Musk is frequently pointing to refugees and to migrants as threats to American society, but also European society.

We see that playing out right now very clearly in the UK with the far-right mob riots that are happening based on, again, lies around a stabbing, saying that it was done by a Muslim when it was not. So you can very clearly see how this is whipping up these broader tensions in society and how that helps to distract and even empower these increasingly far-right forces that the tech industry and these massive tech billionaires are very much aligned with.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Now, you’ve touched on this a bit already, but I want to flesh it out even more. Because this is something that connects even to the reporting that Marc, Mel, and I do in other parts of The Real News Network. Marc, you were recently down in Austin, Texas, in San Antonio where Tesla is moving because of this “Texas miracle” that we were hearing about.

And what we saw there through your investigation is that the right, led by Republican Governor Greg Abbott, is following the playbook that we’re discussing here, using anti-woke right wing politics to push through what is ultimately big business-serving policies and stripping away people’s ability to regulate companies, to self-govern, to concentrate power in the hands of a few in the statehouse, to unburden companies like Tesla and so many others of pesky things like workers’ rights and environmental regulations, yada, yada, yada.

And of course, there are examples all over the place. In California, my native California, there was the giant Prop 22 campaign a few years ago where these supposed big tech competitors were pooling their money to launch the largest misinformation campaign in state history to pass a ballot measure that forever enshrined a third category of worker who could legally make less than minimum wage. So that is just one of many tangible examples to pick up on what Paris was saying of how the big business policies are ultimately at the bottom of this.

But there’s a larger philosophy here in which big tech is creating the society it needs to supplement its own business model. And so I wanted to pick up on that, Paris, and ask, what does Silicon Valley’s philosophy on technology and capitalism actually tell us about Silicon Valley’s philosophy on democracy and American society? And in the reverse way, what does that philosophy regarding the future of society tell us about the future of tech that they want to create?

Paris Marx:

It’s a really important point. They’re very clear about it and increasingly clear in that they see technology as being very separate from politics, in the sense that when we have all these problems in society, we’re facing down a climate crisis, we see that we have a housing crisis, there is an affordability crisis, all of these other problems that we’re dealing with, if you ask someone in the tech industry how you address that, they will explicitly not say, “Okay, the government needs to do something about this. They need to change some policies. They need to build public housing. They need to do certain things so that we reduce emissions.”

No. They will say, “Okay, we need to develop new technologies that will address this problem developed by some private tech company in Silicon Valley. That maybe we’ll get some public funding because that’s always great.” But ultimately, the power and the solution is a technological one, not a political one. And so it carves these problems out and reframes them not as political problems, but as technological problems.

The reason why we’re not hitting our emissions goals is not because our governments have been captured by fossil fuel companies and other commercial interests and are making sure that they serve them above the broader public, regardless of the climate consequences of that, but rather because we haven’t developed the right technologies fast enough.

And so if we only let Bill Gates and these companies decide our future, then we’ll just put it all in the tech industry and let them decide what this future is going to be, how we’re going to solve these problems. And of course, the technologies will be developed if we’re going to give them free rein to do it in order to solve this problem, when that is very clearly not the case and not clear. And a lot of these technologies tend to make big promises and then not actually deliver on the benefits or the emissions reductions or what have you.

So there’s that piece of it where any problem that we face needs to have a technological and not a political solution so that the power and the ability to solve those problems is one that is held in Silicon Valley and is not in the hands of politicians or a democratic public. And so then that links to a broader issue there where you think of, okay, well, what does politics look like in a society like this? And you can very clearly see that it’s a very technocratic one.

The decisions around how society develops, around the decisions that we make around what technologies get rolled out, around how we address problems are decisions not that are made by a democratic public deciding what society we should live in and how we should collectively deal with these problems, but are rather decisions that are made by venture capitalists, by CEOs, by these very powerful people in Silicon Valley because this is the way that you address the problem.

And that very much links to say the ideas that Peter Thiel has around being opposed to democracy thinking that it is something that holds us back. He has explicitly talked about how giving women the vote was a mistake and that that should not have happened. And so these are the ideas that these tech industry folks are dealing with and are pushing out into the world. And certainly not all of them will explicitly feel that way, but they will still feel that tech is the way that you solve these problems.

They will still feel that the tech industry itself is something that we need to put our faith in order to deal with these things or else society will fall apart or whatever. But I think that that is the clear dividing line there. You have these powerful people in Silicon Valley who don’t want to be held to account, who don’t want to be taxed, who don’t want to be regulated, and who want to decide what the future is going to be, and to set that path in such a way that benefits them over everybody else at whatever cost.

And then of course, that leads us with a situation where democracy is imperiled, where democratic rights are being increasingly attacked, and where the power that the state has to actually do anything is being continually degraded as it has been for four decades to ensure that the government can never effectively hold these people to account.

And as you’re talking about in Texas is effectively captured by the tech industry anyway, so they’re going to do what they want. So it’s a very dangerous and scary future that is in store for us if the power and wealth of these tech billionaires is not reined in.

Marc Steiner:

So as we conclude, let me just throw this out, picking up what you just said, and earlier you talked about the head of the Federal Trade Commission Lina Khan, and it’s interesting you raised her issue because as I was preparing to think about this program today, I was looking at some stuff about Lina Khan and the tech industry, and both Vice President Harris and Kahn spoke with the AFT.

And Kahn said, which is applicable here, “Americans didn’t overthrow a monarch to be ruled by technology tyrants.” And then one of those technology tyrants, Reid Hoffman, gave $7 million to the Democrats and said, “The first thing you have to do is to fire her,” to fire Khan. This release sets up to me the real dilemma of the election just symbolically and also in realistic ways.

A woman who’s trying to hold big techs’ feet to the fire through regulation is now being confronted by them, giving money to the Democrats as well saying, “We want you to get rid of her.” That really shows the danger of this kind of money in politics and the power that they wield. So I’m curious your analysis of all that.

Paris Marx:

Oh, absolutely. I’m sure it will not be any surprise to hear looking from abroad based in Canada, the way that money is deployed in the American political system is always a bit shocking. And the way that it’s talked about is not outright corruption all the time. So yeah, that’s always something interesting to observe. But I think you’re entirely right.

You can very clearly see, especially as the tech industry has gained this wealth and this power over the past decade in particular, that it is now deploying that very clearly to shape political outcomes, to shape the political system. And this is not to say that the political system in the United States has not long been friendly to Silicon Valley and to the tech industry.

Silicon Valley exists because of government funding back in the Second World War and through the Cold War. And of course, even in the internet era, the Clinton administration was very friendly to Silicon Valley. The Obama administration was very friendly to Silicon Valley. Even the George Bush, his administration was very friendly to Silicon Valley. What they wanted, they would provide.

Deregulation, funding, whatever it was. Clinton privatized the internet to allow this commercial boom to really take off. So they have long had these relationships to government, these very favorable, very positive relationships to government that have benefited the tech industry a lot, that have allowed these people to accumulate all of these billions of dollars.

But for a long time, they frame themselves as Libertarian, as being separate from government, as being a bit unsure about what the government would do and wanting to rein in its power. But really they were working with government the whole time. At certain moments that was more explicit. In other moments, it was a bit more behind the scenes.

And I think that what we’re seeing right now is this much more explicit embrace of government in order to ensure that government serves the priorities of the tech industry. And I think you can see that in many ways by trying to influence, of course, the policies of various government officials, by trying to get rid of Lina Khan through donations on the Republican side, but also on the democratic side to try to shape the way that these politicians think about this.

But I think even bigger, like when we kind of zoom out from that, we can see very clearly now that the United States political system has this bipartisan effort to defend its geopolitical power against China in particular. And the tech industry is right at the center of that and has made sure that this geopolitical fight is framed as a fight over technology and technological supremacy.

And that means that regulations need to restrict what the Chinese tech industry and other foreign tech industries can do in order to defend and protect the power and at least the regional, if not global market share of American tech companies. And so I don’t think that that can be lost either.

The way that the tech industry has become very central to one of the defining things that the American government is doing right now and how that has led billions of dollars to flow into Silicon Valley, whether it’s through the CHIPS Act or through a much greater focus on defense tech and modernizing or trying to use AI and stuff like this in the military.

And so the Biden administration has basically just continued and accelerated the policies of the Trump administration in that area. And I think that doesn’t get enough focus as well, because that is another way that the tech industry is exerting a lot of its power and ensuring that by making itself key to American geopolitical power, it makes it much harder to try to rein in its domestic power, let alone its global power as well.

Marc Steiner:

This is this century’s battle against the robber barons and breaking up monopolies, but tech is that reflection at the moment.

Paris Marx:

Totally. Absolutely.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Well, and just to hop in here to round us out, I’m going to put my Marc Steiner hat on for a second and ask a question that Marc asks all of his interviewees, how do you fight this? And that’s a question for Marc and for Paris.

Paris Marx:

Yeah, I think it’s always a difficult question because you’re looking at the power and the wealth that these people have accumulated, and it’s massive. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be trying to fight it and we shouldn’t be thinking about the avenues to do that. I think organizing against these companies is essential, whether that is the union organizing that we’ve been seeing growing in the past number of years.

We’ve been seeing a lot of unionization in the video games industry in particular in recent months and over the past year. We’ve also been seeing organizing at a lot of major tech companies over the past number of years now fighting their collaboration and cooperation with defense department, with say the border services with a number of other aspects of not just the American state, but also say the Israeli military and militaries in other countries.

And I think we’ve been seeing that grow even as the power and the influence of these companies has grown as well. And I think that we also see that these companies are not immune to backlash, to criticism, to the very organizing that these workers are doing, because certainly the tech industry a few years ago tried to force cryptocurrencies onto us and remake the financial system around that. And that very clearly didn’t happen.

They’re currently trying to make AI the next big thing, and I think that we’re going to see that bubble collapse as well. And so I think that is also where part of their frustrations are rooted in that they are trying to transform the world and to remake the world in the way that they want to see it, but they keep being pushed back at these different junctures and these different avenues.

Certainly they have a lot of power and wealth, but they’re in some cases finding it hard to deploy that power on wealth and remake the world with that power and wealth in the way that they would want to see. And so the more and more that that kind of pushback grows, the better it is that we can combat these major powerful figures. But I don’t think any of us should ignore the fact that it’s obviously going to be a big fight. It’s going to be a difficult fight.

And I think wielding the power of the state where we can is going to be very important to that. And that’s why the fight over the state is also a very important piece of this as well, because we’ve already seen what say someone like Lina Khan in a very key position can do, even if other aspects of the government or state governments are even working against those things. So yeah, there’s a lot of fighting to do. But yeah, I think that there are avenues that we can take to try to reduce their power.

Mel Buer:

Thank you so much for coming on and talking to us about this, Paris. Before we let you go, we’d love to clue in our listeners into how they can contact you, maybe check out your book or your podcast. What are some places where folks can see what work you’re working on?

Paris Marx:

Sure thing. I’m on most of the text-based social media, @ParisMarx. You can find me on Twitter/X, Mastodon, Bluesky. I’m sure there’s probably a couple more I’m forgetting. I also host a podcast called Tech Won’t Save Us. I have a newsletter called Disconnect as well, which is at disconnect.blog, and I wrote a book called Road to Nowhere:What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation.

Mel Buer:

Thanks so much for coming in. Hopefully you can come back on the show again soon.

Paris Marx:

Absolutely. Great to speak to you.

Mel Buer:

That’s it for us here at The Real News Network Podcast. Thank you to our wonderful guest, Paris, for coming on the show to talk about this important topic. Once again, I’m your host, Mel Buer. And on behalf of us here at TRNN, we are so grateful for your support and listenership.

If you love today’s episode, be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get notified when the next one drops, and you can find us on most platforms, including Spotify and YouTube. Remember to support us here at The Real News by heading over to therealnews.com/donate and look out for more great episodes like this on our website. Thanks so much for sticking around, and we’ll see you next time.

Today we have an urgent and important conversation with members of the NEA Staff Organization, the union of staffers at the National Education Association, who have been locked out of their workplace by NEA management for the past four weeks. The NEA, representing over 3 million members, is the largest union in the country. Staffers working for the NEA have been bargaining for higher wages and fairer treatment by the union, and have instead been locked out of their workplace after a 3-day ULP strike a month ago. We’ve brought on former educator Rowena Shurn and national board-certified teacher Ambereen Khan-Baker, both of whom are NEASO members and Senior Policy Program Analysts at the NEA, to talk about the lockout, what it means for a union to engage in union-busting tactics with their own staff, and how NEASO members are keeping each other’s spirits up on the picket line.

Additional links/info below…

• NEASO Website
• NEASO Strike Fund
• Nation’s biggest labor union has locked out its employees for 4 weeks now
• Union With Labor Dispute of Its Own Threatened To Cut Off Workers’ Health Benefits
• NEA Staffers Locked Out After 3-Day Strike Disrupts Convention, Biden Speech
• Why Did the National Education Association Just Lock Out Its Own Staffers?
• Staff Who Disrupted NEA’s Assembly Will Be Locked Out of Work

Permanent links below…

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• Labor Radio / Podcast Network website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
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Featured Music…
Jules Taylor, “Working People” Theme Song

Studio Production: Mel Buer
Post-Production: Jules Taylor

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Rowena Shurn:

Good afternoon. I am Rowena Shurn, a senior policy program analyst at the National Education Association for about five and a half years now. I was a previous educator in Maryland, prince George’s County, where I was on the board of directors of P-G-C-E-A, which was my local affiliate in my state board, MSEA as well. And currently also a doctoral student along with my colleague who’s going to fiercely introduce herself in a moment. And so we are rocking and rolling in so many ways.

Ambereen Khan-Baker:

And hi everyone, my name is Ambereen Khan-Baker. I am a National Board certified teacher renewed. I am a senior policy program specialist and analysis in teacher quality in the Center for Professional of Excellence along with Rowena here. And my job has been focusing around supporting affiliates and organizing professional learning. So how do you create professional learning? How do you create systems and structures for it? Previously, before coming to NEAI was a special ed and English teacher for about 13 years, taught all over Maryland and DC and became really active in my union as a coach. And so that was for my entry away, and I was a teaching fellow for a year before coming to NEA.

Mel Buer:

Welcome back everyone to another episode of Working People, a podcast about the lives, dreams, jobs, and struggles of the working class today brought to you in partnership within these Times magazine and the Real News Network produced by the always wonderful Jewels Taylor, and made possible by the support of listeners like You Working People is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast network. And if you’re hungry for more worker and labor focused shows like ours, follow the link in the show notes and go check out the other great shows in our network. And please support the work we’re doing here at Working People because we can’t keep going without you. Share our episodes with your coworkers, friends and family members. Leave positive reviews of the show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and reach out to us if you have recommendations for working folks that you’d like us to talk to.

And please also support the work we do at The Real News Network by going to the real news.com/donate, especially if you want to see more reporting from the front lines of struggle around the US and across the world. My name is Mel Buer and today we have an urgent and important conversation with members of the NEA staff organization or niso, the Union of Staffers at the National Education Association who have been locked out of their workplace by NEA Management for the past couple of weeks. The NEA representing over 3 million members is the largest union in the country. Staffers working for the NEA have been bargaining for higher wages and fairer treatment by the union and have instead been locked out of their workplace after a three day ULP strike a month ago. I’m so glad that you both have come on on such short notice.

Talk about a really important struggle that’s currently happening with the NEA. I’d really like to dive right into the conversation, but first I just want to make a point of clarification for our audience. Some of our audience members may not know that there are staff unions at unions, union locals, international union offices are themselves workplaces often with the cadre of union staffers that are employed full-time by the union. These folks may be full-time organizers, comms folks, individuals who are kind of keeping the union, whether it be a union local or an international union running smoothly. And often these locals and IUs across the country, they are themselves represented by their own union, which is what is happening here with the NEA. The N-E-A-S-O is the staff union that has what, 350 members and just like any other workplace staff unions will bargain contracts with their employer, in this case the National Education Association.

So that’s just kind of a point of clarification for our listeners who may not quite understand where this is coming from. Every worker deserves a union including workers who are employed by unions themselves. So just to clarify that at the start, let’s just start off Rowena, if you could, for the members of our audience who aren’t really familiar with what’s been happening at NEA, could you give us a short rundown of the events that led up to this lockout of which it’s now what been four weeks since the start of the lockout? Yeah, if you’d like to start there.

Rowena Shurn:

Today is day 21 of the lockout. Wow. We began negotiations back in April, if I’m not mistaken, since from April until May 31st is when our contract actually ended. We could not come to agreement on everything. There are segments of our contract in which agreement were reached, but then there are certain parts of it in which agreement wasn’t met, if you will. And so in June actually our Center for Professional Excellence, along with two other centers had a one day ULP strike. And basically that’s an unfair labor practice. And so something took place in which we were like, that’s not okay. And that was around the end of June when that happened. And then negotiations continued and at some point we received updates around how over time would work for our representative assembly and a couple of other things. And they were outside of the win, which we proceeded with our contract in previous years years.

And so it resulted in us calling for a strike July 5th through seventh as well. And what folks saw on the news was absolutely unfortunate it because one of the things that you talk to most of us, they’ll say that this is a calling. This isn’t just a job for us, this is a career. This is a profession. We dedicate our lives and our heart to this work because we believe in education. All of us attended school and we thoroughly believe in the right to education. We believe in the right because that is a part of freedom. Education literally liberates you. It gives you access to so much past, present, and future. And so for a lot of us, it wasn’t easy. I am sure I speak for my colleagues when I say that that wasn’t an easy place to arrive at, particularly when you believe in the very vision of great public school.

And that’s something that we feel that every student should have access to. And so when Sunday night, July 7th, all of us in our personal inboxes received a message from the executive director telling us that we would officially be locked out starting July 8th. And that’s where we’ve been since then locked out from working with our members, locked out for making those connections. And currently we see the political climate and our membership group will be supporting this. One of the things that’s really interesting is that most unions have a professional learning aspect of it, and that’s the work that Amber and I do. We look at the career continuum from those who are interested in becoming teachers to those who are veterans and experts and accomplish at their work. And so this entire time we’ve been forced to not work with our folks forced for the work to be left undone and untouched. And that’s really been difficult.

Mel Buer:

I think you bring up a good point, and Amber, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. I also, I’m a former teacher. I taught higher education, so I worked as an adjunct instructor at state colleges teaching composition and got a crash course in workplace conditions and how management often will take this idea that teaching as a career as a vocation is really about the, if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day. This is about the students management likes to kind of use that as a way to not hold up their side of the bargain sometimes to allow working conditions to deteriorate and to say, well, you’re in it because this is such an important thing. And so when you are actually sitting in negotiations and you are asking for rightfully asking an improvement to wages or overtime pay or any of those things that would make it easier and more enjoyable for you to be able to do your job effectively, they often just will hand wave it away.

And I think especially when it comes to, and this is more the question for you aine, this lockout seems to have come as a complete surprise, especially after you sit through weeks of bargaining where you understand that hopefully both sides are coming to the table in good faith, that they want to come to a conclusion that will be a contract that works for everyone. And when things start going sideways and you’re trying to use your leverage, something that a union should know is part of the sort of tool in the toolbox, their response is to lock you out and union bust. And I think the question here is why is it so important for a union like NEA to walk the walk, which is what you’re asking them to do in negotiations? What does it say about the NEA that they would rather lock out their workers instead of bargain fairly with them?

Ambereen Khan-Baker:

Mel, I really resonate with what you said about as teachers and I have had these conversations and we’ve had these experiences as teachers where you are expected to work all of these hours outside of your day to grade papers. I grade so many English papers on the weekends on weeknights with no pay. And there is this expectation when you do it for the kids. And a lot of our leadership roles in our districts were voluntary. If we wanted opportunities, we had to volunteer more of our time to do that. And that was a shift I saw in leading activities and professional learning in our union. It was also there was some compensation involved, but there was plenty of opportunities. And these were opportunities that I had coached by my colleagues in our bargaining unit in Niso, and that was so important because that helped me become a teacher leader and helped me grow in my profession.

And so going to your question about what does this say about why this is so important right now? Lockouts are really rare and lockouts are something that’s in the boss’s playbook. It’s a tactic that bosses and corporations use to oppress suppress their, it’s not something a union should be doing to another union and we as the largest union in the country, we need to be modeling the practices of joint labor management collaboration. We need to be modeling the practices of how we should collaborate and how we should care. This culture that we create in our organization is so important because everyone is looking at us right now. Every single district is watching what’s happening right now because these are some of the tactics that they will use. And that is one of my biggest fears. I think one of the ramifications is that this is something that we’re going to see in with our local unions and what’s that as they’re bargaining, that if their district can lock them out, they could.

And so we’re normalizing has normalized this practice of locking out your staff and it has gone on for four weeks this extent of time and the threat of taking away our insurance really demoralized and impacted our emotional and social wellbeing to such an extent, I got sick as a result of this. I’m literally getting a prescription right now because there’s so much trauma that we are experiencing that’s impacting our bodies right now. And this isn’t the message we should be sending. It should be that we care for each other and I have absolute hope in our members. I know that they are the ones leading our union and I have complete hope and solidarity in this work, but it’s something that we really need to emphasize is that we have to care for each other and there’s just this lack of, I think empathy and humanity and these actions by any day over the past few months. That’s just very concerning.

Mel Buer:

I also want to throw out to you, and I do, again, I want to kind of underscore here for many of our listeners who maybe have not been through a contract negotiation before, I’m also a member of a staff union here at the Real News. Our negotiations, thankfully were not like the ones that you have gone through. They happened pretty quickly, but negotiations are tough and having to have a conversation about what you can do to materially improve working conditions and have this back and forth requires openness, honesty, and empathy across the table. And oftentimes management doesn’t do a good job of making that apparent. Right. And so I really, again, it’s disappointing to see a union like NEA that represents what over 3 million workers, who has this decades long experience and what contentious bargaining looks like, what good bargaining looks like, and not be able to apply those skills with their own staff union. Rowina, I wanted to have you jump in and get your thoughts about what it means for the union to walk the walk and why it’s important to continue to pressure them to live up to the values that they espouse every day. I’m

Rowena Shurn:

Glad you asked that question and to contextualize it a little bit, and I’m sure that within education folks, this will resonate. Nearly about 30% of our union members have second jobs, and I don’t know if folks really realize that because there’s this seamlessness of the work that we do that you don’t even know. Some people exist in the context of it gets done. It’s almost the invisible hand sometimes in the background. There are so many folks that Reen and I rely on so that we can help members be great. They may see Amina and they may see Rowina, but behind Amina Rowina, it is this whole network that is moving seamlessly so that we can create the space for our members to be fully great and live in the possibility of who they are. And so to that, to do that, some of our folks are working second jobs.

I myself do too. You mentioned being an adjunct professor. I work as an adjunct professor as well. We have student loans too, and our loans are not forgiven because we work for a union. This is the level of commitment and dedication that so many of us have. And so this is why this is important. We haven’t had a step in 12 years for our contract. It’s been 12 years since folks have moved up steps. And so there’s so much that folks we don’t talk about because again, we become passionate about the work, we recognize the gifts that our members have, and so we show up. We really, really, really know the importance. Like I said previously of what’s going on, and sometimes I believe folks forget, they forget those of us who’ve been teachers. When some folks become administrators, they forget what it’s like being in a classroom with upwards of 42 students.

They forget what it’s like grading all of those papers, those assignments, right? When the narratives have to be edited and revised seven to 11 times and you have a student load of 1 25, they forget. And to some degree, some of the folks on that side, they’ve forgotten what it’s like to be in this space and they’ve been there. Let’s be clear. Everyone who’s on the other side, they’ve been in the spaces that we are in right now. And to some degree it’s like you’ve forgotten what it’s like. You’ve forgotten the moments and times that we live on the east coast, but we stay up to 10, 11 o’clock at night because we don’t want our members in Hawaii to always have to give up their Saturdays and Sundays. We want to stay up so that when they get off at four o’clock, I’m there virtually, but I’m there.

Or we don’t want our folks in Alaska to have the same experiences. We want them, the very thing that we work and advocate for on their behalf. We try to give to them as well as staff. And I really believe oftentimes you guys have forgotten what it’s like to be the frontline, to be in the trenches when the pandemic happened. If you could have heard our meetings and the ways in which as staff, we showed up big time for our members, some of us with our own health being compromised, but it was so important. Like everything they dealt with, we dealt with too. We were right there with them coaching them. We were right there mentoring with them. We were right there with them and talk about the systems and structures. We were right there with them in it. And we’re there day to day, we get the calls.

Some of my work is around national board and I just held a convenient back in May, one of the members, she became sick and had to go to the hospital who was right there with her. Rowina was there with her, Rowina was there in the background, working with staff members to secure it so that her family can get there. These are the things that we do, and we don’t do it in a context for the accolades. We do it because we see their humanity. We do it because we are people. We do it because we love and are gifted and we believe in this work. Again, it is a calling and we actually believe, trust us and value it. Show us what the value looks like because it’s okay at the end of conferences and things to tout and say, publicly we did a good job.

But it’s also showing it. And to say love is an action. It is an action, and we want to see the action with it, the action that demonstrates it. And so if it’s around the idea of fair compensation, then let it be fair compensation. Let it reflect the value of what we do for 3 million members. If it’s around the idea and a concept of work location, then let it be about a fair work location. There are so many aspects of what we do that members don’t see because we get it done. But at the end of the day, as Amber said, we want to be seen as complete full humans as well. I don’t want to have to work two jobs because I also have my student loans to pay for and in a doctoral program and paying for it as well. These things aren’t inexpensive.

But because I believe in what I do, I always want to make sure that my professional learning mimics and mirrors what our members are doing. I never want to be in a space in a place where I’m not knowledgeable. And so I continue learning too, but I can’t do that if I’m not fairly compensated for it as well to help in that. And so these are the things that I think sometimes that when we elevate in our career and our profession, we forget. We forget what it’s like at this space in this juncture. And so we’re asking them to remember and not only remember to demonstrate it, what it looks like in all authenticity. So that would be what I would add.

Mel Buer:

Amber, you had some extra thoughts to add.

Ambereen Khan-Baker:

Yes, Raul, you are saying it so perfectly, and both of us, we believe in this because these have been our experiences. As a teacher of color being in the classroom, I almost left the classroom my third year and going through the national certification process really helped me find my why and help transform me as a teacher. And then that was the moment where I decided to coach other teachers to go through the process, and I can only do that through our union and being part of a number of leadership opportunities. It was all through my union and they were supported by staff, like the role that Row and I are doing right now. And so we’ve had these lived opportunities, these lived experiences. We see firsthand why this work is so important because it’s influenced both of us as educators of color and as female educators of color.

The lack of opportunities that existed my district for me, having these doors open for me in my union was so critical to me staying in the profession. And so a lot of the members that we work with through our professional learning, we’re supporting them and their journey. We’re also ensuring that they stay in the classroom and this is just part of that experience and that journey for them so that they can become leaders in NEA and they can identify other Aines. Other Rowenas, right? They can identify other educators of color who can lead in the profession.

Mel Buer:

I think that’s a really great way to kind of segue into a really important question in relation to this lockout, which is to say what are some of the effects of it? What is not being taken care of? Because you have been locked out of your work. You heard some stories about some congressional staffers texting, NEA staffers and asking where these conversations, these emails, these phone calls were, and having to tell these congressional staffers that, Hey, our workplace has locked us out. We’re not doing this work. What other effects are you seeing? What work isn’t getting done? Rowena or Rine? Feel free to kind of clue in our listeners as to what the effect of a lockout like this is.

Rowena Shurn:

So when I say our membership, niso touches almost every aspect of NEA, it literally does. So yes, we have the congressional folks who work folks on the hill at the federal, state and local levels. We have our finance folks, literally the folks in the finance department, these are those folks. So the systems and structures that help run the organization, those are our members, the folks that work with private and public partnerships, whether it’s through our Center for Social and Racial Justice, those are our members, the folks that works with Campaign and Elections, those are our members. That’s a separate group from the Congressional Hill. So you have us, the Center for Professional Excellence, you have education policy folks. So the entire organization, we pretty much touch in some shape, form or fashion. More of it is direct than indirect. And so we are all getting the calls, the text messages, school is about to start and we’re not there.

The vice president, shout out to our vice president because I am from Oakland and a graduate of Howard University, so shout out to her for being a presumptive nominee for the Democratic ticket. All of that is going on, and that’s where we come in as well. And so when I tell you that we touch so much of the work that is done and the ways in which the public know NEA niso is so important to that work, we do so much. And again, we’re the hidden gems, the ones you don’t necessarily see because we’re in the background navigating everything to make sure it happens. I mean, most recently, and I want to shout out one of our colleagues who helps with education international, she was on her way back from a trip and her plane wasn’t canceled, but her phone was shut off when we initially went into the lockout.

That’s the impact. She was internationally traveling and her systems were shut down. Granted the plane, she still had that because she was connecting. But that’s the impact of this lockout folks have. We have a couple of colleagues who have kids with health concerns and issues that must see their doctors every month. That was a big thing about the health insurance. We have folks who have chronic ailments and they must see physicians regularly. That was the impact of this. We have folks with kids who are on their way to college this fall and imagine what that’s looking like right now because their parents are not being compensated for that. So there are so many ways in which our personal lives are being touched that it’s really unfortunate. And as Reen said, why would you make this a part of the playbook? Why would you do this? The largest labor union in the country and what you put in your playbook is to lock out. Imagine what this is going to look like for our staff who do this work with districts. What are they going to do now when districts, because it’s only a matter of time before some of them follow the lead and we look kind of weird. How do you tell us not to do it When you did it, you didn’t have a word for that, right?

Mel Buer:

Well, it’s part of the dirty tricks kind of playbook. When I was covering the Kellogg strike in Omaha, Nebraska, I used to live there born and raised. These are my neighbors who are striking. And I remember standing on the picket line with workers. This is a multi-billion dollar corporation who’s shut off the health insurance of workers who are fighting cancer and who are standing on this picket line really for each other. And you see some of the actions of NEA and you go, man, this is the kind of shit that monopoly men fucking corporate billionaires do. Why is this happening at a union? And unfortunately, this sort of management boss playbook, I’ve seen it happen with other union locals. It happened with SEIU 10 21. They locked out some of their workers like what I don’t know 15 months ago who were also in the midst of bargaining.

It’s like, what? To your point, Rowena, how did you forget this? Right? You know that you’ve been on the receiving end of some gnarly shit in your career that bosses have done this to you that have played fast and loose with your livelihood in service of what? Holding onto a little bit more power in the workplace. Come on now, let’s be real. Can we be humans with each other? Is there an adult in the room that can kind of remind you of that place to say that you are supposed to be standing in solidarity with the staff that you have hired to do this work? Shouldn’t that be the sort of baseline frustrating, right? Absolutely frustrating. Maybe a corollary question, Amber then is how is this beyond just the immediate sort of material and emotional whiplash from the lockout beginning at the beginning of last month, what has been the way that you have rallied your fellow workers within the staff union to hang on and really try and see this through to the end? What are some of the things that you guys are doing as a collective group to kind of keep each other from falling through the cracks?

Ambereen Khan-Baker:

A lot of things on the picket line, and one of the things I’ve been trying to do is taking pictures of my colleagues and capturing some of those stories. I was writing about some of my own stories and I as a relational organizer, I’ve always, I build relationships. I listen to people, I listen to their stories. I try to come from a place of empathy and heart because the stories are so key because this is how we remember our union values is through these stories of understanding our experiences. And so I’ve been trying to capture, and I feel like on the picket line, truly we are checking in on each. When I see a colleague not feeling well, I go to the side, I sit down with my colleague and I’m like checking in. What’s happening in your life? What’s going on? This is a collective trauma that we 300 of us are all experiencing the same time.

And so giving each other water, Gatorade, here’s a paper towel. Literally that whole collective chair is very critical online in our virtual picket line, which has been amazing. And kudos to all of our a virtual picket line captains. They are amazing. And there is an emphasis on self-care, on giving space to just talk through your feelings, but thinking strategically about our say or about our day or about our pay, what does this really mean and how do we want to move forward? It just does collective hope that I’ve been able to see. And on the picket line the other day, we broke out in, we call it the Miso Dance Squad, and a bunch of us, including myself and my tambourine, we were just dancing to all sorts of solidarity songs at one of our colleagues. Kai created a new newer version of one of our popular solidarity songs and made it to our context, and it just made us laugh and made us and this terrible, complete, horrible times.

It just made us feel like we belong to each other. And that is an incredible feeling. This is what it means to have union values. And I’m so grateful, so grateful that I’m not alone, that this is not a solitary journey, that at least we have each other, that we can laugh together, we can sing together, we can check in with each other because we’re not alone. And I’ve been also sitting down and talking to individuals. We’ve been sort of creating some affinity groups and some affinity spaces. A number of us have health issues. And it kind of goes to what we were talking about a little bit earlier, about some of the impacts of this lockout, like the whole threat of losing your health insurance. I sat down and I listened to my colleagues cry and I cried. I broke down and sobbed hysterically a few days because I have autoimmune disease that impacts my entire wellbeing.

My son has five autoimmune conditions and my husband has an aneurysm and a heart defect. And so the threat of losing our health insurance, I can’t even describe it in words, just for someone to mess with our health insurance, and I’m not the only one. So many of her colleagues went through that same experience. And I sat down and I listened to them. I listened to them crying. I listened to them talking it through. I talked through what are your COBRA options? And a lot of my colleagues couldn’t afford Cobra and they were going to wing it to hear that they were going to wing it. And so we were trying to try to make space for each other to just share out because that is how we’re going to get through this pain and that is how we’re going to feel and how we can able to move forward.

Rowena Shurn:

Mel, if I can add one thing, absolutely, please do. There is definitely a resolve with Niso that we will get through it together. There’s this togetherness that has, I’ve never experienced this depth of togetherness, and that’s the word we’re going to call it in my professional career, in the ways in which we are moving. And I’ve been in places where it has been incredible, but the togetherness of this largely because the depth of hurt that this lockout caused really, really motivated us to better connect with each other, to find out each other’s names. I mean, some of the basic things, we don’t see each other that much because we’re all over the country. And I don’t know if people really realize, yes, it is all the states. It’s also US territories. It’s also those who are part of D-O-D-E-A. We represent all of them. So at any time we can be anywhere.

And so we don’t always see each other and we’re actually learning about people. I’m like, I didn’t know that person was there. I just knew it got done. I didn’t know. But there is a resolve that we have, and there are folks who have been, and I’m going to speak for myself. I flew in for a month out on the line. I don’t live in the area anymore, but I flew out and was out on the line for a month because it was a resolve that if my colleagues are going to be out there for us, I need to be there with them. There are folks who are taking the trains in every day who are outside of the DMV area because they’re like, I have a resolve to be here to support my colleagues. We don’t want the ones who live close in proximity to feel like they’re carrying this on their own.

And so there have been folks who’ve flown to other places and done so many different things on behalf of niso that it has been an incredible, incredible journey. Not a way in which we would have wanted to connect, but nonetheless, this has been an incredible journey in ways in which we’ve got an opportunity to know each other, to build collective collaborations, not just around our work, but around people. And we are humans first. There are folks in which we’ve found out, hey, we share a love for pets. And so we have a community and affinity group talking about our pets and what are some things we could do because financial resources have been strained and what are ways around it to even support our pets? And so when I tell you that there is a connected collectivism and togetherness that is unheard of. It is real. It is true. And I don’t think that folks were really ready for that. They were not ready for us to be together. And let’s be clear, niso is together, one voice, one sound, our say our pay and our day is where we’ve been united on.

Ambereen Khan-Baker:

And I really have to say, it’s like really to all of the departments, all of the groups among our staff union, there’s so many talents I didn’t know. And it’s incredible. And one thing I want to really point out is that our work supports all 50 of our state affiliates. So and now you mentioned this about how unions have unions. Our state affiliates also have staff unions, and a lot of the local affiliates have different varying degrees of staff unions. And everyone is watching this because this is a tactic that can become normalized. And that is one reason why we cannot back down and we will not because we know what that impact could look like. I’ve never been on the picket line before. I’ve never been on strike. I have never been locked out, and I hoped no one ever experiences this feeling and I don’t want them to. And so we have to keep alive. We have to keep bargaining because this work is so important and it’s important to our members because I don’t ever want a single one of our members to have this experience. And our solidarity is just, it’s important.

Mel Buer:

Yeah, there’s something, and this is something that I’ve noticed. I’ve joined a number of picket lines prior to becoming a labor reporter when I was organizing with the IWW. And now that I spend a lot of time on picket lines, in general, reporting on labor struggles across country, and there is something unique and magical about the way that a picket line can just bridge the gap in between workers. I always think about this, strike a case New Holland. It’s a tractor manufacturer in Burlington, Iowa, and first shift and second shift and third shift workers had never met each other before. And now all of a sudden they’re sharing space on a picket line and they’re realizing that their neighbors, that they have things in common, that their kids go to school together, that all of a sudden, whatever management was hoping to do by keeping these groups separate from each other doesn’t matter anymore. The relationships are being formed in a way that are much more lasting than any lockout or strike will be. And so it’s really heartening to hear that folks with NISO are really trying to reach across that sort of divide and to stick it out. Because ultimately what this is, is sort of a, I don’t know, showdown. You’re playing a game of chicken with the management.

Ambereen Khan-Baker:

It’s

Rowena Shurn:

A shit show. That’s what it’s,

Mel Buer:

Yes. And the longer you can stick it out and stay together, the less leverage they have as this lockout goes on, because the more pressure is going to start coming from the outside, which is my final question for you both. What can my listeners, people who are interested, people who care about this struggle, what can they do to show support for your struggle? Is there a lockout fund for individuals who are in financial straits here, or is there a way that they can use their small little bit of power to pressure NEA management to really get back to bargaining in good faith in reopening the doors to its workers? What can folks do?

Rowena Shurn:

So the first thing they can do is go on a website, niso matters.org, N-E-A-S-O-M-A-T-T-E-R s.org. And on there they can sign up to be allies. And we have a list of things that they can do to support us. Also on, there’s a link to our GoFundMe for the strike fund as well. And we want to say thank you. There has been such an outpouring of love and support from our members and other stakeholder communities. It has been unreal, and I think Amber and I both can attest to it, the dms, the text messages. Are you okay? I saw the person besides you, do they need something? It has been phenomenal. The way that our folks have responded, you all are making it so that we can do this. I really wish that our members understood. The reason why we’re able to do this is because of the love outpouring support that we receive from so many people, which has been, I couldn’t even fathom it. As we said, this is not something you want to go through, but if you have to go through it, this is the way to do it. But definitely need, so matter.org is where they’ll get all of the information on how to connect with us on all of our socials because we want to make sure we take care of everyone as well. And so that is definitely a way to do it. And I’m sure Amber is going to add some more S sauciness to it.

Ambereen Khan-Baker:

S saltiness, yes. One, if you’re not part of a union joining union, that’s super important because there’s a bigger picture here with the labor movement. And then just to add on to what Rowena X really amazingly said is look at us on social media. You can follow us on X, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, but a number of us in Niso are actually, and you can follow me at Amber and KB on X and on Instagram uplift our messages. What we’re trying to do is share our stories, share our experiences. So if you have a social media platform, please by all means, share posts, whatever you like. We have been just trying to get this message out there so folks can understand because there are messages from our management and what they want to control and what they want to say. And we really want our stories to be out there.

Members can, obviously, they can write letters. We have on our website that Rowena mentioned, they can send letters to governance and any leaders expressing their support. But members can also write letters with their locals, affiliates, with their state affiliates or any group of members and just letting them know. And any organization can send letters. And so feel free on behalf of your union, express your concern or on behalf of a group of individuals, express your concern. Why do you think this is important? Urging the end of this lockout, but also to negotiate a fair contract. These are just basic union values and so remind, let’s remind everyone what our union values are.

Mel Buer:

Thank you so much, you both for coming on and talking about this. This is extremely, extremely important struggle. I hope that NEA comes to their fricking senses and ends this soon. And in the meantime, anything that we can do to help keep your spirits up and keep this moving in a positive direction, we’re here for. So thanks so much for taking the time to chat and don’t be a stranger. I really hope you come on the show again soon to talk about the cool things that NEA does once this block out is done. We

Ambereen Khan-Baker:

Would love to. We would love to and just want to thank you ma so much for having us, for hosting this podcast, for listening, and for all of you listeners, just for taking time to listen to our stories here. It means so much to us and we’re very grateful for everyone’s solidarity, for everyone’s support.

Rowena Shurn:

I echoed the sentiment and the only thing that I would add is we would not be able to get through this without people like you, Mel, and I know the magnitude of your just willingness to hear us. And that’s what it is about voice. It’s that someone is out there listening and someone hear us and they recognize and notice that we are here and that’s important to us. And so we heartfelt say thank you for this opportunity to hear us, to listen to us, and to make sure that the public knows that we are people back here and what we want is to be valued and we want that value demonstrated. So thank you all so much.

Mel Buer:

That’s it for us here at Working People. I wanted to again, thank Rowena and Ambereen for taking time out of their busy picket schedule to talk to me about this important struggle. I want to do more of these conversations and we want to keep talking to more folks, union and Non-Union and getting more perspectives from you. We want you guys to reach out to us, give us your thoughts, send us a tip, leave a comment, send me a message at mel@therealnews.com with ideas and tips so that I can keep pulling the veil back on the important struggles in our contemporary labor movement. And as always, I want to thank you all for listening and thank you for caring. We see you back here next week with another episode of Working People. And if you can’t wait that long, then go subscribe to our Patreon and check out the awesome bonus episodes we’ve got there for our patrons. And please go explore the great work we’re doing at the Real News Network where we do grassroots journalism, lifting up the voices and stories from the front lines of struggle. Sign up for the Real News newsletter so you never miss a story and help us do more work like this by going to the real news.com/donate and become a supporter today. Once again, I’m Mel er and with all the love and solidarity in my heart, thanks for sticking around. We’ll see you next time.

Two months ago, from April 17-21, workers and labor organizers of all stripes convened in Chicago for the bi-annual Labor Notes conference, which overlapped with the Railroad Workers United convention. As the registration website rightly noted, “Labor Notes Conferences are the biggest gatherings of grassroots labor activists, union reformers, and all-around troublemakers out there.” This is not a buttoned up convention of union officials; this is a real grassroots gathering of people on the frontlines of struggle, talking openly, honestly, and strategically about their struggles, victories, and defeats, about what we can all learn from one another as fellow workers and fighters, and about how we can all contribute to growing the labor movement as fellow members of that movement. In this on-the-ground episode, cohosted by Max and Mel Buer, we speak with attendees at the RWU convention, Labor Notes, and participants in the Labor for Palestine protest that took place outside of Labor Notes on April 19.

Speakers include: Johnny Walker, a railroad worker and member of the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers—Transportation Division (SMART-TD) Local 610 in Baltimore; Matt Weaver, who has worked on the railroad since 1994, is a member of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees (BMWED-IBT) Local 2624, where he also serves as legislative director for his state; Marcie Pedraza, an electrician at Ford Chicago Assembly Plant and member of United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 551; Jacob Morrison, a member of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), president of the North Alabama Labor Council, and cohost of The Valley Labor Report; Leticia Zavala, legendary farm labor organizer working with farm workers in Mexico and the United States, and a member of El Futuro Es Nuestro (It’s Our Future), a farmworker caucus within the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC, AFL-CIO); Colin Smalley, president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE) Local 777 in Chicago; Berenice Navarrete-Perez, vice president of the Association of Legislative Employees (ALE); Annie Shields, former journalist and union organizer with the NewsGuild of New York; and Axel Persson, a locomotive engineer in France and general secretary of the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT) Railway Workers Union in Trappes.

Additional links/info below…

• Labor Notes website, Facebook page, and Twitter/X page
• Railroad Workers United website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• El Futuro Es Nuestro – It’s Our Future website and Facebook page
• Labor for Palestine website
• The Valley Labor Report YouTube channel, Facebook page, Twitter/X page, and Patreon
• Duncan Freeman, The Chief Leader: “At Labor Notes conference, a sense of mission and solidarity“
• Axel Persson, ML Today, “CGT leader speaks to Labor Notes conference“
• Martha Grevatt, Workers World, “Militant pro-Palestine demonstration during Labor Notes conference takes the street“

Permanent links below…

• Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!
• Labor Radio / Podcast Network website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• In These Times website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• The Real News Network website, YouTube channel, podcast feeds, Facebook page, and Twitter page

Featured Music…

• Jules Taylor, “Working People” Theme Song

Studio Production: Maximillian Alvarez
Post-Production: Alina Nehlich

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Maximillian Alvarez:

All right. Welcome everyone to another episode of Working People, a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class today. Brought to you in partnership with In These Times magazine and The Real News Network, produced by Jules Taylor, and made possible by the support of listeners like you. Working People is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network. If you’re hungry for more worker and labor focus shows like ours, follow the link in the show notes and go check out all the other great shows in our network. And please support the work that we’re doing here at Working People because we cannot keep going without you.

Share our episodes with your coworkers, your friends, and family members. Share them on social media. Leave positive reviews of the show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. And reach out to us if you have recommendations for stories that you want us to cover or working folks that you’d like us to talk to. And please support the work that we do at The Real News Network by going to therealnews.com/donate, especially if you want to see more reporting from the front lines of struggle around the US and across the world.

My name is Maximillian Alvarez and we’ve got a great episode for y’all today. Two months ago in Chicago, workers and labor organizers of all stripes convened for the biannual Labor Notes Conference, which actually overlapped with the Railroad Workers United convention. So we had quite a lot of workers and organizers and labor advocates all in Chicago at one time, and it was really an incredible moment. As the registration website rightly noted, “Labor Notes conferences are the biggest gatherings of grassroots labor activists, union reformers, and all around troublemakers out there.”

And you know what? They’re not wrong. This was actually my second time attending Labor Notes. And for the second time, I was running around like a headless chicken presenting on panels, attending other panels, hosting events, doing interviews. I mean, it’s such a jam packed couple of days, but man, it really is an incredible experience getting to share space with and talk to and learn from so many working folks from so many industries and unions and labor groups around the US and around the world. This is not a buttoned up convention of union officials. This is a real grassroots gathering of people on the front lines of struggle, talking openly, honestly, and strategically about their struggles, victories, and defeats, about what we can all learn from one another as fellow workers and fighters, and about how we can all contribute to growing the labor movement as fellow members of that movement.

As I overheard a number of attendees saying during the conference, it’s impossible to feel hopeless at Labor Notes. And you know what? I have to agree. And I want to explicitly shout out all the Labor Notes staff and volunteers who worked their asses off to make this experience possible for the rest of us. And I want to also ask everyone out there to please support the work that Labor Notes does, support Railroad Workers United. The work that they do is so important and we desperately need it. And I know many of you feel the same way yourselves about Labor Notes because Labor Notes is one of the very rare places where I actually get to meet a lot of listeners to this show and a lot of folks that I’ve interviewed on the show who I’ve never gotten to meet in person.

And if I’m being 100% honest, that’s actually one of the many reasons I love Labor Notes so much. I mean, it really is a gift, a privilege, and an honor to get to meet you guys in person. And it genuinely means the world to me to have folks come up to me and tell me about how they found the show, what their favorite episodes are, what the podcast has meant to them, but also to hear more about you and about the work that you are doing. That is the magic of Labor Notes.

As someone who’s been hosting this show for many years, never knowing how many people out there were listening and how much of an impact the show is actually having, it’s just truly an incredible experience to get to hear firsthand from you guys in a place like Labor Notes that the show does matter and these conversations do matter, and it is having an impact. And so to all of you who have ever shared those stories with me, reached out to me to share them, like seriously, thank you. We’re all fighting so hard for better lives, better workplaces, better communities, and ultimately, a better world. But that work is punishing, to say the least. It’s exhausting. And it can be really isolating. And in our day-to-day lives, it can feel like it just doesn’t matter, like we’re failing or we’re not doing enough. Like we’re the only ones doing anything and the only ones who care.

But being at Labor Notes is a vital reminder that we are not alone, that we are all in this together. And when you can see so many kindred spirits and fellow fighters together and you can feel the potential that we all have as a movement, it is indeed impossible to feel hopeless. So while it’s impossible to totally communicate that feeling and that experience of Labor Notes in a podcast, we’re going to do our best to take you there today. For this special on-the-ground compilation episode, I spoke to a number of incredible folks at both the Railroad Workers United convention, so you’ll hear updates on the railroad workers struggle, but I also talked to folks throughout the Labor Notes Conference in Chicago. And this was all between the span of Wednesday, April 17th, and Sunday, April 21st of this year.

Also, I was there in Chicago with my Real News colleague, Mel Buer. And while I was talking to folks inside the conference, Mel was hustling around doing important coverage and interviewing folks outside the conference at a Palestine Solidarity protest held right outside the hotel by the group Labor for Palestine. As Martha Gravatt wrote at the time for The Militant, “Support for Palestine was strong among the thousands of union activists who attended the Labor Notes Conference in the Chicago area from April 18th to the 21st. Although not an official conference event, a rally organized by the Labor for Palestine National Network on April 19th drew hundreds of people. The crowd blocked traffic for over an hour surrounding a cop car and refusing to leave the street after two people were arrested, chanting from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free and let them go. The demonstrators eventually de-arrested the two activists who were released without charges.”

So in this episode, you guys are going to hear interviews from me and Mel with folks inside Labor Notes, the Railroad Workers United convention, and outside at the Labor for Palestine protest. Take a listen.

Johnny Walker:

I am Johnny Walker, SMART Transportation Division, Local 610, Baltimore, Maryland.

Matt Weaver:

Matt Weaver, Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employee. Hired in 1994, so I got almost 30 years out here. Currently, I am a carpenter at the railroad. I won’t name the railroad because whistleblower retaliation is alive and well in the industry. I am the legislative director for BMWE members in Ohio. And it’s been very exciting to see how the ties of legislation, everything we do in the rail labor industry is tied with the politics of it. So we have to be very involved in that. And it’s exciting to be here on the stage with you where we really dig you, appreciate the opportunity to speak with you again.

Johnny Walker:

I think it was just an introduction, not a…

Matt Weaver:

I always go a million miles an hour, man. Yeah, you know me.

Johnny Walker:

[Inaudible 00:09:36] hop on that.

Maximillian Alvarez:

No, that was awesome, you guys. And it’s like, yeah, that’s what I want folks to hear on this recording, is the voices that they’ve been hearing on the show or the other coverage that we’ve been doing. I mean, folks have seen Johnny out there with his flag, like at Capitol Hill. Matt, I mean, we’ve had you on the show a number of times. You were the first guy I interviewed after the East Palestine derailment. So I think it’s just really exciting that we’re all here. And folks, if you’re listening to this now, just in the background, I mean, we’re at the Railroad Workers United conference here in Chicago overlapping with the Labor Notes Conference. And yeah, I’m sitting 10 feet away from a bunch of the railroad workers that y’all have heard from, including Matt and Johnny over the past few years. And that in and of itself is just really, really cool and exciting. And I wanted to just give listeners a little taste of that.

But also, we were here two years ago. And a lot has happened in those two years. I mean, we were in the midst of the contract fight. This was before Biden and Congress forced the contract down railroad workers’ throats, preempting the strike. And then two months after that, East Palestine happened, yada, yada, yada. But since then, we’ve had developments on two man crews, right? I mean, there was a class action settlement in East Palestine. Not nearly enough, but there’s something. So I just wanted to check in with you guys, and for our listeners, who have gotten invested in what’s going on in the railroads because of you guys, because of the conversations we’ve had.

I just wanted to check in and just, yeah, if you could talk to our listeners about how are things going after the last two years? Where are we on the railroads? Where should listeners have their focus as we head into the next contract fight? Or anything that you feel is kind of flying under the radar from your side of the rails?

Johnny Walker:

Oh, thanks, Max. First off, it’s not just us, it’s our organizations. It’s our membership. It’s the public community and stuff like that that’s really taken the time to come out and really see what’s going on. They supported us 100% when we got the contract. Forced or not, they still supported us. It was more than we’ve ever gotten. And I’ve been out here for going on 21 years in October. We did pass a two-person crew with the help of our coalition unions and SMART, with Jared Cassidy and Greg Hines, our legislative directors and alternate legislative directors. But it’s kind of like we’re storming the beaches in Normandy. Everyone’s happy the day is over. We’re going to be in Berlin in Christmas. Well, there’s still a long fight. There’s only a regulation. It’s not a law. So there’s still more to be there. And currently, my understanding is, the carriers are already trying to fight it.

So I mean, it’s a win. And it was a hard win, but still, it’s just like we landed the beaches of Normandy. It’s still not 1945 and we still got a long fight. And then even if we do win the two-person crew eventually in the future, what’s going to be our next fight? So I mean, that’s the positive side on my side. So I mean, there’s other things. One of the companies that we work for has a better CEO that seems to be a little bit more kind and understanding, but still they’re fighting with Wall Street to try to big profits and other things like that. There is kind of a change, but still, it is the same railroad, just different ownership, so to speak.

So I, in a lot of ways, try to lie to myself saying I’m out here because I love the job and I can protect the public, but ultimately, this is my trade, this is my profession and stuff like that, and I really want to do this. This is what I love. And the way that I justify all the stuff that happens to me and other people where I could deal with it is like I’m kind of a wall that I could service the customer and protect the community. But even that gets harder every day.

Matt Weaver:

It drives me to think that it’s very frustrating to think that we need things like the disaster in East Palestine to happen to get change made. That was the lead in to two-man crew. We’re looking at crossing safety bills. We’ve got many of the crafts have… I think we might be 90% of rail labor has sick days now. That didn’t come from the contract. And so vocal advocacy and cross craft solidarity is the key to making this stuff work. And it concerns me greatly that we are facing a scenario of more cuts. Norfolk Southern is looking to have a hedge fund, buy them out again and have more cuts, PSR 3.0.

And when’s the next disaster going to drive us to get better treatment for rail labor? When are we going to see better inspections for our brothers and sisters in the car shops? When are we going to see… The two-man crew bill is a positive step in the right direction. But there’s still a lot of loopholes in there. And that’s very concerning when you think of the group of rail labor, who are my brothers and sisters, and you have to be involved in politics, and we shouldn’t have to need a disaster to help drive things forward for the men and women in rail labor.

Johnny Walker:

I’d also like to say with Matt, it’s great that I got to meet Matt through the R struggle, with the contract negotiations and stuff like that. The same thing with my friend Devin out west. We were both interviewed by the BBC. We would’ve never been brought together without this strife. So I mean, we’ve been really looking at other things. We’re not looking at our seat at the table, we’re looking at our table for negotiations. So I mean, we wouldn’t have had that without this strife and it’s really starting to pay off in a lot of ways.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Well, let’s talk about that. This will be the wrap up question, right? Because I think folks out there really want to know, after they got really… They got more up to speed listening to you guys over the past couple of years on what railroad workers are really going through, what it’s like to work in this industry under these conditions, under precision scheduled railroading, staff cuts, corner cuts year after year after year, while executive and shareholder payouts are larger than they’ve ever been? So folks are now paying attention.

And they were worried about what they were hearing from the folks in this room about all that loss of talent and knowledge that comes with people being driven out of the industry, and all the problems that could potentially come when the railroads are trying to fill those losses with hiring people off the street who aren’t going to have those relationships with the old timers as much as they did before. So these are the kinds of questions folks are asking me. And so I guess I just wanted to ask, looking back on the contract fight, the last one, what are, you think, takeaway lessons we can all learn and that we can apply to the next contract fight which opens in 2025?

Like, from the railroad side and the public side, what can we learn from that strife to be better prepared this time? And also just have the conditions that we were talking about all these years, like change for your fellow workers. How are folks doing working in the different crafts?

Matt Weaver:

Excellent question. So the best thing that rail labor can do at this point in time is have coordinated bargaining, a rail labor bargaining coalition. We’re all on the same team, just like we ended the last round of bargaining under the AFL-CIO-TTD. Our strength is in numbers, our strength is in solidarity. And we all have to realize, I am my brother’s keeper. So if we can’t come together to start bargaining out at the same position we ended last time, then we might be setting ourselves up for concessions. I’ve got great hopes for us to do something like the Southwest Airlines pilots who got, what, 47.9% pay increases over five years. Teamsters did well with UPS, UAW did pretty well. Let’s build on those wins. And it’s time for rail labor to step up, come together and bargain as a group, one team, good solidarity, and we can do better.

Johnny Walker:

I could agree with what Matt says, but I want to go back to, you were talking about with basically hiring people off the street to replace our veteran railroad workers. Unfortunately, that hasn’t really changed. I mean, we’re getting more people coming into the craft, but because they found out how miserable it was and there’s other options, we’re not getting as high quality people. And the people that come here, they’re not going to put up with it, especially the first few years. I mean, that’s got to change. But I feel that the way that change is, like with all of our apprenticeship programs for the building trades or anything like that, they need to be federally recognized.

Let some of these unions and these other crafts come up with these programs that are standard for the industry. Because even though the company says that we’re looking out for our employees, they’re not always looking out for the employees, we’re looking out for our members. They’re not employees to us, they’re members, they’re our family. So if we get federally recognized apprenticeship programs in the building trades as well as the transportation trades, because right now, we have standardized signals and rules and other things like that, but we don’t have a standardized training program for conductors or engineers. We just have guidelines. And each railroad does it a little bit differently. And it doesn’t matter if you’re working down south or you’re working up north. It depends on who you’re working for, where you get certain standards and they’re met, but they’re not exceeded all the time.

And if we don’t start exceeding some of these standards, 20 years down the way, if some of these people fell through the cracks, we’re going to have even worse issues if we save all these safety concerns. So I mean, coordinated bargaining can help do that, but also federal regulation where we can have apprenticeship programs that are nationally and federally recognized as the end all be all. And we can even do that working with the companies, but they’re not willing to come to the table with us all the time. We’re willing to put out the olive branch, but everyone needs to be able to accept the olive branch on both sides.

Matt Weaver:

Because they answer to the shareholders. So it is driven by shareholder needs. More is never enough when you’re talking about hedge funds. And these stock buybacks and that kind of stuff is decimating the railroads. It’s absurd how what we’re facing as rail labor.

Johnny Walker:

Absolutely. And it’s one of those things where railroads used to be a standard stock that had good returns. Now it’s massive returns. Eventually the top’s going to fall off and everything’s going to go ahead and sink.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Yeah. Then again, you end up with East Palestine. Right behind you is Chris Albright who lives there. And I was there three weeks ago. And so I guess, I just wanted to ask that as a final quick question, is like, what’s your message to the public about, again, why they should care about this kind of thing? Why they should care that there are two man crews on those trains, that those trains are not as long as they are, that we’re putting more investment in track maintenance? This can all feel in the weeds. But as like Chris is living proof of, as you guys are living proof of, this is not a theoretical thing. We’re talking real shit that directly impacts working people. So I guess, what’s your message to folks out there listening about why they should care about all of this?

Johnny Walker:

Well, quickly, Union Carbide went overseas because there’s less regulation. Union Carbide wiped out Bhopal, the Indian town, where everyone went to sleep and they didn’t wake up. So think about what you’re doing here. You can’t go ahead and send railroads overseas. If you keep deregulating, if you keep just squeaking by, that’s going to happen in your community. So I mean, this is something that directly you could affect and affects you if you’re not paying attention.

Matt Weaver:

And let’s not forget, and we’ve talked about this before, Max, railroads don’t go through rich people’s backyards. So think about how close you live. The train in East Palestine, what, two miles from my home. So the people need to realize, the public needs to realize that there’s dangerous materials going through their backyards. We don’t want them on the highways. We want better regulation. We want our public servants to serve the people and control the safety of shipping on rail so that we know that even though there’s a train in our backyard, we know there will not be a problem like there was in Ohio. That’s very troublesome.

Jacob Morrison:

Yeah. So my name is Jacob Morrison. I am co-host of The Valley Labor Report, Alabama’s only union talk radio program and the largest union talk radio program in the South. I’ve started saying that now. Since we’re on four stations in three states, I think we could say that. If anybody else is bigger than us, then somebody should connect us, right?

Maximillian Alvarez:

Yeah. It’ll be news to me. Well, fuck you, brother. I mean, as y’all listening, you recognize that sweet southern twang. My man, Jacob Morrison is here. We just bumped into Jacob’s amazing cohost Adam Keller. If you guys listen to this show, you know all about The Valley Labor Report. If for some reason you don’t, you need to go listen to it. As Jacob said, not only is it the only, but is the largest union talk radio program in the South. And they’re doing incredibly good work. And I saw my man Jacob walking over here as I’m posting up in Labor Notes, talking to folks on the street. And just wanted to, yeah, check in and see how you guys over there in Alabama are doing. I feel like we’re talking a day after the incredible UAW victory at Volkswagen. Like, shit is going down in the South.

Jacob Morrison:

Yeah, absolutely. So one of the panels that I facilitated was the Organizing the South panel. And we had on Keyshell Liggins, a Hyundai worker, organizing with the UAW obviously, down in Montgomery. And so that was my first question to her. First question to the panel was, how are people feeling down there? Presumably, you’ve got your finger on the pulse for what’s going on in the Hyundai factory. And she said that her phone has been blowing up. People are really getting a lot of energy from this. I think anybody that’s on Twitter has seen a lot of the videos and pictures of grown men in Chattanooga crying. And you could really feel a lot of that excitement in solidarity in the room, in the Organizing the South panel.

Because down in the South, we know that folks in the labor movement and folks who want to build the labor movement, who want to build the fighting wing of the labor movement, we know that Organizing the South is really a key. It is the key, as Michael Goldfield said, to changing this country. And so that’s, Organize the South, it’s been a slogan on the left and in the labor movement for decades, but nobody has done anything about it. Even Operation Dixie, if you actually take a look at how many organizers they had, how much money they spent, Operation Dixie, which was supposedly a cross sector, cross industry, multi-state thing by the Federation of Unions, they didn’t even have as many people, as many resources, as the Steelworkers drive, decades before in the South.

So I mean, Operation Dixie, I’ve really been reading a lot of Goldfield. And he says that it was just a coda and basically the final attempt to even pretend to do anything to Organize the South. And now, the UAW is really putting some real resources in. And not only real resources because you can throw money at shit and money can’t solve everything, resources can’t solve anything. But they’re throwing resources after importantly winning huge at the big three automakers and actually showing what workers can do when we come together. So proving the case to these folks down south and then putting the resources again, putting your money where your mouth is and giving them the opportunity to organize themselves, it’s an exciting time to be a Southern Union organizer, a Southern Union member. And you could really feel it in that room.

And I’m really looking forward to seeing folks at Mercedes win their election next month, and then folks at Hyundai after that, and folks at Toyota after that. And it’s just going to keep on going. So I’m excited.

Maximillian Alvarez:

We’re about to do the Howard Dean, and then we’re going to Hyundai.

Jacob Morrison:

Yeah.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Yeah.

Jacob Morrison:

That’s right. That’s right.

Maximillian Alvarez:

And what a difference compared to when we were here two years ago.

Jacob Morrison:

Yep. Yep. Yep.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Because then, it was like people were talking about Bessemer.

Jacob Morrison:

Yeah.

Maximillian Alvarez:

So there was still hope that what we’re seeing happen would happen. But this is a very different moment of a different phase in that movement down there.

Jacob Morrison:

Yeah.

Maximillian Alvarez:

And I could hear it. I mean, I was unfortunate enough to be moderating the panel in the room right next to Jacob’s, and I kept hearing people just going nuts in the room next door. They’re like, “Yeah.” and I’m like, “What the hell? Where’s my audience? Why aren’t you guys that pumped up?” But people are fired up. We got the Union of Southern Service Workers walking around here.

Jacob Morrison:

Yes.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Like we said, we are here the day after the Volkswagen news. I mean, there’s really, do not sleep on the South. And if you want to know what’s going on down there, of course we’re going to keep trying to cover it at The Real News Network and at Working People. But if you want to put your finger on that pulse, you got to go to The Valley Labor Report and check out the weekly report on Southern Labor, the interviews they do with workers down there, the analysis they provide. It’s really invaluable. And I just wanted to ask you, Jacob, by way of rounding out and letting you go, what has it been for you? What has it been like for you being at Labor Notes this time in 2024?

Jacob Morrison:

Oh man, it’s great. This is my second Labor Notes, and just like the first time two years ago. As somebody in the fighting wing of the labor movement, even in union halls, it can get lonely sometimes. It can get lonely, it can get frustrating because you feel like everybody’s vision has been beaten out of them. And even folks who want to build and who want to do good stuff, just so many people in our unions don’t have hope anymore and don’t know what they can do differently. And a lot of people are resigned to hiding behind the fortress and protecting what we have.

And Labor Notes is one of the only places in the country, one of the only times every couple of years where you have thousands of people who believe that shit can be better, who are making shit better, and who are going to continue to make shit better. I mean, it’s just, there’s no other place or event like it. If you’ve never been, you should go in 2026. And especially-

Maximillian Alvarez:

Register earlier than we did, by the way.

Jacob Morrison:

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It’s just been so great. There’s so many plans that are hatching. I was on a labor council panel, and we’re passing resolutions to encourage our affiliates to align contracts with May 1st, 2028, right? Shawn Fain has called for the unions to do that. That’s a very important thing, especially with the inability to strike in a contract. If we align our contracts, it makes it easier to do some mass action like that. So Shawn Fain has put that out.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Well, and if folks want to see what… That’s not even a hypothetical. The panel that I was moderating today, one of the people on that panel was the Union Federation leader up in Quebec.

Jacob Morrison:

Yeah.

Maximillian Alvarez:

And they had… Effectively, it was called the common front strike, back in November. But it was essentially a general strike in that mode because it was over 500,000 public sector workers across the province of Quebec who were all on strike at the same time because their contracts were expiring at the same time. So that’s the kind of shit that Jacob’s talking about. If you want a general strike, you got to lay the groundwork. You can’t just snap your fingers and it comes out of nowhere. But if you lay that groundwork and sync up those contract expirations, you then have the ability to do what the homies up in Quebec did last year.

Jacob Morrison:

Exactly. And so some labor councils have got together and we’re passing these resolutions to endorse that call by Shawn Fain. And we’re encouraging our affiliates where possible to set their contract expirations for May 1st. North Alabama was the first central labor council to pass that resolution, I’m proud to say. Also, I think Alabama is the only state with two labor councils that have passed the resolutions. Bargaintogether.org is where you can find your materials if you’re on your central labor council and you want to get the draft resolution. So yeah, it’s just exciting. Plans are coming together, plans are being made, folks are executing on them. And I mean, no place like Labor Notes. So it’s great to be here.

Marcie Pedraza:

Hi, I am Marcie Pedraza. I’m an electrician at Ford Chicago Assembly Plant and proud member of UAW Local 551. Also a member of UAW-D.

Maximillian Alvarez:

All right. So this is exciting, gang. You guys recognize that name. You guys have heard me talk to Marcie through the UAW big three strike. And yeah, you were one of the first people I interviewed after Nick Livick. And…

Marcie Pedraza:

He’s here too.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Oh, I want to meet Nick. But it’s so cool. This is what Labor Notes is about, is we connected virtually. Yours was one of the sites called to stand up and strike. You were such a powerful voice throughout all of that. And now, I get to meet you in person and hear at Labor Notes. So yeah, I just wanted to ask if you could refresh our listeners’ memories a bit about your involvement with the UAW strike, and what it’s like being here at Labor Notes now after that, especially a day after the big UAW victory down in Volkswagen?

Marcie Pedraza:

Oh, yeah. I mean, it’s been so inspiring. And I never would’ve thought that our strike would have this much of an impact, not just with people stopping me seeing my UAW gear, like, “All right, awesome.” One time, I was in the airport, I had a eat the rich hoodie on, and I had a worker in the restroom, was like, “Good job.” She was a CWA worker and followed the whole strike campaign and the strategy as in many people. And just being here at Labor Notes, running into folks like you or other people that I’ve known online or in meetings, virtual meetings for the past couple of years, I’m like, “Oh, that’s you in real life.” It’s been really great.

And then just hearing other folk stories. Like yesterday, I heard a panel. And this was before the announcement of Volkswagen winning their union. A worker was on a panel talking about how. Because UAW tried to organize there before. It was not victorious for production side anyway. But still trades, they were. So he was talking about watching our strike and the gains we got and how that was so inspiring and lit a fire in all of them. And I was like, hell yes. That was inspiring me. And I was like, “We did that?” I don’t know. It’s just so humbling and awesome.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Yeah. It is awesome. Because it shows… It’s like, the fight matters. Right? Standing up for what’s right matters. Yeah. You and your fellow members were showing us what it looks like to fight for what’s right. And that’s inspiring, not only because it motivates us and gets us ready to fight, but you’re reminding us that we are the change we’ve been waiting for. And if we’re organized, if we have solidarity, if we are working together strategically, we can move mountains. And UAW, your local, and everyone fighting that fight showed us that last year. And now, just like Starbucks workers have showed us that, just like Amazon workers, Home Depot workers. Everyone here who’s fighting that fight is contributing to that.

But yeah. I mean, is it wild to you, just like Ford electrician, mom, community activist? But now, you’re here and everyone’s like, “Oh, shit. You’re the guy. You are out there.”

Marcie Pedraza:

Yeah. And people have recognized me just from my name or maybe seeing me on some interview. And I’m just like, “I’m sorry, I don’t remember.” But it’s definitely been a great experience, humbling, like I said. But yesterday, the first day, I was sitting a few rows behind a couple workers who had their future UAW shirts on. I was like, “Oh yeah, I got to go talk to them.” They’re walking around like a couple of rockstars. I thought they were Volkswagen, but they’re Mercedes. But they’re next. Their vote, I believe, is in May 13th. So we’re going to be on the lookout for that one too. And I was like, “I want one of those shirts.” But I can’t wear it because a current UAW worker.

But anyway, it’s just… Yeah, it’s been really, really inspiring just to hear everybody’s stories. And today, I was on a panel about steering green transition. So we know the fight isn’t over. We have still a lot of work to do, and hopefully more people to join us in the fight.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Well say a little more about that and then I promise I’ll let you go, because that was aside when we were talking about UAW and the Stand Up Strike. I know we touched on it a bit, but this is something that is as much a part of you and what your struggle as the UAW and that fight. So yeah, could you just tell us a little more about how you are bringing those two things together here at Labor Notes?

Marcie Pedraza:

Right. I mean, it’s like, all my dreams come true. I’m an environmental activist in my community. So I work on fighting toxic polluters. But I also work in a factory. And these things are all related and intersectional. And as we’re fighting for climate justice, we have to realize that it also means workers’ justice. So this panel, and there was one yesterday too that I was unfortunately unable to attend, but just bringing all these issues together like, when people hear about this green transition, what does that mean? And I don’t really know about that or they might not care about it, but it does matter to workers because workers are worried about losing their jobs.

And as these companies try to make these new products and not necessarily have them be union labor, that’s where they’re trying to cut corners and make more profits. So that’s when I try to tell my co-workers like, “This is our livelihood. If we want to be in the auto industry or just making anything and being union and having these great benefits, we have to make sure we are in these decisions that are being made with our tax dollars that the companies are getting to make these brand new facilities for all electric vehicles and battery plants.”

Maximillian Alvarez:

Oh, Yeah.

Marcie Pedraza:

Yeah.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Well, sister, again, it is so great to finally meet you in person.

Marcie Pedraza:

Likewise.

Maximillian Alvarez:

And I guess I just wanted to ask, again, less than 24 hours after the huge victory down south with Volkswagen, and like you said, now this train is moving, any final messages out there to folks who got invested in the UAW and this struggle through the Stand Up Strike and are seeing what we’re seeing? Any kind of final messages you got for folks out there listening?

Marcie Pedraza:

Yeah. Anyone that feels like they don’t like their conditions at work, it’s time to organize and form a union and just look out because UAW is coming and it’s not just going to be the big three anymore. I don’t know what we’re going to call it. Maybe big three in the dirty south, or big four, big five, big six. So it’s just truly inspiring.

Colin Smalley:

So I’m Colin Smalley. I am from Chicago. I am president of the IFPTE, which is the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, Local 777. And so I represent, here in Chicago, workers at the United States Army Corps of Engineers. This is a mixed unit of everything from tugboat crew, to crane operators, lock and dam operators, but we’ve also got engineers and scientists and accountants and economists, the admin workers that keep us all straight. I mean, we’ve got a little bit of everybody in our union.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Yeah, man. What is it like to represent a unit that’s that diverse and doing that many essential jobs across your unit?

Colin Smalley:

So you might think that it would be tenser than it is. We work together really well. We actually, through bureaucracy, we were split into two separate unions when I took over, and we combined them. Because it’s like, why are we letting ourselves be split up like that? And the law uses these gross terms of professional and non-professional. Which basically is just like, does the job require a college degree or not? It’s totally demeaning and weird. So we just did away with it. And we’re all one union.

And so right out of the gate, we negotiated new agreements about the schedules of our lock and dam operators. They are 24/7 facilities, and they work 12-hour shifts, swing shifts. So they’re rotating through. We nailed down everything that was important to those guys. We really got it hammered out. So right out of the gate, our blue collar guys could see the power of the union. And then when it came time to bargain about telework, for example, they had the back of the white color workers in the office, even though they’re not teleworking. So the office guys aren’t working swing shift and the operators aren’t teleworking.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Oh man, that’s so cool.

Colin Smalley:

Yeah.

Maximillian Alvarez:

And I want to have you back on so we can really stretch our legs and get a sense of all the different kind of members you’re representing, the jobs you guys are doing, the job specific struggles that your members are facing and all that good stuff.

Colin Smalley:

Yeah.

Maximillian Alvarez:

So I don’t want to put you on the spot and make you give that rundown here while we’re standing-

Colin Smalley:

No worries.

Maximillian Alvarez:

… in the Hyatt lobby.

Colin Smalley:

Yeah.

Maximillian Alvarez:

But yeah. I’m curious just how it’s been for you coming to Labor Notes as a Chicagoan doing this, and is this your first time here? Have you been into one before?

Colin Smalley:

It is my first time here.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Okay.

Colin Smalley:

And so, one of the things that I’ve been really thinking about is, I’ve been sitting in these classes and panels and conversations. As federal workers, I think we’ve been indoctrinated that we can’t have a political opinion at work and we can’t have any kind of activism as part of our job, that we have to be this neutral arbiter. But in our union capacity, in our collective capacity, we all are passionate about the things that we do. And whether that’s addressing how changing climate is affecting our people and our neighbors, and especially the most vulnerable neighbors. Because of course, every climate disaster hits the most vulnerable people first. And it’s just the way it always is.

In California, the Army Corps had a failed levee a year or two ago. That, of course, was in a poor neighborhood, because they fixed the levy on the rich side. And we can talk about all that kind of stuff. But yeah. I think that our members are really interested in how can we embrace our expertise and our experience as Army Corps workers and bring that to bear on some of these big issues that affect us. Because we also live in these communities. We also pay taxes. We also are involved in every one of these struggles. And so we’re not this neutral robot.

And another thing, somebody was talking about AI this morning at the keynote. And our headquarters wants to replace our lock and dam operators with automated systems that are controlled from a control center somewhere. And so we’re constantly defending against this corporatist mindset, even in the government, where they’re trying to take over everything. And so we’re trying to… It is just another front in how we’re proving to people that we’re not autonomous robots. And so we’re here at Labor Notes and we’re learning about how is it that we exercise our voice? How do we work out those muscles of bringing everything we can to these struggles?

Maximillian Alvarez:

That was great, man. Anything else you wanted to throw on at the end? Like, where people can find you? What they can do to get involved?

Colin Smalley:

Yeah. So I mean, we’ve got a website at IFPTE777.org. So the other thing is that, I’ll just say that I am running for office for our national executive board with IFPTE. So this is outside of my local capacity, but I’m really pushing for democracy, for a rank and file strategy, a bottom up strategy where we’re going to bring what the workers are interested in and what they want to fight for. And we’re going to bring that to everywhere it needs to be. And so we’re not going to be as worried about, are we stepping on somebody’s toes? But let’s talk to people. Right? Let’s fight the fights that we need to fight.

We’re in this perilous place as federal employees where we’ve got the project 2025 that’s out there. The Heritage Foundation is gunning for our jobs, for our livelihoods. And we’ve got to be ready to fight. And so that’s what me and my colleague, Chris, we’re starting a campaign to really push for that. And I’ll be happy to get you a link for that too, for your show notes.

Leticia Zavala:

My name is Leticia Zavala. I’m an organizer with It’s Our Future. It’s a farm worker caucus of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee. And basically, I work for farm workers. They are organizing to improve their working and living conditions in the fields.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Hell yeah. Well, Leti, it’s so great to be standing with you here at Labor Notes. It’s such an honor to meet you because you’re… She’s being modest folks. I mean, this woman’s been in the fight for a long time. Can you just tell us a little bit about yourself and your history fighting for farm workers?

Leticia Zavala:

Oh, well, I started working in the fields when I was six years old. I migrated between Florida, Ohio, and Michigan following the different crops. And I saw my first collective action when I was 13 years old. My dad threw himself in front of a tractor in order to stop a supervisor who was harassing and molesting young girls on the farm. And that action really impacted me. We were fired because he took that action. But that’s the reality of a fight, right? From there, I started organizing. I came back to the fields after college, and I’ve been organizing farm workers since.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Oh, yeah. And I guess, just for folks listening, because as you know better than anyone else, like sadly, when we talk about the labor movement, we often don’t talk about farm workers, domestic workers. I mean, there’s so many folks who are let out, which is why it’s so amazing that you all have been fighting to organize workers and to help workers who are the most exploited, most vulnerable. But now, you’re here in Labor Notes, part of the union discussions that we’re having. I think that’s so important. But I guess I just wanted to ask for folks listening who maybe don’t know a lot about FLOC, who don’t know about the organizing going on in the farm fields. Could you just say a little bit about what’s going on there? What you’re fighting for? Who you’re working with? And what you see on a week-to-week basis?

Leticia Zavala:

Yes. Well, we’re definitely living a fight. A lot of the workers that we work with are either undocumented or H-2A workers. They’re here on H-2A visas, which means they’re dependent on their employer for housing, transportation, immigration status, and a job. So you can imagine the type of working environment that is there. We haven’t had a harvest without a death since 2020. We are having to work in the fields eight hour, 10 hour, 12 hour days when news are being announced that people should put their pets inside for safety because of the heat. These are the types of the conditions that we’re living day by day.

There’s workers still making $4, $5 an hour on a daily basis. There’s workers that are consistently fired. There’s workers that are afraid to speak up and afraid to go to the doctor because they might not get called back next year. And those are the kinds of things that we’re fighting against. We’re organizing though. We’re educating workers. Workers are taking action. They’re walking out of the fields. They’re signing petitions. They’re creating minor changes at a time with hopes of creating a bigger change that will impact the state and maybe the country.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Hell yeah. And I mean, it’s so incredible, so important. And what can folks listening to this do to help, to be part of that?

Leticia Zavala:

We are always in need of support. The hardest time is the summer, right? And people can help translating documents, translating petitions that workers write so that they can turn it into their grower. They can help with transportation. We drive a lot trying to visit workers, and we depend on a lot of people to go pick up workers, to bring them to union meetings when we have meetings and when we have part of the democratic process that seeks us to call actions and to do things. So we need gas cards. We need people to show up and drive. We need people to help translate. We need people to send donations and to sometimes call growers and say, “Yo, what’s up? Why did you retaliate against that worker?” Because that’s the type of union that we need. Everybody eats. Everybody has to support our costs.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Yeah. Well, and again, while one dipshit presidential candidate is out there saying that we are poisoning the blood of this country, what are we actually doing? We’re filling potholes at night on bridges like our brothers who died in Baltimore. We’re picking the tomatoes that go on your cheeseburgers or in your fridge. Our children are working, cleaning in The Bone Sauce and meatpacking plants. And obviously this is very personal for me and for you all. And I’m just like… I think it’s, again, a real testament to Labor Notes that you guys are here along with the other unions that we hear about. But I wanted to ask, how has your experience been here at Labor Notes? Good and bad. I’m just curious.

Leticia Zavala:

I think it’s been mainly positive. It’s always important. There’s some tough conversations that have to happen. We are a caucus of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee. The Farm Labor Organizing Committee is a member of the AFL-CIO. Right? And unfortunately, sometimes we get too comfortable in a space where we tend to protect the leaders and the institutions rather than the movement, which is why the institution was created. And so we’ve had some tough conversations with some folks, but we’ve also had some very productive educational conversations. We’re learning from unions in Mexico. We’re forming alliances on how they can help us organize our members while they’re in Mexico, and how we can help them educate their members when they’re trying to get across the border or promise visas that sometimes don’t get met.

And so, we are talking to service workers whose parents worked in the fields and want to know the history and want to connect to that part of their heritage. And they want to learn that cause and they want to support our cause. So I think, overall, it’s been positive. It’s been a great experience. It’s always good to learn in exchange. And we’re very thankful for that.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Just any final messages you have for folks? Anything about where they can find y’all, or any messages about why they should care as much about what y’all are doing as they do about Starbucks or something?

Leticia Zavala:

Definitely. We are on Facebook. We’re on TikTok. It’s Our Future. El Futuro Es Nuestro. There’s always actions for people to take. There’s always a lot of fun stuff that members post about how specific crops are harvested. So please learn more. Support when you can. There’s always calls to action. So if you’re connected, you’re going to… And you can. We hope you can come out and support.

Berenice Navarrete-Perez:

So, hi everyone. My name is Berenice Navarrete-Perez. I am a currently budget director for council member Christopher Marte. I’ve been a budget director for two years, but I’ve been with City Council since I’ve been 21. I am currently 28. Oh. And I’m also the Vice President of ALE, which is the Association of Legislative Employees.

Matthew Malloy:

Hey everybody. My name is Matthew Malloy. I also work at the New York City Council. I work for council member Shahana Hanif. And we are with the Association of Legislative Employees who have just secured our first contract agreement for New York City Council staff. And we’re really excited to be here today at Labor Notes.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Oh, yeah. Well, it’s so great to connect with you guys and to learn about this struggle, which I myself hadn’t heard about. But I’m so grateful to learn about it now. Tell me more about the Association of Legislative Employees and how this struggle got started. I feel like a lot of folks don’t know. They’re like, “Oh, wow.” People representing city council members are unionizing or working with city council members. That’s wild. A, what is that job like? And how did this union effort get going?

Matthew Malloy:

So, at the New York City Council, there has been a long history of organizing efforts, really probably going back to 2019. But I think what really sparked the wave that got it over the finish line was when New York City Council member, Andy King, who had sexually harassed, sexually abused some council staffers, was essentially given a slap on the wrist. And I think that dynamic of staff feeling that they needed more leverage really was what kicked off the organizing effort, which was a card campaign. And then Covid hit. So then we had to do a second card campaign during Covid. And then we achieved voluntary recognition. That was in ’21.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Hell yeah.

Matthew Malloy:

And then for the last two years, we’ve been bargaining our contract, which, in mid-April, we ratified. And there are so many great things with this contract. But I think what you would think about it, it sets standard minimum wages at the council. Our lowest paid full-time person used to be at $30,000 a year. Now they’re at 55,000 a year. Paid over time, grievance rights. And most of our council staffers… When you think of a political staffer, you might think of a slick executive type person in a suit.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Lanyard wearing motherfucker.

Matthew Malloy:

Yeah, lanyard. And most of these people are working class people, working in district offices, getting people connected with essential benefits like food stamps or helping them with immigration paperwork. So that’s a little bit of the broad background of why we organized, what we won, and the kind of work people are performing at the city council.

Berenice Navarrete-Perez:

I would definitely say that the side of the job people don’t see is the hours we put into our work. Our day could really start from 9:00 or 10:00 and end at 9:00 at night or 11:00, depending on the meeting that you’re attending. A community board, they run pretty long. They could run from 6:00 until literally 10:00. So there’s something you don’t see or hear about that is happening at city council. There are folks who are working on weekends. I used to work to a point where I had to request a weekend off because that’s how excessively we were working weekends.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Wow.

Berenice Navarrete-Perez:

That’s put on the counter. Unfortunately, I can’t work this Saturday or Sunday because I have other things to do.

Maximillian Alvarez:

And you guys are an independent union, correct?

Berenice Navarrete-Perez:

Yes, we are an independent union.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Hell yeah. And so being here at Labor Notes, meeting other folks who are going the independent route, ALU, Home Depot workers, I guess, could you say a little more about why y’all went the independent route and how that’s worked for folks on the outside who are listening to this and maybe are thinking about getting something started like that?

Berenice Navarrete-Perez:

Well, because no one thought it was possible. And we’ve been able to accomplish something that a lot of folks thought it was impossible, including some of the unions that are here that originally weren’t supportive of our union.

Matthew Malloy:

Yeah. It was not our dream to create a brand new union from scratch. It was a necessity. Just essentially, we went to various big New York City unions. They didn’t see a blueprint. They didn’t see a path forward. They weren’t quite sure if it was legal. And so that’s really why we built our union. And we’re the Association of Legislative Employees. And another effort we took was we started collecting dues pre-contract because we didn’t have that war chest developed from an international to support us. So we asked our members to commit to paying 1% dues in the period during the contract campaign. And I think that was really essential.

And I think, more than anything, I think what we want people to know, people listening to this who are trying to form their own independent union, is just that it is possible. People will tell you that it isn’t, but it’s a grind. But it’s possible. And there are some benefits to it too. Because I think if we had paymasters above us with maybe connections to certain New York City Council members, they may have steered us away from taking some of the more direct actions we took to get this contract. We were picketing the sessions of the city council every two weeks, essentially, which is that’s how often they meet, for three or four months, being very aggressive, really, and trying to point out some of the hypocrisies of a New York City Council member getting on the picket line for Writers Guild and Actors Guild and UAW, and then when it comes time to their own staff union, just essentially being a little removed from that process.

So I think those are some of the benefits of being an independent union and a little bit of history on why we had to go that route.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Hell yeah. Well, I want to have you guys back on for a longer discussion because there’s a story here that I want to hear more about. But I want to be respectful of your time. I want to let you go. You got a lot of other panels to see, people to meet. I just wanted to ask what your experience here at Labor Notes has been like.

Berenice Navarrete-Perez:

Definitely my experience here at Labor Notes has been fantastic. It’s been good to understand and learn from other unions here who are attending. And our struggle is a struggle amongst other workers. It’s not only in city council, it’s in every sector, the private sector and the public sector. But it’s been wonderful. It’s exciting. And I can’t wait to come back in two years with some new staff members at every level from city council.

Matthew Malloy:

And one thing we’re really excited about is we just had a great conversation with someone who’s very involved in organizing the Congressional Workers Union. We are tonight going to be meeting up with some staff from the Illinois state legislature who are unionizing. We have met folks here at these sessions who are unionizing, the Chicago City Council, the Boston City Council. This is a movement that is really in most states if you look for it, but it’s not a story that’s being told. And I think it’s really primarily about confronting power in the United States, and how labor, and new labor too, not always existing unions, can organize to really deliver for working people, even when they’re up against a really powerful entity like local politicians or Congress members and things like that.

So I think that’s one of the best parts about being here at Labor Notes, is just getting to connect with other people who are trying to organize their state legislature or city legislature or Congress.

Annie Shields:

My first name is Annie, A-N-N-I-E. Last name’s Shields, S-H-I-E-L-D-S. I am a union organizer and I work for the NewsGuild of New York. And I work with The New York Times tech workers on their first contract campaign. So I’ve been there for about two years. Previously, I was a member of the NewsGuild for 10 years and I got into the union through running for office. So I ran on a slate with our current president and on a reform ticket, trying to bring in more militancy and make our union more member led. And she won in a landslide. And then I just got so deep into our local. I had the opportunity for the first time to really see what other shops were doing and what the new organizing looked like. And so it made me want to become an organizer.

So I joined our member organizer program, which is… Member organizer program is a really cool way that we have at the NewsGuild to help members develop organizing skills and actually help the staff out with campaigns. So I was able to take some trainings and then started working side by side with the staffer on some underground organizing campaigns. And then that experience helped me to get the job I have now.

Mel Buer:

That’s great. So we are here outside of Labor Notes. There’s quite a few people outside because we were on a break between workshops. Last night, there was a pretty sizable demonstration outside of Labor Notes where the Labor for Palestine coalition held a rally and some demonstrators were arrested, put into cop cars. And as a result, individuals stopped cars and had a bit of a standoff for an hour until they were like… Now, you had tweeted this morning about what it was like to be a part of and to witness that last night. And I believe you said it was very instructive, almost like its own Labor Notes workshop.

Annie Shields:

Yeah.

Mel Buer:

Can you tell me more about that?

Annie Shields:

Yeah, definitely. So I went into it. I had gone to a panel discussion in the morning with some folks talking about Know Your Rights, free speech for all workers, but especially media workers in Palestine. So there’s lots of stories of journalists or other media workers being censored for speaking out about the war on Gaza. And there’s been a lot of concerns about our members’ rights being infringed upon. So we’ve got a lot of really great stuff going on in the NewsGuild to try to push back on that and set a new standard for journalists that really respects their freedom of speech.

So during that panel, somebody told us that there was going to be a rally at 6:30 in solidarity with Palestinian workers and struggle for a free Palestine. And I was definitely interested in going. I thought, okay, great. This is something that’s really important to me. It’s something that I feel very upset about on a daily basis. I know that so many of us do. And often feels like there’s not much we can do about it. And I don’t know what difference the rally will make in terms of the war, but it feels very important to make this a centerpiece of the Labor Notes Conference this year because we’re at a time that feels like a turning point in terms of what Americans are aware of. And I think that’s really important and it’s long overdue.

So I was excited to come to this rally. And I showed up and met a couple of friends. And really it was quite calm. And people were in the street, but this is a dead-end street. There’s really not traffic that comes. Anyone who’s back towards the end of the street would be here to park in a parking garage for this premises. So it wasn’t a big interruption until major traffic. And I was there for probably a half hour. The speakers had been speaking. And I thought, “Okay, I’m going to actually go and grab my suitcase from my car and then come back and bring that up to the room.” And so on my way back, I happened to just walk into this arrest as it was happening. And I saw one person who was being held by the police and then another person get thrown to the ground and really roughed up. It was very disturbing.

Not the first time I’ve seen cops behave that way, but it’s never a good thing to see. So my instinct was to just start recording. So I stayed very close and I recorded the whole thing. And I was in the middle though, and I had this big rolling suitcase, so I thought I better go back inside and get rid of this. So I came back out. And when I came back out, I realized that the crowd had actually gotten bigger and the police car where the… I wouldn’t even call them a protester necessarily, just a rally goer, an attendee was being held. And it became clear to me that we had an opportunity to make it very difficult for the police to leave.

And so it was very spontaneous. I didn’t have really any friends or people that I knew in the crowd. And I think there was a lot of people just coming together, seeing what was happening and deciding, okay, we’re just going to stay here until something… See if we can just make it impossible for them to leave. And so I think there were a lot of other things. But from what I saw, there were some people that were going inside. And I wasn’t involved in that and I can’t speak to it. But outside, it was quite intense. There were people negotiating with one cop. And he was very clear that he didn’t have the power to let them go and it wasn’t going to happen.

But people just kept chanting for an hour. Maybe a half hour. And it was not clear to me what was going to happen. We saw that there were more police coming and then there were some cars that were blocked that wanted to leave. And I think, honestly, there was moments where we in the crowd weren’t necessarily on the same page about what we should do. There weren’t any marshals around. This was not something that was… I’m sure it was planned, but I wasn’t involved in the planning and I hadn’t received any instruction about how are we going to operate. So it’s kind of just like a spontaneous ad hoc self-organization with people in cars who are getting angry and they want to go.

And we’ve seen that people have been emboldened to drive into protesters and things. So there was definitely tension. And it came to the point where there was a car that was trying to go, and we were like… It seemed that if we let the car go, we would lose the leverage to have the person in the police car released. And so it was this interesting… There was a lot of parallels to how you win a contract campaign. Like we’re making it more painful for them to not do what we want than to do what we want. It’s going to be a lot harder for them to get out of here with that person in that car than it is if they let them go. And we really had them surrounded.

And that’s not something that happens every day, and it’s not something that was just naturally going to happen. It was probably the quick thinking and collective action of a handful of people in that crowd to just say, actually no, we’re not going to just let this person be taken away. And actually there were two people, but one of them, I think, was taken inside of a building or something.

Mel Buer:

She was released. Yeah.

Annie Shields:

Yeah, that’s great.

Mel Buer:

Yeah.

Annie Shields:

But yeah, it was sort of like the manifestation of the thing that we try to do all the time in our labor organizing, which is, the more of us that come out here and stand together, the sooner they’re going to let this person go, the more certain that outcome becomes because they can’t mow down hundreds of people in the streets, or probably aren’t going to in this situation anyway.

Mel Buer:

Especially with the mayor speaking.

Annie Shields:

With the mayor inside.

Mel Buer:

Yeah.

Annie Shields:

Exactly. Yeah. So yeah, it was kind of like one of those impromptu activities where sometimes you’ll get a scenario in a Labor Notes training and you have to jump into it and imagine, “Okay, you’ve got this thing happening and these things are happening too. How do you proceed as an organizer?” And I love those trainings. I’ve learned a lot from them. And this was a real life version of that, a situation that we hadn’t all necessarily planned for. And I’m not entirely sure how to evaluate the success or relative success of the action because it wasn’t really… Mistakes became much higher once they made the arrest.

And I think that’s a good example of, when you try to repress people, it just makes them more upset. I’ve seen that with the workers I work with when I ask them what was the thing in their union campaign that made them decide that they were actually supportive of the union, they were going to vote yes. And so many people tell me, “It was the way that management responded to our campaign. I was actually on the fence. I didn’t even think we needed a union. But then I saw these emails from management and I was like, they’re lying. Why are they lying? And that’s what helped me see things in a different way.” So yeah, we see that act.

I’m not really inclined to be… I’m not a major direct action person. I don’t really go out in the streets that often. But after I saw these people being violently thrown on the ground, it makes anybody want to stay near, especially when you have this community of Labor Notes people where you walk around Labor Notes and it’s like there’s no strangers here. Even if I’ve never met these people, if I’m in line for a coffee, everyone around is making connections and talking about their campaigns and congratulating each other on things they’ve heard about. And it’s a really beautiful space.

And so even though it was a tense and uncomfortable experience and one of pretty serious conflict with what I hear are notoriously rough police in Rosemont, it was also very beautiful. It was a jubilation at the end once they let the person out of the cop car. We opened up the lane and the traffic started flowing and people were running around. And I heard someone say, that’s the first time that’s ever worked, in a really funny moment. And yeah, it was kind of like, holy shit, it worked. Yeah. And it was really cool. It was a really cool experience.

Mel Buer:

How does it feel watching the police car door open and took the handcuffs off [inaudible 01:12:46]? What did that feel like as you were standing there?

Annie Shields:

Yeah. On the one hand, it felt exciting, empowering like, “Of course, you couldn’t get away with this, of course we stopped you. This is what union power looks like.” And at the same time, it occurred to me that, okay, now we’ve come back to a baseline of this person is not arrested, which they weren’t arrested when this started. So the action actually became about something else. And so of course it’s important that these people were not forced to go down to a police station and be processed. That would’ve been completely unnecessary. But at the same time…

Mel Buer:

[inaudible 01:13:31].

Annie Shields:

But it is. There’s still this deep pain, to be honest, that I feel knowing that a really successful and amazing action like this is possible and also would need to be replicated on such a large scale to really make a dent in most of the things we try to change about the world. And so on the one hand, I’m always really pleased by it. On the other hand, I was just reminded we’ve got a lot of work to do to help more people in the working class develop the kind of instincts and assessment of power and analysis and desire to participate in these things and confidence to do so in a collective way. And that’s part of what we try to do all the time in our labor organizing.

So yeah, it was a really cool experience. It was also sad that it had to happen, but also thrilling. And still we have so much work to do to bring justice, some kind of justice, the beginnings of some kind of justice for people in Palestine.

Mel Buer:

Yeah. Is there anything else you would like to say that I haven’t touched on or asked about that you think is important for our listeners to know about the organizing happening here with Labor for Palestine or last night’s action?

Annie Shields:

I guess I would say that I really had a radicalization in 2014 when the war on Gaza happened and I was in a position working at The Nation magazine to work with people who were actually covering it on the ground. And I was truly blown away when I came to understand how little I understood. And I feel like that experience was something that I could never go back after I had that awakening. And I see people in my life having that same experience now. And I’m encouraged by that. And I think we’re in a real big turning point in so many ways. And it’s a little scary, but I’m hopeful that we start changing the tide on this issue in particular.

Axel Persson:

My name is Axel Persson. I’m a locomotive engineer, they say in the US. And I work for the French national state railway, the SNCF. And I’m also, of course, a proud member of the CGT Trade Union. And I’m also honored to have been elected as a general secretary of the CGT Railway Workers Union in the city of Trappes, which is a big railway city located at the southwestern suburbs of Paris.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Hell yeah. Well, Axel, it is so great to have you on the show, brother, and to be sitting across the way from you because, as listeners know, we got nothing but love for the CGT. We’ve had our brother Matthew [inaudible 01:16:36] on the show a number of times. You guys know and love Matthew. And it was so cool to hear that Axel was going to be here too. Even if Matthew can’t, we love you, Matthew. Don’t worry, we’ll catch you next time. But yeah. I mean, because of those interviews we were doing with Matthew and other French strikers, the pension strikes last year, the general strike in 2020, 2019, our listeners have really gotten invested in what’s going on over there and they’re learning a lot from what you guys are doing.

So I guess I just wanted to start by asking that. Since the pension strikes last year, or maybe refresh our memory real quick about what you guys were doing last year with the strikes and where things stand now with the CGT with rail workers in France.

Axel Persson:

So last year, during early 2023, we went out on unlimited strike, but not only railway workers, it was workers from both the private and the public sector in order to try to defeat the government and the employers plan to try to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64, knowing that the government had tried previously already in 2019 to smash our pension system but had been defeated during a strike there where they had been forced to scrap their pension reform due to a strike that lasted for almost one and a half months. And that was eventually succeeded by Covid and the government decided just to scrap everything and now try to basically have its revenge.

And so what we did was to organize a massive strike, not only in the public sector, but in the private sector. And by the means of strikes because we do think that in these matters, there is no other option but a strike that is as massive as possible for two reasons. Well, the first reason, the most obvious one, of course, is because of the economical impact it has in order basically to force the employers and the government that served that interest to force them to back down because basically the price, the stakes get too high for them. But there’s also another aspect to it is that when you go on strike paradoxically enough, as you manage to halt the wheels of society, as you manage to put society to your standstill, paradoxically enough, society starts to move forwards politically very, very fast.

Sometimes, you can see it in strikes, the consciousness, the political awareness evolves very rapidly. Sometimes, things that would’ve taken decades literally happen in a week. And you see people who change because the entire society is focused as a standstill on what the workers on strike have put on their agenda. Everybody is debating in whether they agree with it or not, but everybody’s debating in the media, everybody’s talking about it in society. And it also is an opportunity there for us to put forth not only our defensive demands, but also to set the groundwork for a future in which we can hope.

Because that is also something we need. We need to be able to take the counteroffensive, to launch a counteroffensive in order to not only reclaim the ground we have lost the past years, but also to set forth a future which we can all envision and have hope in. Because if you don’t manage to do that, those who will reap the benefits of the anger that is rising today will be the far right. It will be politicians with solutions like explaining that it’s the fault of immigrants, it’s the fault of minorities, ethnic minorities, who will use these categories as scapegoats, and they will lay the groundwork for a future in which there is nothing to hope in. So it’s also responsibility not only for economical reasons, it’s also a political duty for us to organize these fight-backs.

Maximillian Alvarez:

This is why I love our French brothers and sisters, man. I mean, I think that’s so beautifully and powerfully put. And I’m curious, having gone through that. Because I mean, unlike 2019, Macron and his cronies weren’t backing down this time. But still, we in the states were watching what you guys were doing with envy and with a kind of like… I don’t know. In some ways, we felt so close to you and your fellow workers on this general strike taken to the streets, the images we were seeing, guys like you and Matthew with the-

Axel Persson:

The flares.

Maximillian Alvarez:

The flares. Just looking badass. But yeah, the joy, the rage, the hope, all of that on the streets. But it felt like we were watching it from the Moon. It did feel like something that just isn’t possible here. And now, you and I are sitting in this room full of railroad workers in the US who, as you saw, as we all saw, were gearing up to go on strike. And then the government said, “Fuck you. Get back to work.” So I guess, what is it like for you, being here talking to US railroad workers? But also what are your thoughts? What would you say to American workers now who feel that way?

Axel Persson:

I would say the feelings of love you have expressed are reciprocated. And I can assure you that every time we see American workers, whatever their industry, taking action, be it strike or other type of action, we feel that because our hearts are attuned to one another and then they beat at the same rate. And this is not only nice words, because we have concrete examples of what internationalist solidarity mean, and that is what we are here to build in a concrete manner, in a very down-to-earth manner. For example, during our strike in 2023, one of the factors, not the only one of course, but one of the factors that led that we could hold out for so long was the internationalist solidarity. Not only statements, of course, which is important, because every time, every day when we hold a general assembly of strikers where we decide whether we pursue the strike or not, of course we start by reading out the international statements of support we receive from all over the world.

But even further than that, for example, we have a network now that we have built through the World Federation of Trade Unions, of which my union is a member. And we have managed, for example, to build an international campaign all across Europe, but also in some other countries where we had, for example, Swedish railway workers, British railway workers who campaigned in their rail yards and gathered money for our local strike funds. And it wasn’t symbolic sums. It was like several tens of thousand of euros. So it means literally to several tens of thousand of dollars.

Maximillian Alvarez:

While the RMT was going on strike itself.

Axel Persson:

Exactly. And the Swedish Railway Union was the same. And that money was sent to us and was immediately distributed to striking workers who therefore could pay the rent and put food on the table for the dependents and so forth. And it also showed in a very concrete manner that internationalism is not only an abstract slogan. It showed that workers who are sometimes separated by thousands of miles of each other, they know instinctively that their interests are the same, their hearts are attuned to another, they beat at the same rate. And we can feel that even though we are separated by thousands of miles, at the same time, we are also no further separated than the five fingers of a clenched fist fighting.

And that is also what we are here to do, is to embody that solidarity and build those links with the American railway workers. And that is the sense of my presence here.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Hell yeah. Well, let’s round out on that. Because I don’t want to keep you too long, and I know we got other folks who want to talk to you and all. And we got to build. You got to go around and build that solidarity by talking to folks. So I don’t want to keep you too long. But I guess I just wanted to ask… Yeah. Let’s talk about what concrete international solidarity can look like and why it is such an essential ingredient for all of our struggles.

Axel Persson:

Well, it is essential for many reasons. The first one, of course, the most obvious one is that our enemies, they are organized internationally. Be it economically, they have these international institutions like the International Monetary Fund. In Europe, they have what they call the European Commission where they coordinate their attacks. But they also organize military in order to maintain their power and their dominance over the world. They have military alliances. They have political alliances, and for a good reason. That’s how they maintain the control over the world. And that’s why we need to be at least as good as them, even if it’s a difficult task to ahead, because we don’t necessarily have the same material means. But that is why we need to build the front at the same level as they are fighting their war, which is an international war. So that’s the most obvious reason.

But the other reason also is that, because the struggles of one another, we can learn from them. Even as French workers, we learn from what happens in the US sometimes. I’ve noticed that when I say that to some US worker, they’re surprised because they think that, for some reason, we would be like some kind of elite, which we’re not. We’re really not. We’re just like workers in a country with a specific history. But we learn also from the struggles across the world. And for example, over issues like, in the US, for example, when the murder of George Floyd happened a few years ago, the methods that were used by the movement. For example, Black Lives Matter. But not only them because that was much, much broader than that, inspired activists in France who organized along the same lines using the same methods, and it worked.

So we practically learn from each other. And as we can manage to learn and grow from each other, we will be able to beat our common foes because we realize very often, and especially railway workers, given how capitalism globalize, we actually work for the same companies. I’ve met people here who work for a subsidiary of my company here in France, back in France. So we literally work for the same enemies.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Any final messages for American workers or workers anywhere who are listening to this?

Axel Persson:

I would say the most obvious is that, even though we might not always speak the same languages, we of course have our… Each working class has its own history, its own peculiarities, its own culture, which is fine, which is actually part of what makes it a very interesting word despite the violence of this word and the fact that it’s very harsh. At the end of the day, we share the same interests. And it may sound something obvious, but united we stand, divided we fall. And in order to make that a reality, it only depends upon us. And we cannot expect anybody else to do it for us. It’s up to us. Because the emancipation of the workers will be the work of the workers themselves, as a famous German philosopher said. Karl Marx.

Maximillian Alvarez:

All right, gang. That’s going to wrap things up for us this week. I want to thank all of our amazing guests for taking time out of their crazy conference schedules to talk with us for this episode. And I want to thank the great Mel Buer for co-reporting with me. And of course, I want to give another special shout out and a thank you to the great folks at Labor Notes and Railroad Workers United for the vital work that they do. And I want to encourage everyone out there to follow the links in the show notes, learn more about Labor Notes and RWU, and support them however you can.

And as always, I want to thank you all for listening and I want to thank you for caring. We’ll see you all back here next week for another episode of Working People. And if you can’t wait that long, then go subscribe to our Patreon and check out the awesome bonus episodes we’ve got there for our patrons. We’ve got more coming this summer. So please stay tuned for more there. And go explore all the great work that we’re doing at The Real News Network where we do grassroots to journalism that lifts up the voices and stories from the front lines of struggle.

Sign up for The Real News newsletter so you never miss a story. And help us do more work like this by going to therealnews.com/donate and becoming a supporter today. I’m Maximillian Alvarez. Take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. Solidarity forever.

On Monday, July 15, on Day 1 of the Republican National Convention, Sean O’Brien, general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, became the first Teamsters president ever to address the RNC. Invited by former president Trump, who is now officially the Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential election, O’Brien’s speech was no ordinary RNC filler. And to anyone watching, or anyone paying attention to the political reality in this country, this was no ordinary RNC either. O’brien’s very presence on the RNC stage, and the contents of his speech, which lasted for 17 minutes, have sparked a firestorm of intense reactions and furious debates within the labor movement and the Republican and Democratic parties alike. Everyone is talking about this speech and what it all means for workers, but workers themselves need to be driving that conversation. In this special episode, cohosted by Max and Mel Buer, we bring together a diverse panel of Teamster members from across the country to have a spirited, fair, and productive discussion about O’Brien’s speech, the 2024 elections, and the future of the labor movement.

Speakers include: Amber Mathwig, a UPS warehouse worker and member of Teamsters Local 638 in Minnesota; Tony, a UPS worker, member of Teamsters Local 174 in Seattle, and a member of Teamsters Mobilize; Chantelle, a part-time UPS worker and member of Teamsters Local 177 in New Jersey; Rick Smith, a 35-year Teamster working in the freight industry and host of The Rick Smith Show; Zoey Moretti Niebuhr, a UPS worker, third-generation Teamster, member of Teamsters Local 391 in North Carolina, and president of Pride at Work—North Carolina; Jess Leigh, a UPS worker, shop steward for Teamsters Local 728 in Atlanta, and a member of the Teamsters LBGTQ Caucus and Teamsters Mobilize; Kat, a part-time UPS worker and shop steward for Teamsters Local 70 in Oakland; and Robert Conklin, a third-generation Teamster and member of Teamsters Local 665 in San Francisco.

Additional links/info below…

• PBS NewsHour, “WATCH: Teamsters President Sean O’Brien speaks at Republican National Convention | 2024 RNC Night 1“
• Sean O’Brien post on X about Sen. Josh Hawley
• Ryan Bort, Rolling Stone, “Union Twitter account goes rogue after president speaks at RNC“
• Maximillian Alvarez, The Real News Network, “Everybody hates Sean“
• The Rick Smith Show website, Facebook page, Twitter/X page, and Instagram
• Teamsters Mobilize website, Facebook page, Twitter/X page, and Instagram
• Teamsters LGBTQ Caucus website
• Pride at Work—North Carolina Instagram
• Maximillian Alvarez & Teddy Ostrow, The Real News Network, “UPS and Teamsters reach tentative agreement, but is a strike still possible?“
• Teddy Ostrow, The Upsurge / The Real News Network, “The UPS Teamsters contract has been ratified. What now?“

Permanent links below…

• Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!
• Labor Radio / Podcast Network website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• In These Times website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
• The Real News Network website, YouTube channel, podcast feeds, Facebook page, and Twitter page

Featured Music…

• Jules Taylor, “Working People” Theme Song

Studio Production: Maximillian Alvarez
Post-Production: Jules Taylor

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Amber Mathwig:

My name is Amber Mathweg out of Minnesota with local 638, and I am working preload at UPS.

Tony:

Hey, everyone, my name’s Tony. I’m a UPS teamster out of Local 174 in Seattle, Washington. I’m a member of Teamsters Mobilize. We’re a reform organization in the Teamsters.

Chantelle:

Hi, everyone. My name is Chantal. I’m a UPS part-timer in local 177 North Jersey, and I’m very glad to be here.

Rick Smith:

Hi, I’m Rick Smith, host of the Rick Smith Show, and a 35-year teamster in the freight industry.

Zoey Moretti Niebuhr:

Hey, all, I’m Zoe. I’m a UPS Teamster at a local 391 in North Carolina. Third-generation teamster, also Prez of North Carolina Pride at work.

Jess Leigh:

Hey, guys, my name is Jess. I am a preload steward at UPS out of local 728 in Atlanta, and I am a member of the LGBTQ Caucus, a member of Teamsters Mobilize, and a recently banned member of TDU, but still hoping to bring good change. Nice to be here.

Kat:

Hey y’all, Kat out of Oakland Teamsters local 70, where I work as a part-timer at UPS, also as a shop steward.

Robert Conklin:

Robert Conklin, Teamsters local 665 San Francisco North Bay, third generation Teamster. Became a member in 2000. My claim to fame as had been hired and fired from every barn in the local. Casual UPS driver during the holidays. And right currently I’m in sales at a Teamster organized frozen food company.

Maximillian Alvarez:

All right. Welcome, everyone, to another episode of Working People, a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class today. Brought to you in partnership with In These Times magazine and The Real News Network, produced by Jules Taylor, and made possible by the support of listeners like you.

Working People is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast network. If you’re hungry for more worker and labor focus shows like ours, follow the link in the show notes and go check out the other great shows in our network. And please, support the work that we’re doing here at Working People, because we can’t keep going without you. Share our episodes with your co-workers, your friends and family members. Leave positive reviews of the show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and reach out to us if you have recommendations for working folks you’d like us to talk to. And please, support the work that we do at The Real News Network by going to therealnews.com/donate, especially if you want to see more reporting from the front lines of struggle around the US and across the world. My name is Maximilian Alvarez.

Mel Buer:

And I’m Mel Buer.

Maximillian Alvarez:

And we’ve got a doozy of an episode for y’all today. As you guys can guess from this incredible panel of Teamsters Union members that we have assembled here, we put out the bat signal and the Batmen and women and siblings came a-coming. We are diving right into the story that has set the labor world on fire this week. And make no mistake, this is not just a labor story. What we’re talking about today will impact all of us.

Mel Buer:

On Monday, July 15th, on day one of the Republican National Convention, Sean O’Brien, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, became the first Teamsters president ever to address the RNC. Invited by former President Trump, who is now officially the Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential election, O’Brien’s speech was no ordinary RNC filler. And to anyone watching, or anyone paying attention to the political reality in this country, this was no ordinary RNC either. O’Brien’s very presence on the RNC stage and the contents of his speech, which lasted for about 17 minutes, has sparked a firestorm of intense reactions and furious debates within the labor movement and the Republican and Democratic parties alike. We’ve linked to the full speech in the show notes of this episode, and we encourage listeners to watch it in its entirety, but we’re going to play about three minutes worth of clips here at the top of the episode to give you a clear sense of what we’re going to be talking about today, and why it’s important. Take a listen.

Sean O’Brien:

Today, today the teachers are here to say, “We are not beholden to anyone or any party.” We’ll create an agenda and work with a bipartisan coalition ready to accomplish something real for the American worker. And I don’t care about getting criticized. It’s an honor to be the first teamster in our 121-year history to address the Republican National Convention. To be frank, when President Trump invited me to speak at this convention, there was political unrest on the left and on the right. Hard to believe. Anti-union groups demanded the President rescind his invitation. The left called me a traitor. And this is precisely why it’s so important for me to be here today.

Think about this. Think about this. The [inaudible 00:06:22] are doing something correct, if the extremes in both parties think I shouldn’t be on this stage. Now, you can have whatever opinion you want, but one thing is clear: President Trump is a candidate who was not afraid of hearing from new, loud, and often critical voices. And I think we all can agree, whether people like him, or they don’t like him, in light of what happened to him on Saturday, he has proven to be one tough SOB.

Corporatists hate when working people join together to form unions. But for a century, major employers have waged a war against labor by forming corporate unions of their own. We need to call the Chamber of Commerce and the business around tables what they are. They are unions for big business. And here’s another fact against gigantic multinational corporation. An individual worker has zero power. It’s only when Americans band together in democratic unions that we win real improvements on wages, benefits, and working conditions. Companies like Amazon are bigger than most national economies. Amazon is valued over $2 trillion. That makes it the 14th largest economy in the world. What is sickening is that Amazon has abandoned any national allegiance. Amazon’s sole focus is on lining its own pockets. Remember, elites have no party, elites have no nation. Their loyalty is to the balance sheet and the stock price at the expense of the American worker.

We need trade policies that put American workers first. It needs to be easier for companies to remain in America. We need legal protections that make it safer for workers to get a contract. We must stop corporations from abandoning local communities to inflate their bottom line. Labor law must be reformed. Americans vote for a union, but can never get a union contract. Companies fire workers who try to join unions, and hide behind toothless laws that are meant to protect working people, but are manipulated to benefit corporations. This is economic terrorism at its best, and individual cannot withstand such an assault. A fired worker cannot afford corporate delays, and these greedy employers know it. There are no consequences for the company, only the worker.

Mel Buer:

Reactions to the speech have been polarized to say the least, while certain lines from O’Brien’s speech garnered cheers and applause from the conservative, traditionally anti-union crowd at the RNC, many lines from that speech emphatically did not. And while many Republican voting and conservative leaning union members have expressed excitement about O’Brien’s speech, O’Brien has faced an avalanche of criticism from within his own union and across the labor movement, even one member of the Teamsters digital team went rogue and posted a now-deleted tweet from the Teamsters main social account on X, criticizing O’Brien’s fawning praise for Republican Senator Josh Hawley. “Unions gain nothing from endorsing the racist, misogynistic, and anti-trans politics of the far right,” the post said. “No matter how much people like Senator Hawley attempt to tether such bigotry to a cynical, pro-labor message.”

Maximillian Alvarez:

Everyone is talking about this speech, and what it all means for workers. But workers themselves need to be driving that conversation. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do here today. We’re putting working people in the driver’s seat where they belong. And we are so grateful to have so many hardworking folks here with a range of critical perspectives that need to be heard. And as we toss things to our incredible panel of teamsters, a quick note on the ground rules here, because we want to make the best use of this time that we all have together. So Mel and I will primarily be here to ask questions and moderate, so that we’re making sure that everyone gets a chance to say their piece, and everyone gets equal time to speak, because we’ve got a lot of great folks here. And we’ve designated a batting order of speakers, and we’re going to go in that order with each round of questions.

So it’s not going to be a full back and forth sort of discussion given all the voices that we have on today. We want to prioritize giving everyone a chance to say their piece. And we’ll try to go around the table as many times as we can in the time that we’ve got. Lastly, I know we’ve all got lots and lots of thoughts and feelings about this speech. And we absolutely want this to be a lively, fair, forward moving discussion where everyone can speak freely and frankly, but we also want to model for our audience and our fellow workers and union members what respectful and productive conversation looks like.

And we want to encourage folks out there to get involved in these kinds of discussions in their own union halls, in their living rooms and so on. And so swearing is totally okay. In fact, it is encouraged here on Working People. But no personal attacks, no slurs, no anything like that. None of that will be tolerated. And we encourage folks out there who are going to have these kinds of conversations to just check in, set some ground rules, and then dig in with your fellow workers, your family members, and your community members, and talk about the things that are really important to you. And so with all that up top, I say let’s get to it. Mel, do you want to toss the first question to our incredible panel?

Mel Buer:

Yeah. So, it’s a good place to start just to get folks general thoughts. What are the impressions of the speech itself? Did you watch it in its entirety? Did you see pieces of it online that you found to be particularly interesting and/or odious? What were the conversations that you’ve been having with other members about it? Other fellow rank and file in your own local, or online? Yeah, let’s just get your general thoughts to start off the conversation.

Amber Mathwig:

Yeah, this is Amber. I knew it was happening. I didn’t know if I’d be awake for it. For preload, we’re starting at 4:00 AM right now, and so I’m usually asleep shortly around this time that we’re talking tonight. But I had fallen asleep really early, and I woke up at like 9:05. And I thought I had missed it, I was like, “Oh, I’ll find it online.” And then I realized, “No, they’re probably behind. They’re always going to be behind.” And so I just laid there on the couch, and I watched the whole thing. And I think if my brother was up here, he would say that I was screaming at the television so loud in real time. It was like, “This is so surreal.” I’m just hearing this crazy spew out of his mouth. Just unquestionably giving love to Donald Trump, and J.D. Vance, and Josh Hawley.

And my primary thought was, “There is no historical support for closing up to fascism.” You think you’re going to get somewhere with this? You think you’re going to get workers somewhere? You are going to end up leaving behind so many people that it’s in favor of a white nationalist state. That’s who they’re seeking profits or labor for. I was also thinking through how much, or how little applause he got for the most part. There was just not a lot of enthusiasm when he was attacking corporations and a couple of other thoughts, but largely it just felt like everyone was embarrassed and everyone was disappointed. And then to wake up the next morning and see him 100% everything Josh Hawley says, and then almost the very first thing is, “We need to get away from the queers and the people of color in the workplace.” It’s like, oh, 100%. 100%.

And I think that there’s historical support for that, that he did use racial slurs on the campaign or on the contract trail last year. There was the recent lawsuit settled for racism. It’s unsurprising, and also, it is very surprising at the same time how he looked like a schoolboy who just got away with stealing a chocolate, or something. Just so giddy and excited about being there, and then just being so dismissive of the 1.2 million teamsters that he is supposed to be accountable to. And that’s where I’m going to wrap up right now.

Maximillian Alvarez:

And just to a clarifying point for folks listening, what Amber was referring to there, the day after the RNC was, an article that Senator Josh Hawley wrote for Compact Magazine entitled The Promise of Pro-Labor Conservatism, which then Sean O’Brien tweeted from his ex account, his personal ex account saying Josh Hawley is 100% right. And we will link to that tweet in the show notes as well.

Tony:

What I find so amazing is Sean O’Brien’s ability to talk out of both sides of his mouth. In this speech, he talked about taking on big corporations. He said that the Teamsters Union will not be beholden to this or that political party. But talk is cheap, and workers need action. So what will be seen from Sean O’Brien in reality? Very different from his rhetoric. He says that the Teamsters Union is not going to be beholden to this or that political party, but he worked hand in glove with the Biden administration to crush the rail struggle. He worked hand in glove with the Biden administration in backroom deals with Carol Tomé, UPS CEO, to put together a last minute sell out agreement in 2023 to a verdict strike. So I don’t buy this rhetoric from O’Brien.

Chantelle:

Yeah, this is Chantelle. I’ll just say a little bit more about who I am. But yeah, I’m a UPS part-timer. I’m on Dasort in Northern New Jersey, and I’m a member of Teamsters Mobilize. I’m here with a number of my fellow TM members, who we all organized in the Vote No 2023 UPS contract campaign. And I’m also a member of Maoist Communist Union.

My thoughts watching it was, I guess overall not too surprised based on everything that we’ve seen from O’Brien from the very beginning of his presidency. For years, I think it was early last year in some senate hearing, he was talking about how unions are really good for business, how he has great working relationships with the CEOs of all these various companies. And when companies do well, the unions do well, the workers do well. So I mean, I think up until relatively recently in this election season, most or a lot of that was directed towards the Biden administration, and like Tony mentioned, the collaboration that they had on the rail contract and the UPS contract to sell out the workers.

But yeah, there’s a lot of disturbing things that he said in his speech, where he is really trying to put forward that actually workers and our bosses, and the capitalists, do have shared interests. And he said it in a few different ways, which maybe we can talk about later. But with regards to bringing back jobs to the US and stuff like that, really whipping up a lot of, obviously, nationalists kind of US patriotism, chauvinism, which is quite dangerous.

But yeah, I think for me, in terms of what we’ve seen from him, in terms of all of his rhetoric, is all bluster about caring about the workers. And he said, “Oh, I go around every week and I talk to my members.” It’s like, we actually know what you’re like to talk to, because so many of us have met him during the UPS contract negotiations. He came to my building, completely avoided, deflected my question of, “Will we strike if there’s a TA that the workers haven’t agreed on?” Because up to that point, that’s what he’d been saying. And then he was like, “Oh, well, no one really wants to strike. Strikes are hard.”

And then at LaborNotes he spoke on a panel and I asked him a few questions afterwards about the UPS contract, about why there was a new tier for part-time workers, about the fact that there was close collaboration with the Biden administration to avert a strike, all these things. And he completely brushed me off. He almost running away saying he had to catch a plane.

So yeah, I think a lot of us who are pretty involved in I think the Teamsters, organizing, and have met Sean O’Brien at various conferences and conventions, or at our barns, this is pretty much like a continuation of his whole tenure as the Teamsters president up to this point.

Rick Smith:

Hi, I’m Rick Smith, host of the Rick Smith Show. And if you want to find out everything I’ve said about Sean O’Brien, you can check out our podcast. I have spoken extensively about this, since January, since the Mar-a-Lago trip and the whole thumbs up thing. My problem is this isn’t about Sean O’Brien. This is about the fact that I lived through four years of Donald Trump’s tenure. I lived through a labor department that was hostile to workers. I lived through a department, a labor secretary who, well, the one they wanted was a fast food restaurant, CEO, who wanted to eliminate workers. The other one, well, just a corporate Walmart lawyer. And the NLRB under him was horrible. His general counsel was the guy who was instrumental in firing the PATCO workers. So the backdrop of this speech is me remembering what Donald Trump was like in the White House, how bad things were for workers, how many bad decisions came out of his NLRB, the Supreme Court justices that he put on the court that have decimated workers’ rights.

And are going to make it worse. We’re going to head back to the days of the Lockdown era, where if you’re hungry enough and desperate enough to work for poverty wages, it’s going to be your freedom. This is the path that we’re on. It’s the path that Donald Trump set us on. So understanding that is the backdrop. I look at Sean O’Brien as basically Donald Trump’s dancing show pony, who Donald Trump is going to ride right till the election, because what O’Brien accomplished was to legitimize the Trump record, and to softly attack Joe Biden’s strong point, of the fact that Joe Biden is the most pro-labor president of my lifetime, at least, and some say since FDR. So by doing that, you have given a tacit endorsement of maybe not the teamsters, but Sean O’Brien, to someone who I think one of the guys I work with said it best. How is it our general president can call a rapist a tough SOB?

And I got to be honest, I was shocked to hear that from our members, because I work in a place where this is Trump country, and central Pennsylvania is very much Trump country, and our local is very much Trump country. So to hear that was surprising. Now, the reality is he went to that convention for a reason, and that was to get attention. He got to say words in about two-thirds of the speech. I’ll be honest with you. I don’t have a problem with, I’m in favor of attacking the Chamber of Commerce, and the business round table, and all of the people who have decimated wages, hours and conditions, especially in my lifetime. The problem is these conventions, they’re big pep rallies to do one thing, and that’s to coronate their dear leader, and then get them elected. So he walked into that environment knowing that the whole purpose of that convention was to get Donald Trump and J.D. Vance elected.

Now, someone would say maybe someone sold him on the idea that he’s going to be the George Meany of this generation. He’s going to be able to whisper in Trump’s ear. The sad reality is, we’ve seen what Donald Trump does to the very best people. And I’ve been asking the question of, when Sean O’Brien is thrown under the proverbial truck, what’s his nickname going to be? This speech did nothing to help organize labor. It actually did, I think harm, by showing that there’s division in the House of Labor. I think he is opened up the secret that the teamsters are split, and that there are working people who do support Donald Trump. So instead of him going out and educating members, being a true leader and saying, “Hey, members, this guy was bad for us. Here’s all the ways he was bad for us. He chose to pander to the person who made our lives worse, and is promising, well, to eliminate us altogether.”

The sad reality is he allowed himself to be used, and history will remember that. Now, nobody’s going to remember what he said in a month, but they are going to remember that he was there. And whether the teamsters endorse or not, and I said a year ago the teamsters were going to endorse no one, which would be an endorsement for Trump. Sean O’Brien’s already endorsed Trump with that glowing review of him being a tough SOB, and being courageous to have him in there. No, he wasn’t courageous. He knows how to use people. And President O’Brien got used.

Zoey Moretti Niebuhr:

I feel like my knee-jerk reaction to watching Sean O’Brien’s speech was, man, this guy doesn’t want to be our general president no more. He wants to get a job in whatever administration wins this election. And I would agree, I think most of us would agree that we need to, as workers, we really need to be advocating for our issues. We’re only ones that are going to do it. Rich people aren’t going to come and look out for the workers. So we got to do it ourselves, and that’s why we have unions, and that’s why we need to have independent politics as unions. And so when Sean O’Brien says something like, “The teamsters aren’t beholden to any one party,” I agree with that, but what you’re doing is you’re beholden by going to both the RNC and the DNC. You’re beholden to all these sets of politicians.

I think part of why Republicans are able to do this and get Sean O’Brien, as you said, Rick, as their show pony, is because Democrats have just not been bold enough and have not been able to deliver on a number of issues. And Republicans like Trump, like Josh Hawley, are able to grab at that low-hanging fruit. And ultimately, it’s not going to be Sean O’Brien that suffers, it’s going to be the members of our union that suffer. If a Trump administration comes in, we are going to have to face a lot of questions about what parts of Project 2025 are going to be implemented. They want to get rid of unions, they want to get rid of the NLRB, they want to get rid of OSHA. And Trump’s Supreme Court picks have already begun to chip away at that.

Jess Leigh:

Yeah, I agree with a lot of what Rick was saying. Sean O’Brien is definitely being used. He’s being used to sway the vote of the teamsters. 1.3 million people is a lot of people. Either way you look at it, this election’s going to be very close, and trying to win the vote of the Teamsters could make the difference of who’s the president. And Sean O’Brien knows that. Like Rick said, this is a pep rally, this is a big hoo-rah to get these votes. Sean O’Brien ran and campaigned on being a true reformer, on bringing transparency and democracy to our union. He is still creating that illusion by all the messages that he’s sending to the Teamsters, and there are many Teamsters that have not yet seen through that. They’re looking and hearing his words and not his actions of what he’s actually done. So he is, by being there and by speaking and by throwing out these names, praising these different Republicans, putting down the left, purposely leaving these pauses for the audience to boo at the left.

He was clear. He said he did not care about the criticism that he was going to receive. He said that it was his honor to be the first IBT president to speak at the RNC. That’s harmful. That is harmful to workers. It is harmful to unions. It is harmful for the future of unions, which is already in a decline. He made the statement that the last 40 years, Republicans had really been fighting for pro-labor. That is a complete lie. Republicans have been fighting to destroy unions. Look at all the right-to-work states. Look at how those laws were put into place. They were put into place by Republicans.

This is… Like Rick said, some of what he said about big business and taking advantage of workers, all that is true. But Sean O’Brien is working with those companies and enabling them to do that. He is trying to convince members that contracts are good when contracts aren’t good. That is for the benefit of the company. That is not for the benefit of the members. There are still people a year later after our UPS contract that are still saying good things about the contract.

Don’t get me wrong, this last year, more and more people’s eyes have become open. But there’s still a lot of people that aren’t as involved, that don’t have their ear to the ground, that aren’t looking into things, that still believe this rhetoric that Sean O’Brien and the TDU are putting out in regards to the UPS contract, all these other contracts that have been settled, and what Sean O’Brien is doing for labor. He’s not doing good things for labor. It’s all an illusion, it’s all smoke and mirrors. He has his own personal interest in mind. Whatever his outcome, whatever his hopes are for going and speaking at the RNC, it’s to benefit Sean O’Brien. It is not to benefit the workers.

Robert Conklin:

So listening to everybody’s viewpoint so far, I am going to be the devil’s advocate on this one, because I saw things a little differently. Now, when I first heard Sean O’Brien was going to go to the Republican National Convention, I went, “What the fuck? How is that working out?” And the more that I thought about it, I go… And it might be a difference in opinion in this room, but I said, “Sean’s not a stupid dude. He’s doing this for a reason.” Now, we had a straw poll, I don’t know, a couple months ago, or about a month ago, who you wanted for president. And I’m pretty sure Sean got those numbers, and shockingly was probably a lot closer than I would like to believe. And he had to make a decision, because the thing is, I do have a lot of fellow Teamsters that are very, very conservative, who go, “Oh, they’re just going to go with the Democrats,” or this and that, “And our voice isn’t heard,” and I’ve heard it.

They bring the pipeline up and they bring the rail strike up. And it’s kind of like I hear everybody talking about it, but they… On the surface, yeah, it looks pretty bad, but there is more to this story, because we weren’t in the room. Pretty sure none of us were in the room. Of how that handled because it was… I don’t want to sit here and defend Sean’s honor. He can do it himself. The way I look at it is, as I’m watching this speech, my jaw’s hitting the floor and I go, “What in the fuck are you doing,” sitting there tickling balls or whatever you want to call it. And then he called him a tough… Trump a tough SOB, and I kind just went, “What the fuck?”

And then all of a sudden you see his demeanor change and he pivots to a fiery pro-worker, pro-labor speech, which was, if you actually listen to it, was very, very good, and I think every working person in America should hear. I get everybody’s viewpoint of he shouldn’t have been there. And was him not being invited to the DNC, was that a ruse? Because the way I look at it, he kind of Trojan horsed in there and dropped a labor speech on primetime TV in front of millions of viewers, which I think is… He didn’t have to knock the door down, they invited him with open arms. And I understand the optics of it, absolutely. It’s a bad look. I can’t disagree with that. But what he accomplished, he did say nobody has ever been invited… No labor leader has ever been invited to the Republican Convention. This is true. And he got invited. And now I get everybody’s hang up with that.

He did call out some Republican senator. But you’ve got to think about it. If you’re scraping the barrel and all you can come up with is Josh Hawley at his AFL-CIO score of 11%. I mean, he had to find something to praise somebody about. Because if they knew he was going to go in and drop that speech, I don’t think they would have let in at the door. So the way I look at it is, when he was there, he had to play the game, but when… For the last two thirds of the speech, he dropped some shit, he dropped some stuff people needed to hear. And if the Democratic Party was smart, they would have him go in, do that speech, and say, “Kick it up a few notches.” Because that’s what the American people need to hear. Will that happen? I don’t know. But the first time I watched it, I was a little kind of… I’ve watched it a couple times, and the more and more I look at it and when you start listening to what he’s saying, I’m like, “God damn, how did he get away with that?”

Because if I was a fly on the wall in that convention, people were elbowing each other going, “Who let this motherfucker in the room? And are we being punked?” Because nowhere would you ever expect to see that. So it was a surprise. I get it. We shouldn’t fraternize with those Republicans. I get it. But the thing is is he saw an opportunity that’s probably never going to happen again, because they ain’t going to let any labor leader through those doors ever again. So he went in there, dropped the bomb, it is what it is.

My opinion is 99.9% of America has already decided who they’re voting on from president. Yes, it can sway either way, but it’s going to be too close for comfort and he had to make a calculated decision. So I support what he did. That’s about the best I can explain it. Because the speech he made, if you actually listen to it and get past the hatred for the Republicans or Donald Trump, that speech was pretty fire, as the young kids say. So anyways, I’m going to leave it at that. And I will go into my union negotiations and hopefully be back, and you guys can all talk shit about me behind my back. So talk to you later.

Kat:

Yeah. Before I start, I’ll just give a little bit of an introduction as to who I am and where I’m coming from. As I mentioned, shop steward at UPS in Oakland under Local 70. Also, a proud member of Teamsters Mobilize, a small group of rank-and-file workers who are trying to organize and take action to advocate for pro-worker organization and policies within our union. And I am additionally a member of Maoist Communist Union, USA. I watched the whole video of Sean O’Brien’s speech, and as I watched, I had in my mind the conversations that I frequently take part in with coworkers on my shop floor who are all UPS part-timers, all part of this lower tier of workers within the UPS workforce who are paid far less, receive far less in wages and benefits than the rest of the UPS drivers, and are generally treated as sort of second class citizens within the UPS worker world.

And the vast majority of people, when I talk to them about the upcoming presidential elections, they tell me, “I don’t think either of those men is going to serve my interests. I don’t think much will change depending on who is president, whether it’s Donald Trump or Joe Biden.” And I think that that’s reflective of an objective truth that, for the majority of working people in this country, their overall quality of life is not so much dependent on which party is in power, but in the chaotic boom and bust economic cycle of the capitalist system in the inevitable cycle of war and relative peace that breaks out as different sections of the ruling class across the world duke it out for control over various territories and natural resources.

And so when I watched Sean O’Brien’s speech, I was not really watching it from a particular standpoint of thinking, “Oh, he’s crossed over to the dark side.” I think the Republicans and the Democrats, when you look at the grand scheme of history, have not done much, actually, at all to serve the interests of the working class people in this country. And I think there’s an interesting contrast between Rob’s view that Sean O’Brien kind of busted a Trojan horse into this convention versus Rick’s view that he was used as a pawn, and I’m excited to debate those two views together in this podcast. I don’t really agree with either of them. I think that Sean O’Brien made a calculated strategic move in seeing that the Republican Party is making some shifts towards trying to court the unions in this country based on broader developments that are happening in the economy, internationally as well as within the United States, and I think that there’s some specific parts of the speech that point towards that. So in the future questions, we can talk more about it.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Let’s dig into that, right? Because this has been really great so far, and I just appreciate everyone sharing their thoughts and perspectives. And I hope that folks listening, this is as incredible for you as it is for us and I really hope you’re taking what everyone is saying to heart. Because as we know, if you listen to the show, the one thing that I hope you take away from it is that the working class is not one thing. We are the most diverse class, and it’s important that we have fora like this where we can talk amongst ourselves about what we, as a class, need to do and how we proceed in a way that benefits all of us. And that’s what we’re trying to model here.

And I think what I’m hearing from all of you is that, yeah, I mean, there was calculation that went into this. I mean, I am trying to think as a former conservative who grew up in a non-union family thinking many things about unions, this was not so long ago. But I can imagine to someone like me, to someone like the folks in my family who feel that way, seeing Sean O’Brien on that stage, just like seeing Chris Smalls on Tucker Carlson Tonight, it would put someone in front of me that did not exist in my orbit until then, and maybe even leave me with a more favorable impression of them and the union itself. I mean, I’ve been on Megyn Kelly’s show and got her to say she supported the Amazon Labor Union at the time. And as a former conservative, that excited me.

But then as I think y’all are really forcing us to ask is like, but what is that going to really mean beyond the rhetoric? What is it going to mean beyond just the sort of surface level understanding of a political discussion where we’ve got to kind of address the fact that, yeah, union members vote Republican, union members vote Democrat, union members don’t vote at all, right? So you’ve got to kind of work within that realm. But from the conversation in the first round, what I’m gleaning is that we’re really talking about, beyond the rhetoric, what is this going to mean for us on the shop floor? What is this going to mean for the economy and the plight of working people writ large? And what exactly does this portend if indeed Donald Trump becomes the next president and what Sean O’Brien was expressing hope for in that speech on Monday is really put to the test? We’re going to all find out what that means in our daily lives. And that’s where I want to hit on with this second question, right?

I want to bring this down to eye level, to the shop floor level, and ask, what implications does this have for you all as union members and workers in your day-to-day lives, the folks that you work with and care about? And yeah, I mean, what does this kind of approach that O’Brien is taking… Which we should mention is not representative of the labor movement writ large. Mel and I were just listening to Shawn Fain of the UAW speak last week at Netroots here in Baltimore. His speech was markedly different from Sean O’Brien’s speech to the RNC, and we’ll try to link to that as well so you guys can compare.

But yeah, let’s go back at around the table again and talk about what the implications here are for you all and your fellow workers on the shop floor level at the basic level of living your lives and achieving a comfortable life with dignity. Where do you think that this approach that O’Brien is trying to take, not endorsing either party, trying to kind of thread a bipartisan, more independent labor needle here, what do you think that means for our movement? Amber, let’s toss it back to you.

Amber Mathwig:

Big loaded questions tonight, Max, very important. For the folks at home, we did not get them pre-written, so really going off the cuff here. Yeah, that’s a really great setup to continue this conversation there, Max, because you just have my brain all over the place thinking about… I have all these big picture what’s going to happen as you’re talking, and the first thing I’m thinking about is, again, going back to what I said earlier, I believe, is that the labor movement that Josh Hawley wants, that J. D. Vance wants, that Donald Trump just wants to control the profits of, they want that movement for white Christian men.

And so to, again, see Sean O’Brien kind of cozying up to that with this nationalist idea in place, we can all… Yeah, you can carry that out together, and it’s a really good plan if it was for everybody. But when you contrast it against Project 2025, what we know from Trump’s last administration, that he has not calmed down his rhetoric, that he can probably do whatever he wants now and people are just going to support it unequivocally. And we already know that we’re losing Democratic progressive seats coming this fall. And so to even think about what’s going to happen to some of the most disaffected workers, our immigrant brothers and sisters and comrades in those areas, it’s going to completely shift how our entire labor movement is going. It’s going to bring back… I don’t think they’re going to bring back labor. Why would they do that? That’s going to mess with all these other plans that they have.

But let me bring it back down to my level. One of the great benefits that I have just really enjoyed having for the last two years as a union member is that they can’t fire me for my personality. I’m very outspoken. And when I know that I can advocate for myself at work because I’m protected from being fired for doing that, and then to think that, “Oh, the head of the Teamsters union basically doesn’t think that I should be here at all through inclusion, diversity, equity, making sure that LGBTQ are safe.” And then I immediately shift to our joint council, Joint Council 32, shout out, hosted a pride booth. Not just a booth, it was a double booth. So for two days, it was two weeks ago, and we’re one of the few unions to actually have a booth set up. And I just heard so many positive responses from people of all ages just to see us there.

I did have some people asking if Teamsters are going to endorse Trump. And into my head I’m like, “I don’t know,” because we just did this stupid straw poll that apparently has no precedent, so I think he really is trying to get support to endorse Trump. And so in thinking about… We’re putting all this effort into making sure that queer people and people who support our community know that they are also welcome in the union, to read the history and to know how many… I’m sorry. Now my dog is dying next to me. I just realized how loud she was. You can leave that in, Jules, just don’t make me sound like a bad mother. Bebe, [inaudible 00:48:56]. I’ll finish my rant later.

Tony:

To Rick’s point, I might use it in a different way. I think our union leaders have for too long been the show ponies of the Democratic Party who have tried to court the unions for votes and for public support for a very long time, while working actually against their interests, the interests of the workers in those unions. Something I think that needs to be highlighted here is that we need working class political independents. We need our unions to take the lead on breaking from these alliances with the Democrats and the Republicans where our union leaders are used as pawns in games for election season and working people are left behind. What I heard from O’Brien’s speech is that, whether it’s the Democratic Party or the Republican Party in power, that Sean O’Brien is ready to play ball with whoever.

So what does this mean for workers on the ground and on the shop floor, as you asked? I’m one of the UPS Teamster part-timers who got included in this new part-timer tier of lower paid part-time workers at UPS that had Carol Tome singing the praises of this contract and this negotiations for the shareholder. So I think we’re going to see more of the same. I think we’re going to see more backroom deals veiled behind the illusion of union reform. Let’s remember that Sean O’Brien ran on a reform ticket where he promised that we would have open bargaining and transparent bargaining. But during the 2023 UPS negotiations, everything was behind closed doors. The whole bargaining committee was made to sign non-disclosure agreements in direct violation of the campaign promise. So I think we’re going to see more sellout contracts as O’Brien struts around as a union fighter and a champion of the working class. I think we’re going to see him be a show pony for either party now.

Chantelle:

Yeah. I would agree with that. I think… I didn’t mention this on the last question, which was about what have conversation’s been like on the shop floor? And what Kat said about her coworkers is very similar to my coworkers, which is that I asked people… So when there was the debate, which was kind of an incredible thing to watch for many reasons. Also, just because it was like, after that point, all these people in the media and the Democratic Party who had been saying, “Biden’s totally fine. There’s nothing wrong,” after that were forced to say, “Okay, there’s something wrong.” But setting that debate aside, I asked my coworkers, did they watch it? “No.” I mean, like a few, but they’re a very, very small minority.

And yeah, likewise with Sean O’Brien speaking at the RNC. People knew there was an assassination attempt on Trump, but in general, people really… They’ve said what Kat said her coworkers have said, which is just, it doesn’t really matter. They don’t care. They have all this talk. Both parties will choose certain issues where they say, “Oh, look, the Democrats don’t care about you in X, Y, Z way, but the Republican Party will be there for you.” Look how bad the economy has been under Biden, which is objectively true. And so actually that’s the main reason why I have a few coworkers… I was talking to a coworker the other day and she is an immigrant from Central America, and she was like, “I think Trump is probably the way to go because look how horrible the situation is under Biden.”

So I also think, as somewhat of a sidebar, it’s pretty important that people aren’t… Not saying people here in this virtual room, but just broadly, aren’t painting all Trump voters with the same brush. Because I think there are so many people who have become totally disillusioned with the Democratic Party and how it’s really betrayed the working class people, how it’s betrayed Black people, immigrants. And because it’s so drilled into us that any kind of political party, any kind of political action, has to be either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. So when people have just been betrayed by the Democratic Party, then they think, “Okay, maybe the Republican Party.” And then we’ll see that again. And that’s kind of like what we see, I feel, every election season.

But to go back to my original point, I think, yeah, the vast majority of my coworkers feel like they’re just struggling. That, especially, just to say right now, it’s over 90 degrees in the warehouse and it’s hard work. We’re, in general, getting fewer hours. People can see also when we do talk about what’s going on internationally, how much money and weapons the US is sending to Ukraine, to Israel to bomb Gaza. All these things people feel, I think, rightly, very upset about and do see the overall unity of the Democratic and Republican parties on these main topics. So that’s all to say, of course there’s going to be different things that, if Trump wins, which I think, based on what’s happening in the society, it seems quite likely that he’ll win. Of course, there’s going to be attacks on the working class, which we’ll have to oppose, which we’ll have to fight against. But that would happen under a Biden presidency as well, or they end up going with another nominee. But I’ll stop there.

Rick Smith:

I would love to live in a perfect world where we all had the same ideas and we were all moving in the same direction. I look at O’Brien and I think he’s reading the tea leaves of the union. That we’re a legacy union with a lot of people… I look at myself, I work in a place where there’s a lot of old straight white guys who they would be okay with a anti woke union, because all they care about is putting food on their table and a roof over their heads. They want to go to work and have the job that we had back when I started. I started back in the late ’80s. The freight job was a gold standard job. Now, it’s reasonable. And they’ve seen that loss of power over the years, and this idea, I used it say it all the time, a drowning man will grab an anchor if you throw it to him. And we’re in that kind of situation. The Democrats have been less bad. There’s no question about it. Every bit of bipartisanship that Sean says he wants has gone against working people. I talked about the Motor Carrier Act of 1980, which was true bipartisanship. Thirteen members in the house voted against it, 70 Senators voted for it. A Democratic Senator signed it into law because it was going to help consumers. It was supposed to help our fuel problems. It was supposed to help all of this stuff, but it fucked over the entire freight industry in this country.

And what we ended up with is what was a solidly middle-class job, in most cases, being a sweatshop on wheels. So I understand the anger and everyone has their issue. I keep saying the labor movement should be the place where we reunite this country, where we come together and we fight for these ideas and attempt to go after and be a more perfect union.

But for me, the political system that we have is the one you have to play in. Would I love to have a different one? Sure. But that’s going to take us. If you’ve got a broken government, if you’ve got broken legislative branches, you’ve got broken society and broken people because we can’t seem to agree on what we want. So I asked the question, how did Sean O’Brien go from marching in the street with Bernie Sanders to sucking up to a wannabe dictator?

Had we gone into the streets more and pulled people into this movement and instead of having 6% private sector union density, have the 22% union density that when I started, or the 35% union density that we had when my grandparents were around. Had we that then you have political power. We’re holding on to little bits and pieces of it because most voters, and this is the sad reality, most voters, the union endorsement doesn’t seem to matter.

I remember when I first started, a business agent would walk into the lunchroom and he’d throw it out a leaflet and say, “This is who we’re supporting,” and everyone would pick one up because they knew that that union had their best interest in mind. You walk into my lunchroom right now and you say, “We’re supporting Joe Biden or the Democrats,” you better know where the exit is because you’re probably not going to get out of there. And this has been decades in the making. But for me, I look at this second, Joe Biden has done some really good things, especially for the Teamsters. The fact that he bailed out, which was the number one legislative priority of the Teamsters, was to shore up the Multi-Employer Pension Fund, passed the Butch Lewis Act, and ensure that retirees are able to retire.

Biden did that. Trump didn’t do it. Obama didn’t do it. Biden did it.

And the loyalty and the thank you that he got was what we saw. O’Brien went and everyone here just said, “Both sides suck. The system sucks.” Well, it’s the only one we’ve got right now. I don’t see anything changing. So for me, it’s about encouraging our co-workers and encouraging our friends and neighbors, yeah, pick a side, but maybe pick better people to run. Maybe to run yourself. This is what the Republicans have done and you have to give them credit.

I go back to a guy named Ralph Reed. He was the head of the Moral Majority or whatever the hell their name was. He was asked how they built their ecosystem and he pulled out the SWOC handbook, the Steelworkers Organizing Committee handbook, and said, this is how we did it. We talked to people, we got into the churches, we got into their spaces, and we organized. This is what we should be doing. You got issues? We need to be organizing. And that’s where I would’ve preferred Sean O’Brien to spend his time.

I mean, in three minutes, I can’t go through everything there, but at the end of the day, the Republicans and the people in that convention hall have been the ones who have done an awful lot of damage. Democrats haven’t been a lot of help, but the Republicans are the ones holding the noose around our neck. So that’s where I’m going to leave it.

Zoey Moretti Niebuhr:

Yeah, I think coming back to how it is on the shop floor is I had a conversation this morning about the election, and most people that I talked to about this election really are either apathetic or… They’re not diehard one way or another. And there definitely are diehards, and I think the people watching the Republican National Convention are diehard Republicans. And so if Sean O’Brien really wants to give a speech to diehard Republicans, that seems like the kind of speech he was trying to give in terms of appealing to America first and trying to tie in the union politics to America first.

But I think that as a union, we really should be focusing on the majority of Americans who don’t vote or don’t really prefer one candidate or the other. Even among people who support either Trump or Biden, probably are not enthusiastic supporters one way or another.

And so going to the RNC and him taking this middle-of-the-road approach, to me, I feel like it does more damage to associate ourselves as a union with these political parties that Americans already are angry at. And I’ve been involved in a number of organizing campaigns, and one thing I hear a lot is, especially in North Carolina where a lot of people have no experience with unions, really don’t know much about them, I hear, “Oh, this is a political thing.” It’s like, “Well, no, not quite.”

They see it as we’re involved in some sort of government election, and I have to explain, “No, a union is about you and your coworkers coming together to demand change and demand better in the workplace and demand better as workers, period.” And I really would like for us as a union to get back to those independent politics. I think it’s disingenuous for Sean O’Brien to say that we’re taking this middle-road, bipartisan approach. Instead, we’re dipping our hands into both political parties.

I’m not a fan of Biden, definitely not a fan of Trump. I think that’s true for a lot of people. But going back to what Rick said, it’s Republicans that are strangling us. North Carolina still has a Jim Crow law on the books that prevents public sector bargaining for Republican employees. And Republicans have a super-majority in the legislature here, and not one Republican supports getting rid of that Jim Crow law.

And so for me, it makes it harder for me to talk to folks and talk about the issues surrounding local issues. If we have somebody at the top of our union leadership that is essentially giving a check mark to those Republicans instead of talking with them, I’ve got no problem talking with Republican co-workers or co-workers that are more conservative. And I think we should be doing that and figuring out how we can have those common issues and how we can have those conversations where we can talk through these things. Because generally, I feel like people are receptive to that kind of thing.

But when we’re talking to a room full of politicians that are cheerleading Donald Trump, that’s a whole other Republican, then somebody that supports Republicans.

Jess Leigh:

Yeah, so being a shop floor leader means standing up against the company, fighting back against contract violations. The one good thing about having a contract is that it is in black and white. It says what they can and they cannot do. If you don’t have a contract, you don’t even have that. Essentially, a company can do whatever they want. If it’s not a direct violation of a law, they can do as they please. They can pull stuff out of the air, do one thing one day, another day, something else a different day. Just make up the rules as they go. Having a contract, having it on paper in black and white, that is an advantage.

Does the company follow it? A lot of times they don’t, but at least you have that. You have that to refer to. You have that to stand behind and you can push back against the company. Outside of that, having the support of your members, having the support of a fellow steward, having the support of your business agent, your local president, and then even beyond that, like we talked about, the NLRB, the National Labor and Relations Board. You can go to them. You can file charges against the company through them.

If your union was to not support you, you can bring charges against your union. We know that Trump wants to disband the NLRB. He wants to put in people that are not going to protect the rights of workers, like Joe Biden added people that were more pro-union. We have a better NLRB than we had under Trump. And that gives people more confidence to take on those issues on the shop floor, to know that they have law in place behind them and not empty law. Laws that will ultimately be upheld and carried out. We probably won’t get those things under Trump. That’s going to change the conditions on your shop floor. If people know that there’s nobody to back them up, how are they going to feel confident enough to stand up to the bosses?

How are they going to feel confident enough to stand up for their fellow co-worker when they see these wrongdoings happening? That can have huge implications for being able to change your workplace conditions for it to be a safe workplace. Our companies put us in unsafe situations all the time, every single day. We already have to fight that now. Imagine having less protections than we already do. That’s regression. We’ve been regressing for many years. We’ve been losing little more, little more, little more, little more. We’re not trying to straddle the road and play both sides. We’re trying to actually regain so much of what we lost. You can’t do that by playing footsie with the Democrats and the Republicans.

Neither one of them are here to truly serve the interest of the people. And I understand people who want to vote either way. Everybody’s struggling to survive.

People see that it’s bad under Biden. A lot of people have the mindset of can’t really be any worse under Trump. It actually can be worse under Trump, but so many things are so bad that people don’t see the harm and like, “Well, let’s somebody else.” And we only have these two options, right? So like, “Well, this guy’s been awful, so let’s try this guy.”

O’Brien has an opportunity. He has a platform to stand on and really influence the Teamster members and not just the Teamster members, other union members, other non-union members, other workers. He needs to take that opportunity to educate the members, teach the members how exactly neither the Democrats nor the Republicans or serving the interests of the people. Start growing that idea that we have to form another party. We need a Labor Party. Is that going to happen overnight? No, but start getting that message, that narrative out.

Somebody mentioned, “Get in the streets, get in the churches, get in the community, talk to people.” The majority of Americans are low-income and middle-income people. Those people are not being engaged with. They’re not being educated. They’re not being taught. Take them under your wing, and help open their eyes and help them see that there is a path forward. Put hope into people’s hearts, not just having to choose the lesser of two evils that we’ve been doing for so long.

Create hope. May not happen tomorrow. Maybe it’s hope that we leave for our children, but we leave for the next generation to leave it better than we have found because all it’s done is gone downhill while most of us have been involved. And all these two parties that we have in place, they’re propping up capitalism, the elite. They’re propping up the people and the system who exist to exploit and tear down the working class to extract as much value as possible by any means necessary. Everybody’s dealing with that. Anybody in the working class can see. No matter what industry you’re in, most places are they have too much work, the amount of people to do it.

And it’s frustrating day in, day out, and people are sick of that, but neither party is going to help change that. Too many people are influenced by money and power and their own personal opportunity, but that’s not what’s good for people. That’s not what’s good for our country. That’s not what’s going to help change the path that we’re on. And as long as we keep choosing the lesser of two evils, we’re going to continue down the same road that we’ve been going on, whether that’s a Republican or a Democrat. We have to change the whole system to make real progress. And O’Brien has the opportunity to begin those changes and lay that foundation so that we have hope for a better future.

Kat:

Really well said, Jess. It’s a side comment that’s not really responding to this question so much, but I was talking to a coworker the other day about the debate that had happened, and he was like, “Man, my dad used to tell me we have to choose the lesser of the two evils, but I look at these two guys and I don’t even think one of them is less evil than the other.” So I think that’s where a lot of my people at UPS are at.

But to get back to this question at hand, Max, you had asked about the implications of Sean O’Brien’s rhetoric at this speech for people at the shop floor level. And I’d like to focus on this one particular quote that really stood out for me in the speech. He was listing a bunch of demands, so to speak, to the Republican Party, and one of them was we need trade policies that put American workers first. It needs to be easier to keep businesses in America. Trade policies that put American workers first. It needs to be easier to keep businesses in America.

So what the hell is he actually talking about? Well, he’s talking about some major strategic shifts that the ruling class in this country is making right now in their attempts to decrease their economic dependence on the country of China in the face of increasing competition, both economically and politically between the ruling classes of America and China.

And to be clear, I don’t think that the working people of our country are enemies with the working people of China. I think that we actually are part of one international proletarian class, and we need to stand in solidarity with the general masses of China. But it is a fact that the ruling classes between the US and China are increasingly competitive to the point of possibly ultimately turning into a third world war. But we’re not quite there yet. Nevertheless, the capitalists in this country are going to have to make some changes in order to not be so dependent on China anymore.

In order to do that, they’re going to have to make a number of changes to how they’re operating currently. But two changes that are going to especially have an impact on people at the shop floor level is one, they’re going to have to impose a lot higher tariffs on things being imported from China.

And two, they’re going to have to build a lot more industrial production facilities in this country as well as maybe in other countries that aren’t China. But there will be some re-industrialization happening in this country in the next few decades because of these shifts that they have to make. And on the one hand, this will lead to a larger number of jobs being created in this country, and as trade unionists, as leftists, et cetera, we’re not opposed to job creation. But what we are opposed to is that happening entirely on the terms of the ruling class. And if given their way, of course, they will always carry these plans out in a way that serves their interest entirely. And I think that one of the things that they see from their perspective is, okay, we’re going to have to actually corral a lot of people, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of workers into these new sites of industrial production, and we’re going to have to figure out a way to keep them under control.

And one way that they will be able to do that is by courting the unions, by trying to establish very cozy relationships with some of the highest-level leadership of those unions. And by cutting slimy deals like the ones that Tony described between the leadership of the Teamsters and the UPS executives in last summer’s UPS contract. So in addition to the need to increase industrial production, there’s also this factor of needing to establish new and different relationships with the unions. And I think that that’s a big part of what we’re seeing with Sean O’Brien speaking at this Republican National Convention.

And I kind of disagree with some of the panelists who said, oh, this was just a one-off thing. We’re never going to see it again. Sean O’Brien blew it out of the water, and there’s going to be no more chances. I do think that we’re going to see this pattern continuing throughout time.

On the flip side of increasing production, increasing tariffs and restricting trade from other countries is going to lead to further inflation. And I think to be realistic, Trump is pushing for these things to happen at a faster rate than Biden or the Democrats. And so that is a concrete distinction in the way that he’s approaching things and he’s putting forward a clearer strategy for it that he sees as being most advantageous for the ruling class.

But to loop this back around to the original Sean O’Brien quote, we need to be clear that these trade policies are not putting American workers first. These trade policies are being crafted and executed in the interests of the ruling class, and they will try to throw us a few crumbs. They will try to use fancy phrases like this to convince us that it’s in our interest to go along with whatever their plan is.

But in reality, it’s going to be the same as it always has been, which is that we need to fight for every inch of better wages and working conditions, every inch of not being controlled by people in our unions who are in bed with the capitalists and the politicians, and that’s never going to come without a struggle. So these are some examples of ways that I see the speech that Sean O’Brien gave relating directly to the lives of working class people in this country in the near and midterm future.

Mel Buer:

Great. Thank you so much everyone for such a cool range of conversation here. We’re going to kind of bring it back around to just final reflections. So I’ll just ask this question. What are your final thoughts on what this means for the election and labor’s relation to electoral politics?

And I know some of you have already sort of touched on this in past responses, but yeah, what are your final thoughts for rounding out this incredible panel?

Amber Mathwig:

I don’t want to miss an opportunity to remind everybody that it is the 90th anniversary of the beautiful strike-filled summer of 1934, and I’m here in Minneapolis as part of that. We don’t like adding any words to the end because we can’t agree on them.

Part of the people making sure that the past is remembered, and literally one of the associated art exhibits is called 1934 & Now. How do the labor struggles of 1934 relate to what we’re dealing with now? And in 1934, the truckers, drivers, and helpers union did not have approval of Teamster leadership to go on strike. They did not have approval kind of to do a lot of things.

And one of the things that always sticks with me, and I was trying to find it while I was waiting, was one of the initial things that Teamsters were not interested in were organizing part-timers, and a lot of us here are part-timers. And I think that says something about why we are so strong on what we’re saying. And another reason why it didn’t surprise me that Sean O’Brien was willing to throw everybody under the bus is because once again, leadership has decided that the power comes from the top down when it doesn’t.

And that no matter what happens with Sean O’Brien, I think we should honor his request to go back to driving as soon as possible. No matter what happens in the election, if we still have a semi-functioning country and company shortly after that, we need to take back that power. And we need to get people interested in not just filing grievances, but asserting the fact that we make this company run every single day.

They’re coming up on, well, at my facility anyways, we’re going on to phase two of automation. First thing they want to do is take away our music. You can’t hear the beep, beep, beep. That’s what I used to call the wrist thing if you have headphones in. But really it’s because they want to control us. They want to make us miserable. They want to have fuck ups that they can blame on people, and that’s why they need machines. And that’s a whole nother episode for us, Max, if we want to talk about AI implementation and preload. But that this is what he’s cozying up to is people trying to do away, people trying to constantly force workers to be reset, so you’re at the lowest wage, so you have to work more so that you’re more stressed and that you don’t have time to organize.

I’m fortunate that I can make ends meet as a slightly above part-timer with some few odds and end jobs and sharing cost of living with some other people, but even that time that I have doesn’t feel enough sometimes because we don’t have time on the shop floor. We don’t. We are so exhausted and run wild right now and for the past several weeks that most of these conversations are happening in the parking lot or over text message, and therefore they’re not reaching enough people. It’s the people that have already gravitated towards or that have gravitated towards me, that we’re having these conversations about how to make our union stronger, about how to deal with all of these changes that are coming up.

And that again, feel like Sean O’Brien’s ready to sell us all out for his own ego. And that may be a reason that we need to question the way that the hierarchy of the Teamsters is set up because we can’t seem to get away from this corrupt Teamster boss thing. At some point, we got to figure out that concentrating all of the power in one person is not going to lead us to stability and gains in the labor workforce. And I think that was good. So I’m just going to stop right there. Lovely to be here with you all again.

Tony:

Yeah, thanks for those thoughts, Amber. As Rick brought up, union density in the US has been shrinking for decades, and in the midst of the economic and political shift that Tamra was talking about. The only way that the working class is going to defend itself and expand its power economically and politically is if we call a spade a spade and see behind the rhetoric of a union leader like Sean O’Brien, who talks big talk about taking on corporate elites while shaking their hands in closed-door meetings and leaving Teamster workers and the whole working class in the dust.

So I think a key task for the Working Class Movement is to expose this betrayal, because this is not working class political independence that we’re seeing in this speech. This is class collaborationism of a different form than what we’ve seen in the last couple decades with the previous loyalty to the Democratic Party.

This is why this struggle for against class collaboration in our unions is so vital. For all those Teamsters listening to this podcast, I encourage you to come attend our next Teamsters Mobilize meeting. We’re going to be talking about the presidential election campaign. Go to our website at teamstersmobilize.com and sign up to come talk about how we can build working class political independence and struggle against these fraud union leaders.

Chantelle:

Yeah, I think in terms of final reflections, well, I think it’s been a great conversation tonight, and it’s just really important that we do take the time to have these types of conversations, of course, in the election year, but also more broadly, because I think, I know, we’re all quite busy on the shop floor and in our locals and organizing with our coworkers. There’s a lot to deal with on the day-to-day, a lot of harassment, a lot of just trying to get our coworkers to be engaged and to fight back and to not let a supervisor just beat you down.

But it is so important that we do step back, also, to think more broadly, like how do we actually address the issues that we’re facing, that the working class is facing, well, in this country, but in every country. I think what Sean O’Brien was really, one of the things he was saying in his speech… I mean, Tom said is true. What Sean O’Brien is doing is class collaborationism, but O’Brien doesn’t even talk about classes in that speech. What he talks about… First of all, he says the workers. He never says there’s actually a working class, but he talks about the corporates and the elites and the big banks and big tech, and the way he describes them is as if there’s some bad capitalists, like those people he’s just described, but then also good capitalists, who know to actually work with the workers hand-in-hand and to advance the same single interest, whatever it may be.

In this case, this is really obviously pushing U.S. nationalism and saying that there’s the shared interest of getting more jobs back to the U.S. and we’ll work together to do that. But I think it’s just really important that we do take a step back. We do see the fact that we, as a class, have certain interests that we have to fight for that we in no way can actually advance that fight by just working with and collaborating with and having trust in and belief in the capitalists, whether or not they’re the ones that are running the companies that we work at or that are running these various political parties or the big banks and the media, et cetera.

We really have to find an independent way forward. I know different people have talked about that today, that we do need political independence, that eventually we need to build the formation of a Labor Party. I think earlier it was Rick, maybe, talking about… He said this is a broken system. It’s a bad system. We need a new system. I’d love to live in a new system, but this is what we’ve got right now, and we can’t be idealistic and say that we’re going to be able to build a totally new society tomorrow, but I do think our fight and our discussion within the Working Class Movement today really should be aimed at thinking about how can we get to the point where we do build enough unity in the working class, where we do build enough clarity and strength where we can have a revolution, have a totally new society where actually the working class is in power.

We’re told all the time that that’s so impossible. I think, obviously, it’s in the capitalist class’s interest for us to feel like that’s impossible, for us to feel… Like my coworker said that, I think, yesterday. She said, “I’d love to have a revolution, but that’s never going to work. That’s never worked. People are too selfish. People don’t want to fight. I try to fight here at UPS and people won’t.”

I know a lot of people do have a lot of experience where you try something and it doesn’t work, and it can be hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel, in a sense, but I think, like Amber was saying, to really draw from the history from 90 years ago and draw from the history of the entire Working Class Movement in this country and around the world, I do have a lot of hope. We’re kind of going back to the beginning. Max, you were saying you’re feeling a little mixed up about the overall situation. Yeah, of course there’s a lot of bad things going on in this society. There’s a lot of darkness, but I do feel a lot of hope. I do feel like working people want to find the way forward. It’s kind of a tortuous road, but I’m confident that we’ll find it. We’ll walk upon it, and we’ll be able to live in a new kind of society.

Jess Leigh:

Yeah, so I would say my final reflections is that we need to work towards teaching people. A lot of people have the mindset that, “Oh, politics isn’t something that I need to worry about. It doesn’t really apply to me,” because they see politics as just something on Capitol Hill. While that is true, these the people that are creating the laws and the policies that affect our everyday lives.

Everybody has things that they want to see changed. That’s politics. Anything that you want to see changed is inherently political, because there are forces that don’t want to see those things changed, and those people are using resources and policies and their influence to make sure that they don’t.

Most people are controlled by fear. On the shop floor, people are scared to fight back for fear that they will be retaliated against or even fired. It keeps people in line, and to go even further, people are scared that they’ll lose more rights if they really stand up and push back, that things could get even worse, but they are. Little by little, we are losing more and more rights, more and more control, more and more freedoms. We have to push past that fear, and the way forward is to not let that fear keep you from doing what you need to do to have your part in making sure that those changes come to fruition.

Don’t be fearful. Be bold. Be assertive. By doing that and letting other people see you do that, it sparks. It encourages other people. I can stand up like that, too, and anybody can do it. Even if you’ve never done it before, anybody can have a part in bringing about that change. Maybe that’s what you need. Maybe that’s what your coworker needs is to see you standing up and to be bold and saying, “I can do that, too. That person’s doing good things. I can do good things.”

Nobody is too small. Everybody can have a part, and it’s going to take everybody. We’re all going to have to come together to fight for the common interest and really move this country forward, and it’s not going to be through the Republicans or the Democrats.

Like I said, Sean O’Brien, he had the opportunity to do that, and he has failed. He has failed to do that, and he is riding the line. That is not going to push labor forward.

Kat:

Amber, I’m so glad that you brought up the fact that it’s the 90th anniversary of the General Strike Wave of 1934 in this country. For listeners who aren’t familiar with the history, I highly encourage, go find your favorite labor history book and read about it.

In short, during the middle months of the year 1934, at the bottom of the Great Depression, at a time when there was no unemployment insurance, there was no Social Security, there was no real well-established legal rights to unionize, millions of workers in this country, the lowest paid, least skilled workers, who all of the union leaders had said can’t be organized, shouldn’t be organized, we shouldn’t even try to organize these people in the unions, rose up, went on strikes that spanned across many different workplaces, across entire industries, and ultimately won a lot of concessions from the ruling class that are not to be taken for granted, that we still can leverage today to our advantage. I think I see this, these historical facts as evidence and proof that the people will rise up when the time comes. The people will be ready to fight when the time comes.

The question is, for those of us who see a longer trajectory for the Labor Movement, beyond winning a few concessions, what is our plan? Of course, we’re not at that point right now, where millions of workers in this country are spontaneously rising up and going on strike. We all know that. We’ve all experienced frustrations and feelings like our coworkers are apathetic, but if we ourselves see a basis to be able to provide leadership when that time comes in the midst of a period of crisis, I think that what we need to do now is really find others who see things in the same way, get together, and study history; study theory; make a plan; try to consolidate ourselves ideologically; try to, of course, get involved in our unions, if there is one; learn about the landscape; learn about the contradictions amongst the people; and acquire lots of practical knowledge, as well.

But we shouldn’t kid ourselves into thinking that we can just build a fire as one or two or five or ten people. The fire is going to spark off at some point, and what we need to do is prepare ourselves, strengthen ourselves as leaders, whether that’s on the shop floor or at a national scale, and instill in ourselves confidence in the people themselves. For those who are feeling angry, perturbed, confused, upset, don’t even know how you feel about Sean O’Brien speaking at the Republican National Convention, I hope that at least these more general and broader reaching thoughts can maybe make you sit down and think a little bit, because ultimately everything that seems unusual or confusing or unprecedented in our society, we can figure out ways to understand it. We can figure out ways to fight against it. We have to get organized. We have to educated ourselves, and we have to stand in solidarity with those that will fight alongside us one day. Over and out.

Rick Smith:

Ultimately, no one’s going to remember what Sean O’Brien said. They’re going to remember that he was there. That’s my problem with the platform in which he chose to give this speech. I thought the speech, in most other venues, two thirds of it was great. The fact that he went to that event, knowing that ultimately it’s about getting Donald Trump elected, means that you knew what you were getting into.

We can argue whether it was the right thing, wrong thing. If you were talking to the larger audience and the TV audience and will they remember that union speech, that you have to find out. Ultimately, it’s my view that Trump knew what he wanted, and he got a major union to come in and say nice things about him. That is what is going to be used from now to the election time. Everything else, I don’t have any personal attacks against anybody. I just think strategically it was a bad move, and I think strategically it’s going to be something that is going to end up hurting Biden or whomever the Democrats put forth, but ultimately hurting the members and hurting the union, because if Trump gets elected, they’ve already told us what they’ve done, they want to do.

It’s written down in Project 2025, and they have a whole labor section about how they want to do away with prevailing wage and screw up the NLRA. There’s so much that can happen, and maybe we need it. Maybe we need bad things to happen to get us to come back together. I don’t know. But I do know if Trump is reelected, it’s going to be a dark four years. Thank you so much.

Zoey Moretti Niebuhr:

One thing that really stuck with me the most isn’t the speech itself. It was Sean O’Brien doubling down the next day, reposting the Hawley article, and reposting that trans-phobic text of that article and praising Hawley as the one in good conservative, pro-labor conservative, while throwing trans teamsters like myself under the bus. It’s just really disappointing to see.

I’m not necessarily surprised, unfortunately, just for Sean O’Brien’s own political calculus on when he runs again. He probably cares more about republican Teamsters than he does about trans Teamsters. That’s just unfortunate reality of it. I think, ultimately, I agree a lot with what Rick says is that folks are just going to remember that he was there, and it’s just going to hurt the Teamsters more than anything else. It’s going to hurt the members of the Teamsters. It’s going to hurt if Trump is elected. It’s going to hurt organizing campaigns that are ongoing. I think we have seen that some staffers within the IBT are upset. One had posted that rogue post on social media, because they have to deal a lot, like these in the organizing campaigns, with the laws in various states, and in republican-run states, labor laws are way worse. Yeah, thanks for having me on. I think it’s an important thing to talk about, especially between Teamsters and how we can move forward, because we want to build a stronger union, and we need to hold our leadership accountable to do that.

Robert Conklin:

Yeah, I’ve never been more disenchanted about a national election as this one, because the two choices we were given are not ideal by any means. In a perfect world, we’d have a Labor Party, right? Made up of working people that actually could express what the working people in the United States need.

A hot, weird take on this one, but Sean O’Brien did walk into the Republican Convention and do a fiery labor speech. What if this is setting up the groundwork for a Labor Party. This is what people aren’t understanding is my conservative friends, my working class people that I’m friends with and talk to, all said they loved Sean O’Brien’s speech. A lot of those people aren’t really hip to the politics. They don’t care, but they’ve heard the speech, and they go, “You know what? That dude spoke to me.”

I know it’s not under ideal circumstances. I get it. But touching on some of the stuff that people said, bringing up the 1934 Minneapolis strike, the last really labor friendly president we had was Franklin Roosevelt, did wonders for working people. We haven’t had the power to shut down the country, if we were talking about the rail strike or whatever just recently.

Coming out of the pandemic and everything, I understand why the negotiations were postponed and there was compromises made, because as we were healing as a nation, coming out of the pandemic, a rail strike wasn’t a great time, and I mean to tell you, if it did happen, the view on labor would not be so hot with the average, ordinary American person. Yeah, sure, I would’ve thought it was great, but most people would be like, “After we just went through all of this, you guys are going to shut down the country?” I think the timing was bad.

1970 Wildcat Strike, a lot of you were probably familiar with that. Well, my grandfather was actually a part of that and shut the shit down. It was pretty hot, but we haven’t had a strong labor leader that’s been able to rally three million Teamsters, or how many we were members at the time. I hear a lot of people commenting, “It sounds like they’re unhappy with the UPS contract.” The contract before that one was a lot worse. I know that had a two-tiered system, the 22.4’s. That guy, I mean, 350,000 Teamsters under a UPS contract, you’re not going to make everybody happy. I get it. But the thing we’re missing is 70% of the fucking membership voted for it, so squeaky wheel, I get it, but this is democracy. This is the compromise and people were okay with it. They signed off of it. Don’t blame it on other people. You know, 70% is not a… It wasn’t close.

With the election, like I said, I’m looking at both choices, going, “God help us.” I think it’s like these are the two best people we have in the United States? Pretty much, a lot of us would agree, if we can get rid of them both and just start fresh and draw two names out of the hat, I think a lot of people would go for that.

To say the Democrats have been historically labor friendly, but what I tell my friends is there’s one party that says they’re for organized labor and there’s one party that’s vehemently against organized labor, but the thing is, what actually are they doing for labor? We’re in a kind of, as working people, in a shitty position. I would love to see a third party. That would balance the scales, but this is the shit hand we’re dealt with in the United States right now.

I’ll tell you right now, Sean O’Brien himself could have me a headlock, telling me, “You have two choices. Vote for Donald Trump or Satan,” and I’d be voting for the morning star, if you get what I mean. But the thing is, look at the other choice. I’m like, yes, he might be the most pro-labor president. He has his flaws. I get it.

Like I said, I’m disenchanted, but the thing is, bashing Sean O’Brien for going in there, into the lion’s den and shitting all over the white rug and smearing his feet, putting his muddy cowboy boots on the couch, if you know what I mean, people don’t see it, because they’re either blinded by their hatred for the Republicans, blinded by their hatred for Sean O’Brien, blinded from their hatred for Trump. But the thing is, something unprecedented happened a few days ago that I’m… Sure, I’m not a big Sean O’Brien fanboy, but I do give credit where credit is due, because if you put the first one third of the speech aside and listen to the second two thirds, that’s what everybody wants to hear. The thing is, it was just in a very strange, unsuspecting venue. But if I was a big corporation and throwing a pizza party for my employees and telling them how unions are no good, that’s a captive audience.

What did Sean O’Brien just do? He held a captive audience at the Republican fucking Convention. Well, love it or hate it, it is what it is. Now it’s time for the Democrats to tell him to get in there. Do that again, but do it even better. If that doesn’t happen, I don’t know what to tell you. Anyways, it’s been fun, guys. It’s been a great time. Well, I have knots in my stomach for what’s coming in November, because God help us all. Thank you very much.

Maximillian Alvarez:

All right, gang, that’s going to wrap things up for us this week. I want to thank all of our amazing Teamster guests calling in from across the country, for taking time out of their busy schedules to be on this panel and share their vital thoughts and perspectives. I really, really appreciate you guys.

I want to thank the great Mel Buer for co-hosting with me. Like we said in the episode, Mel and I want to and are planning to do more of these kinds of panels through the election season and beyond. We want to keep talking to more folks, union and nonunion, and getting more perspectives. We want you guys to reach out to us. Let us know what you thought of this panel and send us your suggestions for folks you want us to talk to in future panels and topics that you want us to address.

As always, I want to thank you guys for listening, and I want to thank you all for caring. We’ll see you all back here next week for another episode of Working People. If you can’t wait that long, then go subscribe to our Patreon and check out the awesome bonus episodes that we’ve got there for our patrons. Of course, go explore all the great work that we’re doing at the Real News Network, where we do grassroots journalism that lifts up the voices and stories from the front lines of struggle.

Sign up for the Real News Newsletter, so you never miss a story, and help us do more work like this by going to therealnews.com/donate and becoming a supporter today. I promise you, it really makes a difference. I’m Maximillian Alvarez. Take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. Solidarity forever.

There’s no mincing words—the first presidential debate was a travesty of the highest order. The leading story is President Joe Biden’s horrendous performance and the political crisis it’s sparked among the Democrats. But the failure of the media, not to mention former President Donald Trump’s antics, should also be called out. TRNN contributor Adam H. Johnson joins Mel Buer and Marc Steiner for a postmortem on the debate, and, from the way it’s looking, American democracy itself.

Production: David Hebden
Post-Production: David Hebden

Transcript

Mel Buer:  Welcome back, my friends, to The Real News Network podcast. I’m your host, Mel Buer.

Before we dive into today’s analysis of the first 2024 presidential debate, I would like to make an important ask of you, our listeners. Whether you’ve got our shows on while you’re making coffee in the morning, put on our podcast during your commute to and from work, or give us a listen throughout the workday, The Real News Network is committed to bringing you ad-free, independent journalism that you can count on. We care a lot about what we do and it’s through donations from dedicated listeners like you that we can keep on doing it.

Please consider becoming a monthly sustainer of The Real News Network by heading over to therealnews.com/donate. And if you want to stay in touch and get updates about our work, then sign up for our free newsletter at therealnews.com/sign-up. As always, we appreciate your support in whatever form it takes.

Today we’re talking about last night’s first presidential debate, an event that was billed as a historical, momentous occasion for all involved, where former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden squared off against one another for the first time since 2020. It was quite a watch.

With us today to discuss last night’s debate is Adam Johnson, In These Times and Real News Network columnist and co-host of the podcast Citations Needed; and our very own Marc Steiner, host of The Marc Steiner Show on The Real News Network.

Welcome, guys. Let’s dive in.

Marc Steiner:  Let’s do it.

Adam Johnson:  Thank you for having me on.

Mel Buer:  I think probably a good place to start is to discuss the immediate reaction that filtered through the internet after the disastrous performance by President Joe Biden last night. Democratic Party officials were texting reporters at CNN and MSNBC talking about the aggressive panic that was filtering through the ranks, and potentially talking about pushing Biden to drop off the ticket ahead of the DNC in August.

Where do we want to start with this? Quite a, I would say, sudden change, based on what’s been filtering out as the Democratic Party for the last year. Wouldn’t you say, Adam?

Adam Johnson:  Yeah. If I can play pundit here for a second rather than media critic, there’s obviously been grumblings about Biden’s very, I think it’s fair to say, if we’re going to be in the reality-based community, his very obvious, manifest cognitive problems, to put it gently. You look at video even from 2020, God forbid one looks at video from 2016, he’s obviously completely different. It’s very clear there’s some kind of decline going on. This is, I think, manifest to any intellectually honest person.

But the idea, I think, was that they could stave it off and that, regardless of that, he was a fundamentally good person who had the working man’s interest at heart, which I’ll dispute. But he certainly was, and I think it’s probably fair to say, at least on the domestic front, assuming — Which, most of our media doesn’t view Palestinians as human beings — But assuming one accepts that they’re not, that he was fundamentally a decent guy and was better than Trump on pretty much everything. And assuming Gaza, let’s say, is a wash. That that calculation would push him over the edge, Weekend At Bernie’s style.

But there had been grumblings for, obviously, a while. You had in 2020 even some people gently touch the issue. Because you don’t want to be too explicit, because then, of course, you, one worries, or these Democratic pundits, worry about fueling Republican attack ads.

But David Ignatius, a few months ago at The Washington Post, who’s kind of a CIA mouthpiece, was like, hey, buddy, it’s time to wrap it up. Obviously Jon Stewart got a lot of flak for when he stated the obvious, when he said the Emperor was only wearing a G-string.

But everyone hand waved it away, because, again, there was this threat of Trump. Biden had beaten Trump before, so there was a sense that he had a very long leash because of the fact that, unlike Hillary Clinton, he actually did beat Trump, and that he was broadly popular amongst key demos.

But then he began tanking in the polls. And then, of course, last night, I think where he clearly failed, he fails to maintain a thought for longer than 10 seconds, 15 seconds. If it’s a quick little punchy 10 or 15 second sound bite, he can make it. But it’s very much a struggle to watch him try to do anything over that. I think that, again, that much is obvious.

Now, that isn’t to say Trump doesn’t also have cognitive decline. He’s only three years younger. And I think it’s clear that he does, but it’s just not as profound. And also, I’m pretty sure Trump’s, maybe I’m bordering on libelous here, but I think he’s probably on some kind of amphetamine cocktail that, for whatever reason, Biden is not on. And this is obvious to everybody, right?

And so today we had a full-blown media, well last night and this morning, you had a full-blown media acknowledgement. This is just the front page of The New York Times. Frank Bruni: “Biden cannot go on this.” Nicholas Kristof: “President Biden, it’s time to drop out.” Thomas Friedman: “Joe Biden is a good man and a good president. He must bow out of the race.” Paul Krugman: “The best president of my adult life needs to withdraw.” And of course, Ezra Klein has been one of the early advocates of him dropping out.

This is now, from my opinion — And again, I’m curious what you all think — It seems like a Rubicon has been crossed. It seems like the way that coups work, whether it’s a coup in 2014 in Turkey or in Bolivia in 2019, or, in this case, a very soft and media coup, you passed the point of no return where you can’t really play it off.

And what all these articles just did and what last night even Claire McCaskill, who’s a very loyal, centrist partisan, even some MSNBC panelists, John King at CNN — None of this is ideological, none of these people are left-wing or hate Biden for his support of genocide or whatever — What you’ve done is you’ve cut Trump’s ad campaign for him. He’s just going to say, here’s what the liberal media and Democrats think about Biden.

I don’t see how you come back from that, even if Biden decides to power through. Because I think, in terms of practical legal reasons, he’s the only one who can really make that decision, that his nomination is more or less a done deal, and the mechanisms to undo that would require a degree of coordination that simply doesn’t exist within the Democratic Party — Unless, of course, they’re trying to stop Bernie Sanders, but that’s a separate grievance just with me, more or less. I’m one of those Japanese soldiers who’s still fighting in 1953. I’m not letting that go.

But in this case, it seemed like there was a line that was crossed. And again, I’m curious what you all think. But optically, I don’t see how you come back from that. Because if I’m the RNC, I’m just cutting an ad with Paul Krugman and Claire McCaskill and all these top Dems saying, yeah, this guy’s brain is not working, more or less is what they said. They were obviously more gentle about it.

And it seems like the only people not acknowledging that reality are those who are playing to the diehard blue wave crowd who view everything as a team sport and view everything as locked in. That Dear Leader has made his decision to stay in and we all have to play our respective roles. 

And there comes a point where reality becomes too obvious. Obviously he’s tanking in the polls, he’s tanking in the betting markets, for whatever merit one puts onto that. And, more importantly — I think this is really the thing that’s pushed it over the edge — In addition to the fact that last night there were two questions where he genuinely struggled to make a coherent thought and it looked bad, objectively, was that he’s beginning to really pull down other Democrats down ballot in terms of the Senate races, House races. Everybody, dogcatcher.

There is a bottom-up revolt against that because the splits between how Democrats are polling versus how he’s polling are enormous. In some states, they’re as much as 10 points. So my guess is this is the moment where it’s like, okay, let’s…

And it seems like, from a media perspective, they’ve definitely crossed. It’s like the line from The Wire: “If you come at the king, you best not miss.” That’s how coups work. And they’ve come after the king, and if they do miss and he powers through or his team decides to power through, I don’t know how Biden even comes back from that because the narrative is now a bipartisan consensus.

Mel Buer:  Right. Well, I want to throw this to you, but before I throw this to you, Marc, I want to draw attention to the fact that if you look at Biden’s debate performance in 2020 to what we saw last night, it really is night and day.

There’s some videos circulating on social media of some of the responses that he had in 2020. He sounds far more coherent. He has a strong grasp of policy. He knows what he’s talking about. He’s able to spar with Trump in a meaningful way that is bringing his base together and encouraging the voters that may be on the fence that he’s got a handle on what’s going on.

And again, the Biden campaign has put a lot of money and time into presenting Biden as this natural choice, this good challenger to a second Trump term.

Marc, you didn’t really come away from last night’s debate feeling very confident in that anymore. Would you say that’s a fair assessment?

Marc Steiner:  Yep. I mean, I came away from watching that debate last night absolutely depressed and angry. The choices that America faces at this moment are really dangerous because Biden clearly is not up to the task and Trump is a racist neo-fascist. And that’s what we’re stuck with at the moment.

I don’t see Biden’s ego allowing him to be pushed out of the race. It’ll take a lot to make him move over. I have a difficult time seeing that happen.

Look, I was saying this to friends this morning about this, thinking about Real News and how this place is run and how you run institutions, how you run governments. People my age — I’m their age — People my age have had their day to run organizations, to run a country, to run the government. And your role is different as you get older, and they have to be aware of that. And neither one of them wants to be aware of that.

I think that we’re facing an utter disaster, because the momentum against Biden because of his performance could turn the country over to the right wing in Senate, House, and the White House. I think we have to really think about that.

And I think that, I talked to two people really early this morning, two congressional representatives who are on the left who I really respect a lot, and they’re terrified that the Democrats are going to lose everything. And since there’s no left-wing party, there’s no left that can actually fill the vacuum, that would mean that we are facing a really frightening next four years, and it could be a disaster for this democracy in total.

So I can’t overemphasize what a dangerous moment we’re facing. The people on the inside have to convince Biden not to run, and I don’t see that happening.

Mel Buer:  As a thought experiment, because these conversations have really opened up debate about what an open convention would look like, in the off chance that Jill Biden can convince, if she even wants to, convince her husband to step aside and open the doors for a potentially younger, a different nominee, what’s the process? What does an open convention look like at the DNC in August?

Marc, you’ve spent a lot of time covering Democratic conventions. What does that process look like, for anyone in our audience who isn’t quite aware or doesn’t know what that might entail?

Marc Steiner:  An open convention without any agenda about where you’re going and what you think is going to happen is a disaster, because the infighting will erupt and it could implode. The Democrats could absolutely implode in an open convention. It sounds horrendously anti-democratic, but they better get their shit together before that.

Adam Johnson:  I tend to agree. I think, look, if they can coordinate like they did in March of 2020 to rally around Biden to prevent Sanders, it seems like they can rally around someone. And those names are pretty obvious. They’re ideologically, in the case of Newsom, demographically aligned with Biden. You’re just plugging and playing.

If one’s goal is to beat Trump, I think that’s a no-brainer. Because people say, oh, well, they have their own problems, like a Gavin Newsom or what have you. And it’s like, yeah, whatever, but they’re not dying on stage. I don’t want to sound cruel about it. 

But the people like Paul Krugman and Frank Bruni and David Ignatius do not intervene here unless this is a DEFCON 2 critical situation. These are not frivolous people. These are not people who don’t have their fingers on the pulse of the elites in the party, and frankly, Wall Street or people who fear Trump… This is not ideological, this is purely a process criticism.

And if Biden was 20 years younger, obviously we would not even be having this conversation, and he would probably be up 10, 15 points. But 74% of Americans have said they have issues with his cognitive issues.

And I actually think the framing of age is actually the wrong framing. Maybe I’m being a bit of a precious left-winger here in terms of ageism, but I actually think there are plenty of 80-plus year olds who… Ridley Scott and Martin Scorsese are still pumping out bangers. Just the other day, Dick Van Dyke was tap dancing on the red carpet. He’s 98 years old. Bernie Sanders is perfectly cognitively fine.

The issue is not age. It’s the fact that he has manifest problems answering basic questions. And I think, in many ways, the age discourse has permitted people to dance around that fact and abstract it out into this generational discourse. And I actually think that’s not the issue. The issue is he can’t complete a fucking sentence without meandering off. Whether he’s 55 or whether he’s 95 doing that, that’s a fucking problem.

Marc Steiner:  Two things here, man. A, when we talk about age. I interviewed Studs Terkel a dozen times over the course of his life, we got to know each other pretty well. He was really brilliant, could speak and talk and think up until the moment he died, almost. Some people can, some people can’t. Biden can’t. And the greatest danger here is that we are facing a right-wing, neo-fascist tide in this country, and it’s huge.

If you study Reconstruction in our history, you can see the roots of it, you can see where it comes from, and you can see its power. And it’s been building, it’s been building since 1970, since ’72, I should say. They’ve been building this movement, and they’re on the verge of seizing power in our country because Biden is going to run, and Biden can’t handle the race. That’s the danger we face.

And so that’s why the liberal capitalists in this country are so frightened at the moment, because they don’t want the right wing of their class to take power.

Adam Johnson:  Yeah. No, it’s definitely it. I think that’s absolutely correct.

Marc Steiner:  And we are in a really, really scary spot. It’s so scary on a personal level, I want my kids to get foreign passports.

Adam Johnson:  That’s why all these leftists being like, oh, you should have listened to the left about Biden’s age. And it’s like, yeah, okay, a lot of leftists did say that, but this is absolutely me coming from the center too. This is not a leftist versus right issue. David Ignatius is not a left-winger, and he said it nine months ago. And obviously, in 2020, people had broached it on CNN in a very gentle way.

So this is very much a process criticism, it is not an ideological proxy battle, as much as I’d love it to be one. I’d love somehow Biden’s inability to speak to be somehow validating my leftist priors. It isn’t really the issue. The issue is they just committed… Well, you could argue that they backed him in 2020 for ideological reasons, knowing these risks. I think that’s a fair assessment. I think that’s true because this was obvious on the campaign trail in Iowa when he would sort of mutter off, and even in February and January of 2020.

So that’s true. But I think really it is just not a sexy ideological issue, it is fundamentally about his ability to look like he can complete sentences, which is, as it turns out, pretty much the most important part about being a president. It’s fundamentally a speech-giving job.

Marc Steiner:  It is. And when you look at him physically, though, as well, people watch… Deal with the reality here, that people do not want to put a doddering old man in office. A huge part of people who don’t want that. He can barely walk his ass off the stage. The folks like Obama and other people in the Democratic Party need to sit down and talk with this man. They need to say, it’s time. You’ve got to back off. We’ll use a medical excuse, anything, to back off, to give it to somebody else so that you can stop the right wing from coming into power.

Mel Buer:  Before we move on to Adam’s bread and butter, which is CNN’s handling of moderating the debate —

Marc Steiner:  Oh my God [inaudible].

Mel Buer:  …I do want to draw attention to some of the conversation. I know this is not necessarily just an age thing, but there is something to be said for the way that power is consolidated in politics in American society, and that it really comes down to tenure and seniority rather than the merits of younger individuals.

And unfortunately, in both sides of our political system, younger folks who have the ability to inject energy into the parties, or the ability to understand what the vast majority of working people are going through, really it gets shunted aside in favor of what we have now, which is the geriatric gerontocracy that is currently running this country.

Individuals who may be able to put their finger better on the pulse in United States politics, specifically the material conditions that many people are living under, do not get a foothold in these parties.

And so what we end up with is elder statesmen who prioritize things that are important to them, so social security, and pension funds, and Medicaid are big ticket items in a way that doesn’t affect very many individuals writ large.

So there is something to be said about drawing attention to this issue, and to say that if we are looking for a solution to what is a cyclical problem at this point, election after election where we are continuing to elect individuals who are increasingly older. Again, this is not an ageist argument, it’s simply just —

Adam Johnson:  I have somewhat of an unpopular opinion about that discourse. And we did a whole episode on it, so I’ll rehash my thesis, and you can take it or leave it, which is that I think that that’s not the way, it’s good to look at it. I think, to the extent to which those who are much older have a tendency to be much more conservative, I think the causality is a little backwards. I think that those who survive in politics, it’s an evolutionary selection, they survive because they’re conservative.

Jamal Bowman’s career was just cut short after a mere four years because he took a controversial opinion on Israel. I could tell you of a countless amount of liberals and leftists who were run out of Congress because they got outspent five to one, 10 to one, 20 to one because they took controversial or left-wing opinions. So, conservatives simply last longer.

So the causality is not that they’re old, therefore they’re conservative. The reason why they’re there, and why they remain until their 70s and 80s, is because they took the conservative route.

And so I think for every single Biden we replace with some Pete Buttigieg clone who’s 40 years old but has more or less the same shitty politics — In the primary in 2020, Buttigieg ran on against single payer. He had more billionaire donors at one point than Biden did. And Kamala Harris is, of course, a little bit younger, also had a ton of billionaire donors.

So I worry too much about orienting this as a generational thing only because there are so many 25-year-olds working their way through Georgetown and volunteering for these campaigns with very similar politics that I feel like… And of course, you have Bernie Sanders who’s 80 million years old and obviously has better politics.

And so it’s the idea that we can somehow tap some sort of Pepsi generation Z, I’m a little cynical, especially when you look at all the psycho-fascists coming up in the Republican ranks. They had about a dozen Trump clones who were 35 years old that they elected in 2020 and 2022. So, yeah, it matters. I think once one qualifies for things like ideology, class, race, as a fourth and fifth thing, it does matter.

But ultimately, I don’t know. Because, again, I know so many of these people, I’ve seen them with their dead eyes in DC, that I don’t really… I think one can fall into a trap thinking that somehow the youths are going to save us when there are these ideological neoliberal schools where they pump these fucking people out. And so I’m a little dubious about that. But that’s my personal orientation on this.

Mel Buer:  Any thoughts, Marc?

Marc Steiner:  Well, one of the big failures here for the Democrats at this moment, no matter where they fit on the ideological spectrum from progressive left to moderately conservative, they’re strategically blowing it, and that’s really… A, in my time, I’ve run a lot of campaigns. There are certain aspects of the campaign you’ve got to get right. One is getting people excited and getting out to vote. They’ve forgotten how to organize.

The roots of the Democratic Party are the Civil Rights Movement and the labor movement. Organizing was key to those two movements. And whether it was my time as a labor organizer, or in the Civil Rights down South when I was young, that’s what moved the ball. You get down with the people, you organize, you pull people out, and you make a fight, and you win strategically. They’re not doing that at all.

Adam Johnson:  Well, in many ways, it’s because they pissed off all the young voters by supporting a genocide in Gaza, and by going hard right on immigration, and doubling down on more cops and cages.

Look, in 2020, Biden, for cynical reasons maybe, but he rode the coattails of the George Floyd protests and the kids in cages stuff, and even some of the anti-war movement latched on to him because of what he said about Saudi Arabia and the war in Yemen.

And then he just told them all to go fuck off. And so they wonder why they have no enthusiasm in terms of not… I know young people don’t vote, but like you said, they do organize, and there’s an evangelical wing of any campaign to some extent. And he told them all to go to hell.

So it’s like, yeah, of course he’s not going to have that kind of following. He built some left-wing goodwill in 2020 — Now it may have been pure rhetoric, but he did. And then he alienated a lot of those people. Even setting aside the cognitive issues, he basically just said, we’re going to try to win over conservative white swing voters in Fairfax County, Virginia, and that was it, and everyone else can go jump in a lake.

Marc Steiner:  And what they could be doing or should be doing is focusing in on working-class voters. There were some really interesting articles that just came out this morning, one in The Nation, and one I think I saw in Common Dreams, talking about what it would take to win over a percentage of white working-class voters to ensure that the right wing can’t win. And they’ve got to be able to run a campaign with that in mind, and they’re not doing it. And I —

Adam Johnson:  Well, yeah… Sorry, go ahead.

Marc Steiner:  Go ahead. No, go ahead. What were you going to say, Adam?

Adam Johnson:  I was going to say they have done a little bit better than in the past, but it’s not nearly sufficient. Obviously, they picketed with UAW, things like that, and supported some NLRB stuff. But you’re right in the sense that it’s not central to their message, by their own admission.

And Axios, they said they were going to focus on preserving democracy. And that’s fine and good, but ultimately that’s not like… How does that put food on my table, right?

Mel Buer:  We’ll definitely touch on what the Biden campaign has decided not to prioritize, especially in the context of last night’s debate.

But I do want to move forward, Adam, and talk about this column that you have coming out soon for In These Times about the performance of Jake Tapper, Dana Bash, and just generally CNN’s handling of and moderation of the debate. And you had some key points that I want to give you some time to touch on in the context of this conversation.

Adam Johnson:  Yeah. So I had basically four criticisms, and we can drill down from there. The first one was that — And this is one that everybody pointed out, so this is not an original observation — But they did zero fact-checking at all of Trump’s obvious manifest lies. He said the sky was magenta, and they went, all right, and moved on.

So according to The New York Times, Reid Epstein says that the Democrats agreed to that format, but I’m not sure that that’s totally accurate, and maybe you can enlighten me on this a little more. I’m pretty sure that Tapper could have pushed back on at least one of the lies.

When Trump started talking about liberal doctors murdering newborn babies in cold blood, I feel like that could have been like, hey, what’s your evidence on that? It would have been nice. So that was the first thing, I think, that was obviously — And again, something that Biden partisans have been pointing out, I think, correctly.

I have others, but we could talk about the total lack of any fact-checking — And I don’t mean fact-checking in some kind of nerdy hall monitor sense after the fact. In real time, he was saying things that were clearly not true. They should have confronted him.

The thing is, there’s a whole cottage industry of Trump fact-checking since 2016, but rarely do you get an opportunity to actually confront him with it since he mostly avoids contentious interviews. But here was a chance where they could have done it, even gently, and they just didn’t do it at all. At all, not once. He had dozens of falsehoods, dozens of not even debatable… I know sometimes these things exist in the area of the gray subjective, but they’re not even debatable.

Mel Buer:  Right. Well, and in the hours, days leading up to this debate, there was a lot of concern and conversation in the media and amongst individuals on social media about how they were going to handle Trump’s falsehoods. We’ve been dealing with Trump talking out of his ass for 10 years now. 10 years. And I wonder at what point are we going to stop seeing this hindsight, we should have said something, nonsense that usually comes out of mainstream media, and actually have the ability to check him on these statements?

What sucks about this when we’re talking about Trump’s performance versus Biden’s performance is we are focusing on Biden’s complete inability to hang on to a thought when Trump is just talking out of his ass. He’s absolutely lying as he’s standing there, but he sounds a little bit more lucid, so people are more willing to hear what he has to say in comparison to Biden’s very abysmal performance. 

But it’s total nonsense the whole way through. It was 90 minutes of absolute nonsense that devolved into incoherent shit-slinging, you know what I mean? And I’m frustrated by it. A lot of this could have been very slam dunk pushback and rebuttal on Biden’s part.

And I’m equally as frustrated that we have specifically Dana Bash and Jake Tapper, who have been CNN’s best propagandists against the Palestinian cause, essentially, and screaming about protesters on their shows, being the ones who are supposed to be moderating what is very consequential conversation, debate between these two candidates.

Marc Steiner:  One of the biggest failures in this debate were the moderators. They didn’t do their job. When you moderate a debate between candidates and you know one of the candidates has lied and stated falsehoods, you stop and you confront that and you confront them with the facts and say, explain yourself.

They didn’t do it at all. They just sat there like a lump on a log and allowed lies to happen. That’s not how you run a debate. That’s not how you run a discussion.

Mel Buer:  It’s particularly frustrating because they had the ability to cut off the mics. There’s no live audience that causes disruptions, right? The actual space that they created in order to have this debate is purpose built to be able to take a moment, fact check, ask these questions, turn off the mics, be able to inject those rebuttals that need to be made in order to challenge them on these statements.

And instead we get… I don’t know what their reasoning was. Did they think that if they gave Trump enough rope to hang himself with that, it would actually —

Adam Johnson:  My guess is that was —

Mel Buer:  — He’d be clear.

Adam Johnson:  It was clearly an editorial decision. I suspect that that was the terms they agreed to with the Trump campaign to get him to show up. The question then becomes… Well, again, CNN forfeiting any kind of journalistic integrity for the purpose of having a debate is its own discussion.

But then the question becomes why would Biden agree to that knowing that he A, can’t really rebut things because he can’t form a thought longer than 15 seconds, which he didn’t do at all? He did towards the end a little bit, but it was kind of flailing and it was more of the less complicated stuff, like, on Jan. 6, I was out fly-fishing, what are you talking about? kind of stuff.

But the lack of any plan for that from the Biden White House… Again, clearly they didn’t think they were going to do it, and they supposedly agreed to terms that were going to just let Trump say whatever he wanted regardless of its fidelity to reality. So I don’t know. It’s incompetence on the Biden’s White House either way.

But ultimately, again, it’s 50% CNN’s responsibility too. As an extensive news organization, their job is to delineate between things that are obviously false. Again, I know there’s a lot of gray area, but these things he said about governors murdering babies and immigrant rapists by the millions…

And all this stuff he said lie after lie after lie. You can go read it at NPR or CNN. These fact checks are pretty straightforward. They didn’t do anything.

And even I, the most jaded, black-hearted media critic in the world, was a little taken aback that they didn’t even bother doing any. Sometimes they’ll do a token one here and there. They did that in 2020, but they didn’t even do that. So my assumption is it was actually an editorial choice from the beginning that they were not going to push back on anything on a factual basis that we were. This was a purely postmodern debate.

Mel Buer:  In the context of these moderations and potential future debates, there are supposed to be future debates between Trump and Biden and the Biden campaign this week, today, has already put out statements saying that they are planning to do an additional debate in September after the DNC closes.

First off, Marc or Adam, do you think the Trump campaign will agree to it? Is that even up in the air? Because it seems like this was already a nightmare scenario, trying to get him to agree to this current debate.

And secondly, is this advisable, given Biden’s performance? Do we really think that in the next couple of months there’s going to be a chance to turn this around? Are we hopeful…?

It seems to me like if the Biden campaign is saying, we’re committed to September. Not only is that signaling the DNC will go the way that we think it will go and will not be an open convention, which we already think is unlikely. And two, folks are closing the wagons around the idea where it was just one bad debate performance. What happens if his performance is the same or worse? Thoughts, Adam, Marc?

Adam Johnson:  Unless he has a secret cure for cognitive decline, I don’t know what that even means.

Marc Steiner:  The issue here is that between now and September, in order to stop Trump and the right wing, Democrats have to take everything they have with massive media campaigns and doing stuff on the grassroots level to turn it around.

They can make a mockery of everything Trump said and what he’s done. And I think that they’ve got to play hardball. They got to go out and fight. It’s the only way they’re going to stop this.

And Biden, let him have his sound bites. Let him take a rest over the summer. Let him make his speeches and walk off the stage, and hopefully they can prep him and have him ready for September.

But the Democratic Party itself, if it’s worth anything, has to be out there, gloves off, fighting in the street, on the airwaves, organizing. It’s the only way they stop this, and I don’t know if they have the wherewithal to do it. I just don’t know.

Adam Johnson:  The fish rots from the head. Look at Jake Sullivan, the national security advisor, and Anthony Blinken, the secretary of state. Even on the topic of Gaza, which I follow very closely, they contradict each other all the time. One person says one thing and the other person says another thing.

So even on foreign policy, the CIA is negotiating one thing, meanwhile the State Department’s negotiating something else. There is clearly not really anyone in charge other than maybe the chief of staff. And even that gets convoluted.

So as far as the campaign goes, what you appear to have is a lot of people… Now, I’ll be generous and say some of them genuinely feel like they have the best shot of beating Trump, and they think Biden’s fundamentally a decent guy even if he’s not all there, but they have a lot of people want to keep their jobs, keep their status, who have every incentive to live in denial.

They live in a media bubble. They read Matt Yglesias. They’re watching MSNBC — Which is why yesterday was so significant because Matt Yglesias and MSNBC came out and said, this guy’s got to drop out. Morning Joe, who Biden watches religiously, said it. So there’s a real threshold that was broken.

Whether or not it works, who knows, but this is not like it was a few months ago or a year ago or four years ago. And there’s not really any incentive for them to stop.

And what you’ve needed is you’ve needed this crescendo again. Like all coups, whether it be a hard coup or a soft coup, it’s in the air, and people formulate and pick a side, and you hope to God you’re on the winning side.

Now, obviously Biden’s not going to go around summarily executing people who criticize him in The New York Times, although that would be pretty cool, but it’s the same dynamic. There’s just no way he comes back from this.

And I have a rule when I go into pundit mode, which I’ve mostly been in this episode or this show. I don’t like to be predictive because I’m never right. I’m a horrible gambler. I’m never right about guessing the future.

But I will say that I just can’t foresee… I’ll phrase it in a more conservative way. I don’t know how you come back from the entire liberal media apparatus calling you a doddering old fool. I don’t know what that even looks like. And to the extent to which he was already down three or four points on average — Models had him a 2-1 underdog — I don’t know what you build from that. Especially since you’ve told your base, your progressive base, to go jump on a bike with no seat. So I don’t even know where this energy is supposed to come from.

Are we supposed to assume that the Wall Street people running his campaign suddenly develop a backbone or some ideological commitments? It’s not even clear what they’re fighting for. It’s basically status quo maintenance. There’s no vision. It’s like, we’ve just got to fend off Trump. We’ve got to maintain what we have. 

And I get that, and there’s value to that. And Trump’s Supreme Court justices being dispositive in destroying the liberal state in the last 24 hours is evidence of why that’s important.

But nevertheless, I don’t know where that comes from. So I don’t even know what that looks like. I don’t see any other out here but for him to come up with some face-saving narrative about wanting to be close to his son or some bullshit and something… Maybe some other —

Marc Steiner:  Even the CNN poll found that, I think it was 57% of the people who watched that debate said Biden lost, and they don’t have any confidence in Biden, of the people who watched that debate.

Mel Buer:  On the flip side though, that flash poll also said that 81% of individuals did not have their voting commitment changed by watching the debate. So that’s also something to look at. I don’t want to dive too heavily into polling because, as we know, those numbers are famously difficult to parse, and we really don’t know how this is going to change the electorate’s opinions just one day after.

But I think, Adam, you bring up a point that I think is really a good way for us to move into the next section of this conversation before we wind it down, is “substantive policy issues” that were brought up — And I put that in air quotes because really so much of this was incoherent shit-slinging against each other. There really wasn’t the ability to have what we would normally see from a debate. It felt more like two old men arguing over the last backgammon game in the nursing home, unfortunately.

But there are things that we want to draw out here. One, and I think this is a good place to start, Adam and Marc, if you have thoughts about this, is the severity of Trump’s xenophobic, racist statements that he made that, over the course of the debate, got even more brutal as he realized that Biden was not going to substantively push back against what comments he was making.

Adam Johnson:  Well, they’ve embraced the Republican playbook on immigration, so there’s not a lot of leg to stand on. His surrogates last February literally called it the GOP plan in terms of when he went hard right on immigration. So it’s hard to substantively… I agree with this. Was he going to say, I agree with your substance, I agree we should further militarize the border and undermine decades of asylum law and carry on all your agenda, but do so less racistly? I mean, what’s he really going to say, even if he was… It involves —

Mel Buer:  Fair point, yeah.

Adam Johnson:  Even if his marbles were all there in terms of Palestine, Gaza, Trump used “Palestinian” as a pejorative. He said, “You’re acting like a Palestinian.” Of course, Tapper didn’t push back, and Bash didn’t push back, and Biden just shrugged and said, yeah, whatever. They’re not human. They don’t matter.

So again, this is a microcosm of our political environment. The fascists say something extreme and racist, and the Democrats sort of maybe hemming a little bit, but mostly just move on, and there’s not really any sense that anyone’s worth fighting for, that any vulnerable community can be thrown under the bus at any minute if it’s seen as slightly electorally advantageous to the Democrats. So there’s no real sense of solidarity, there’s no sense of racial justice.

They’ve just gone from kneeling in kente cloth to embracing Latimer and punitive right-wing policies at the border and, of course, in Gaza. So there’s no counter vision. It’s mostly just kinder, gentler machine gun hand type stuff. So I am not even sure how he would push back.

And this is why, of course, Tapper and Bash indulge these racist framings, which I wrote they did around immigration. They framed them as criminals and their burden on society. They weren’t even seen as humans that have any constituency in this race or any stake in what the so-called border security is because both parties have embraced that premise.

And when something’s bipartisan, that’s it. That’s the end of the conversation. The worst place to be in the world is on the business end of a bipartisan consensus because you’re fringe. You don’t matter. Whether you’re an immigrant or whether you’re in Palestine, if you’re on the business end of a bipartisan consensus, there’s no pushback.

And so this is the world with which Bash and Tapper — Sounds like a TNT show — Bash and Tapper operate in, which is once it’s decided that Republicans and Democrats are going to embrace this militant border militarization, border security framework, then that’s it. So that’s why all the questions are going to be super glib and racist, and then they just move on.

Mel Buer:  Marc, do you want to talk about what wasn’t discussed? There were no questions about labor, which I shouldn’t be surprised by, but a big part of Biden’s administration and what he ran on in 2020, and in some circles what Trump tries to position himself as is this friend of labor.

And as we discussed earlier in our conversation, a huge part of grassroots organizing is the labor movement. And the labor movement has been experiencing a really encouraging uptick in new organizing, in labor wins, electoral wins, contract wins, won strikes in the last 18 months, and I was frankly a little surprised that we didn’t even get to that point where we could… That seemed like, in terms of rhetoric, that seemed like a really no-brainer place to go, and we didn’t hear anything about that at all last night.

Marc Steiner:  No, nothing. I think that the whole debate, the way it was structured sucked from top to bottom, and I just can’t say enough about how I really disliked the moderators. It’s not how you moderate a debate, not a political debate in this country for the future of the country, or if it’s a mayor’s debate. You push. You don’t just sit there.

And I think that the labor aspect of this is that if they had been given time for real strong opening and closing statements, he could have pushed the labor issue. He could have pushed it into Trump’s face as being only there for the billionaires, only there for the wealthy, not caring about the working man in America. They’re making no effort to appeal to that at all.

And there is, because there’s a rising labor movement. We cover it here at The Real News. Things are happening out there, the class is moving, and they have to address that. And they’re not going to address it.

Mel Buer:  Unfortunately, it’s just a real missed opportunity. As you know, I cover the labor movement pretty extensively, and some of the largest labor unions in the country and organizations like the AFL-CIO have really put their weight behind endorsements for Biden. As a union journalist, as an individual part of a union, it is a bit of a sting to not see anyone in the administration prioritize that in such a high-profile event like the debate last night.

Adam Johnson:  Yeah, we can talk about that too, because in my piece I write about the fact that the words “poverty”, “union”, “poor”, “labor”, or “homelessness” weren’t mentioned at all. Labor wasn’t mentioned at all. So the poor and the working class, of course, are invisibilized.

They did touch on inflation, they touched on the racial wealth gap a little bit and the rising cost of childcare, but that was it. But poverty, and certainly not organized labor, especially given the rise in organized labor since the last debate, just a non-issue. And of course, it’s an issue that would ultimately arm Trump despite his superficial rhetoric.

Marc Steiner:  Can you imagine if someone actually said, if Biden actually said something like, we’re supporting the rise in labor unions in America. We want to make sure the working man has everything that he deserves, working people, everything they deserve. If he had pushed that idea he could have bridged the racial divide talking about class and labor. He could have done many things that would’ve excited voters and brought them in. He didn’t do a thing.

Mel Buer:  It’s a night and day difference, too, between Trump’s handling of the labor movement during his tenure and his administration and what Biden has done in the last four years.

Adam Johnson:  And the thing is, we also have to measure it in relative terms. This is someone who has been convicted of 34 felonies a few weeks ago, someone who’s under 91 different indictments, someone who is, again, cheated on his pregnant wife in a public way, someone who habitually lies, someone who’s… Again, Biden pointed this out, somewhat sheepishly, but 40 of his 44 former cabinet officials won’t endorse him.

This is someone who’s just a vile fucking human being, and he’s up in the polls by 5%. That is a testament to the utter collapse and failure of the Democratic establishment. We’re not talking about fucking Mitt Romney. We’re not talking about some plug-and-play Republican. We’re talking about someone who has unfavorables as high as herpes, and they’re still losing.

Marc Steiner:  I’m going to go back to the moderators again for a minute.

Mel Buer:  Yeah. Go for it.

Marc Steiner:  They should have pushed those issues specifically at Trump. Ask Trump the question, you’re under x amount of indictments. You’ve been accused of rape. We need you to respond to that for the American people.

Adam Johnson:  Yeah, they didn’t do any of that.

Marc Steiner:  They didn’t do that. How could you not do that? If you are a journalist, if you’re in front of a person running for office, you ask those kinds of questions. You don’t just let it sit there.

Adam Johnson:  We’re just so desensitized to all the evil shit he’s done. It’s just taken for granted, like, oh, it’s just given. It’s a given. It’s like, I don’t know. We should still talk about it. We should still talk about, again, the multiple rape charges, the campaign fraud, the multiple crimes. Again, all this stuff just gets washed away, and we’re asking… They have to treat him like he’s some sort of esteemed statesman.

Mel Buer:  Well, and even the important questions. I know Dana Bash pushed back at least once on getting him to answer about honoring the results of the election. He gave a non-answer both times, and she just lets that second non-answer go —

Marc Steiner:  Right. She should have said, you didn’t answer the question.

Mel Buer:  Yes or no.

Marc Steiner:  This is what I asked you.

Mel Buer:  Right. And —

Adam Johnson:  Well, he did the if/then. He was like, if it’s legal, and it’s like, well, clearly you’re never going to think it’s legal because you live in an alternate fucking universe.

Mel Buer:  Yeah, so all in all, ridiculous evening. 

Before we close it out here, I do just want to take a moment, perhaps in absurd levity… I don’t know how to really handle… My brain is still trying to handle exactly what the hell happened last night.

But I do want to touch on the fact that it was an absurd debate, surreal levels of absurd. It still blows my mind that these two men derailed the entire conversation for at least five minutes to have a dick-swinging contest about golf. Are you kidding? Why? Why is this our political reality right now?

Adam Johnson:  Because they’re old white guys who play golf. I think it might be one of the things they have in common. Trump owns golf courses. I think it was a reference to him lying about his weight on his arrest record. I think that was what he was referencing. He said he was 235. I think he was trying to —

Mel Buer:  Oh, that was in response [crosstalk] to the question about their age, actually.

Adam Johnson:  Oh, was it? There was some point where he tried to fat-bait him, and I was like, Jesus Christ. And it wasn’t done well, so it was just awkward.

Mel Buer:  If we want to talk about final questions, that was a question that was posed to both of them. And Biden’s answer was to say, you know, back in my day, I was considered the youngest member of the Senate, or whatever, and then he goes, and now I’m considered the oldest and I have a lot of experience, and then he mumbled off and lost the plot there.

And Trump’s answer was about his vitality, and brings up golf as the marker of his vitality as a 78-year-old man, and it led to the two of them ribbing each other about their golf swings and who would win on a back nine.

I find that to be so absurd. I find it absurd that we even have to ask this question in the first place, really. If your physical fitness for office is called into question because you are 80 years old, I don’t know, man. I’m frustrated.

Marc Steiner:  [Laughs] as a 78-year-old guy myself, I don’t play golf, but people in power love playing golf. They can’t get enough of it. The absurdity of last night’s debate was profound. I don’t care if they were 78, 81, or 36 and 47. The debate was absurd. These two men should not be vying for leadership of the United States of America. Period. They’re incompetent, and I think that’s what came out of last night, was total incompetence.

Again, I’ll go back to what I said in the very beginning. Last night’s debate, in my going back and forth online with people, is painting a very frightening picture of the future of the United States and the planet, and we have to be on top of it, and we have to be resisting it and standing up to it and organizing in the face of it because we’re facing a shit-show.

Mel Buer:  Well said, Marc. Any final thoughts, Adam? We’re coming to the close [crosstalk] —

Adam Johnson:  Yeah, it’s a popular rhetoric, people say, well, people want to obsess over Biden, his cognitive this and cognitive of that, but what about Trump’s scandals and this and that. It’s like the Republicans, they just fall in line. And it’s like, well, yeah, they’re Republicans. They’re kind of axiomatically evil. That’s the point. They’re authoritarians. Democrats are supposed to be the sober, responsible party.

And the centrists revolt against Biden because, again, I think very clearly he looks bad and is declining, and his poll numbers are in the garbage. These are people who want to be Trump. Hanging on to a bad hand does not make you a more passionate poker player. It makes you an idiot.

This idea that somehow abandoning Biden is a pro-Trump position, I think at this point, again, for things to get this bad, for these people to do this… Again, these are not frivolous people. These are people who have a lot to lose to step out on a limb and who are partisan hacks. I don’t even mean that pejoratively; it’s just their job. They wouldn’t do it unless it was a really bad emergency.

And I think that this idea that you’re doing the party a favor by being a blind loyalist is bizarre to me because the Democrats are supposed to be the responsible party. They’re supposed to be the party that thinks about the world outside of their own little media bubbles.

Mel Buer:  I would say my final thought is along those lines, Adam, that if we are faced with this very real existential threat to our democracy in the form of Trump’s Christofascism, then it would behoove the opposing party to furnish a candidate who can be challenger to that. It is distressing that this was not recognized, or willfully ignored, at the first sign of trouble.

And now we’ve reached a point where millions of people watched that debate last night and are rethinking their choice, and that is unfortunate. I guess it remains to be seen how it’ll be handled and what’s going to happen over the next couple of years.

But thank you to both of you for coming on and talking about this and offering some really good analysis of the incoherence that we witnessed last night, and I look forward to having further conversations about what’s going on as we get closer to the general election. So thanks for coming on, both of you, and I really appreciate it.

Marc Steiner:  Thank you. It was great. Good to meet you, Adam.

Adam Johnson:  Good to meet you.

Mel Buer:  That’s it for us here at The Real News Network podcast. Once again, I am your host, Mel Buer. If you liked today’s episode, be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get notified when the next one drops. You can find us on most platforms, including Spotify and YouTube. Thank you so much for sticking around, and we’ll see you next time.