#650 “Start Your Own Railroad” w/Valley Labor Report
TODAY: Alex is joined by Jake and Adam from the excellent Labor Valley Report to talk about an important working class issue—the bizarre right wing comments they get on their YouTube videos. PLUS: A smackdown I got from one of their viewers after my appearance on their show, and a different argument with a fellow Teamster over Trump’s NLRB history. ALSO: We cover 2 huge NLRB rulings from the last week: Amazon drivers in California were determined to be Amazon employees (as opposed to independent contractors) by a regional office of the National Labor Relations Board, and the national board certified the Amazon Labor Union in Staten Island. We talk about the loopholes companies use to further erode wages and labor power, and the necessity of making coalitions with people from different backgrounds. Solidarity is the way. Listen to Close Other Tabs w/Ani and Alex on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podcast Addict, or wherever you get podcasts Watch and subscribe to The Labor Valley Report and watch Alex's interview with them on YouTube See Minion Death Cult LIVE in Seattle on 10/18 w/Bryan Quinby doing commentary over an insane movie we have covered on this show but you have probably not seen And join Alex for an evening of Means TV comedy on 10/10 programmed by director Chris Bell featuring Anarcho-dad sketch comedy, maniacally bloody music videos, investigations of 16-bit communal spaces, stoner professor instruction on meme creation, and greasy weirdo talk shows Music: Billy Bragg - There Is Power In A Union Chat Pile - Masc
Hey, Alexander Edward here, and I just wanted to announce at the top of the show that we have a brand new podcast from myself and my partner, Ani.
Listeners of the show may know and love the one and only Ani.
We have a new podcast called Close Other Tabs with Ani and Alex that is available right now for you to listen to the first two episodes.
Wherever you get podcasts, Close Other Tabs with Ani and Alex.
It's a show where I investigate one of her browser tabs and hold her accountable.
For those wishing to see justice done, particularly in a world where that seems to just not happen anymore, we will be holding Ani accountable.
We will be holding partners accountable.
Do not expect the piercing gaze of Close Other Tabs will be leveled against everyone.
If you're a partner with interests, we're coming for you.
There's nowhere to hide.
Listeners, does your partner have interests?
Why?
What are interests?
Listener, do you ever do a 9th grade level research project on key truck crumple zones while standing in line at the bank?
Where do interests come from?
What are they for?
I know they're a threat to me, but in what way?
Have you ever tracked down the evolutionary history of moles after seeing your neighbor post about blowing them up on Nextdoor?
Every week I rifle through my wife Ani's latest browser tabs and select one to investigate.
Upon investigation, I will demand answers.
How deep will this journey take me?
How much will it change me?
How... How long can this marriage last?
Listen to Close Other Tabs to find out.
The liberals are destroying California and conservative humor gone awry.
Conservative humor gone awry is going to fascist-phonia today.
So stay tuned.
We're going to take a few pictures of the desert and how their policies are actually messing it up.
It's not beautiful when you go across that border.
Stay tuned guys.
We'll show you exactly what it looks like.
We'll show you exactly what it looks like.
We'll show you what it looks like.
All very remarkable stuff.
Stay tuned.
All right.
I'm Alexander Edward, and this is Minion Death Combat.
And because I can't say I am Minion Death Cult, because that's not correct, but Tony's not here right now.
He's okay.
He just, he didn't make it to the show today.
So I have to say this, this is Minion Death, or I could say we, the royal we.
You, all the listeners and the guests today, honorary members of Minion, you've been, Upgraded from commandos to, like, leadership members of the cult.
Uh, what a good episode we got for you today.
Happy Labor Day!
I'm sorry if you're listening to this on Labor Day, because it probably means you're working.
Uh, so, my heart goes out to you if you have to work on Labor Day.
Again, like, wow, cool, we got a holiday.
Now let's get everybody off.
You know, let's do, let's do just a general holiday.
Like, maybe people get too scared by the word strike.
We could just call it a general holiday on Labor Day.
We got a we got a bonanza for everybody today with labor stuff, because I have a couple amazing guests here.
We have Jake and Adam from the Valley Labor Report YouTube podcast.
Thank you so much for joining me, guys.
Thanks for having us.
We're looking forward to it.
Enjoyed having you on the other day.
And so so looking forward to hanging out over here.
Yeah, absolutely.
I'm glad to be, like, upgraded in a cult.
I've longed, like, longed to be in a cult, but, you know, in leadership capacities.
And so, yeah, that feels good.
Yeah, for sure.
Unfortunately, I think it might, like, delude the power.
If everybody's in power, then we can't, like, exploit people beneath us in the hierarchy.
Well, now that I'm here, we can keep shrinking.
Well, yeah, well, I thought we could start erasing people, like, stop.
Yeah.
Okay, okay, cool.
Some of those folks actually weren't in leadership.
You misremembered.
Fair enough.
Yeah.
What was that?
Sorry.
We have a new path now.
A shining path.
Yeah, thanks so much for coming on, guys.
I know we got listeners who are fans of yours.
They've been yelling at us to do the Valley Labor Report to get you guys on the show.
You guys do a great program over there.
I went on there to talk about how I got fired and then my union, the Teamsters, helped get me my job back, you know, and what was kind of decided to be a, you know, a wrongful termination of sorts.
And that That's up on their YouTube page.
You can, we'll put the link in this episode's description if you haven't heard that.
Um, and on that episode, on that, uh, appearance, you know, we kind of talked about Minion Death Cult for a minute.
Um, and wouldn't you know it?
Like a day after it was posted, We got ourselves a good YouTube comment on the upload.
This was pretty fantastic.
Let me put it up for you guys here.
JayDigger, is this a subscriber?
Do you know JayDigger4130, fellas?
He's the guy that said the railroader should buy a rail company.
Just start their own railroad if they wanted workers' rights.
If they wanted more than two days off a year, they need to start their own railroad.
But I know that if you're to start your own railroad, if you're going to be the CEO of a railroad, you don't get a single day off.
You just work your fingers to the grindstone.
That is the most dangerous position with regards to railroading.
People think it's working outside near the physical train.
No, it's being in the office 24-7, sleeping on your couch, killing yourself because your life is devoid of meaning.
That is the real danger when it comes to this kind of work.
So I don't know.
It kind of seems like he's wishing a death sentence on those railroad workers, telling them to start their own railroad.
So this is like a star.
We used to call these, in the old days, we used to call these Blue Star Boys because In the Facebook or sorry, in the Fox News comments before everybody shifted over to discus or whatever, like the third party comment section areas, Facebook's comments, they showed a blue star next to the power posters, should a blue star next to people had like thousands of comments.
And so those were always a joy to read, just the professional Fox News comment section posters.
So, yeah, we get something from this guy like once a week.
Hell yeah.
Yeah, something something of a power poster.
Yeah.
I mean, they're really kind of they're really kind of necessary.
You know, there is kind of like a sure dialectic relationship between between us.
No.
Yeah.
I mean, if Jay Digger listens to this, you know, I appreciate your viewership and I hope you continue listening.
So, Jay Diggers said this about me, because this was the interview I did with you guys.
Seems like an interesting fellow.
With that said...
And so I'm going to stop right here, because with that said, typically implies like, well, now I'm going to insult him, right?
It's like with all due respect.
Right.
But I kind of object to the idea that being an interesting fellow is that much of a compliment to begin with.
Like it already seems like a kind of a smarmy insult.
You're saying he didn't do enough of the legwork to be able to use that phrase.
You got to build me up a little, a little bit and then tear me down.
For sure.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
I agree.
Interesting fellow.
You know, he, he didn't quite want to give a compliment, obviously.
With that said, why would you want a job with a company that does not want you to be employed with them?
That is true.
If my boss doesn't love me, why am I even working there, right?
That's why we all go to work, right?
To make friends.
To make friends specifically with our boss and management.
That's like typically, you know, that's kind of the archetypal reason for getting a job is so that you can be friends with management.
Absolutely.
I mean, that's like... Go ahead.
No, I mean why why I'm just you know, I'm struggling to think why would you want a job?
Yeah, I Don't know like why would you want a job and then they don't want you there?
Hmm what might compel you to keep going Colin?
I don't know maybe because you're an interesting fellow but Yeah, you can keep on chewing on that let's keep yeah, I want to hear the rest of this I why would I would just say I In your boss, Jay Digger, unless you are a small business owner, then you already know what I'm about to say.
Your boss does not want you there, period.
Your boss would replace you with a microchip if he could, okay?
That's like you're fighting a losing battle here if you're trying to get your boss to like you.
I mean, you know, I understand if you don't have a union, your boss kind of has to like you, but that should be the goal, you know?
Okay, I do not get it.
There are so many jobs out there here on the West Coast.
Okay?
Progressive discipline is hilarious.
Okay?
Does he think that means that progressive discipline means like woke discipline?
I hope so.
I hope that's what it is, yeah.
Oh, man.
Maybe.
I didn't even think about that.
I had been...
Ever since you sent this comment to me, Alexander, I have been chewing on this line, progressive discipline is hilarious.
And I didn't understand what he meant.
I just thought he meant the concept that, like, the first time you do something, you don't get, like, executed.
I just thought, I thought that's what he meant, but actually, I think you're right, that he means, he thinks we mean woke discipline.
Like, the first time you get called into the office, it's just to talk with.
The second time you get called in, you're non-binary.
Now, third time, you're the opposite gender.
Now, they just take it away.
They give you a different one.
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
Or, yeah, or it's just like progressive discipline is you just, like, you talk it out, you know?
They're not allowed to fire you ever.
They have to just, like, say they're disappointed in you.
Well, you know, that's what folks think about unions.
If there's a union there, oh, you know you cannot fire a terrible worker.
Doesn't matter how awful they are, how lazy they are, they can show up late, they cannot show up.
If there's a union there, oh, you can't fire them.
There are so many folks who believe that.
I was like, damn, that is a lot of power.
That is a lot of power.
It would be nice.
A lot of power that management apparently agreed to when they signed the contract.
They just willingly gave us the power to run their enterprises.
It's pretty astounding, really, when you think about it.
And also, I'm sure there would never be a terrible worker at a non-union workplace.
It gets away with it, right?
We've never known that to ever happen, where someone lazy or someone incompetent somehow doesn't get fired.
I'm just going to tell everybody, right?
It's either nepotism or equality.
Like that's, it's going to be nepotism of any kind possible.
Uh, if you don't have like, it's just, sorry, that's just the fairest way to do it.
Seniority, a process, yada, yada, yada.
And I'm here to tell you folks, they can even fire, even if your union's strong, they can even fire you if you're a great worker.
Uh, ask me, ask me how I know folks, right?
They can fire you if you're just the best in the world.
Uh, So, yeah, don't believe this shit.
Seems like the kind of guy you see at a bar and smile.
I don't, I don't, there's more to that sentence, but it doesn't, it doesn't become more clear what that first part means.
Seems like the kind of guy you see at a bar and smile.
Is this guy British or something?
I think he has a crush on you.
I'm flattered.
All right.
I would, I would smile back.
I would, I would, I would give you a head nod and be like, what's up, dude?
Seems like the kind of guy you see at a bar and smile, but as a coworker, he comes off as a fella that should be self-employed.
That's a low blow, isn't it?
I don't know, man.
No, I think he means that like this, he's continuing his explanation of his crush.
He is he wants to smile at him at a bar because he recognizes that if he were to work with you, he would see your diligence and ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit.
That makes sense.
So, okay, that's really complimentary.
That's a very nice way to read it, because the very next sentence, he's talking about killing me.
Because the next sentence goes, quote, kind of like a cultural item.
That's me referring to the keffiyeh I was wearing when I got fired.
And then he goes, okay, my fellow colonists look forward to helping him see the 70 virgins they're promised.
Uh, so not British, I guess.
Proud, proud American colonist, uh, threatening to murder me for wearing a scarf.
See, that's the problem is, is these you, with these unions, you can't murder your employees anymore.
Yeah.
You can't, you, you, you should be able to, as a man, as management, you should be able to like carry around a saber, dip it in pork fat and stab whoever you want.
Yeah.
No, for sure.
I'm picking up a lot of sexual tension here.
I think he's kind of confused about how he feels about you.
He says you're an interesting fellow, and then he says something like, not getting it.
Then he says you're really entrepreneurial and diligent, and then he threatens to kill you.
He has some feelings about you.
I don't know if it's the mustache or what's going on here.
Classic queer romance.
I'm consumed by you.
I need to eat you.
Uh, yeah.
So that's, I dunno.
Yeah.
And so, uh, I asked you guys on the show if, and apparently, you know, this guy, this, but like I asked, I asked you guys when we were kind of talking about, uh, Minion did the podcast and I said, you guys must get some insane comments and you were so kind as, as to oblige me.
And so, yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna go through some of your favorite comments that you've gotten on the Valley Labor Report, YouTube.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We've got like 30 here.
I don't know if we'll be able to get through all of them.
Just from the last like eight weeks, I think.
Amazing.
And keep them coming, y'all.
Yeah.
I meant it.
I meant it when I gave that message to JDigger4130.
I hope you continue listening and we appreciate you.
Let's see.
Neither of you two sound like you have an Alabama accent.
That's fine.
I don't know if I agree with that.
That might be the most I've ever disagreed with one of our YouTube comments.
One of our bad comments.
Because I'm from Mississippi, that's why.
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, no, Tony's not here, but we're both West Coast boys, and so we have to defer all talk of regional accents to you guys.
That's your lane.
We don't steer it.
We know what California sounds like, but that's about it.
Sure, sure.
Yeah, I can just introduce the show, and we can just keep doing that for your comments, if you want.
Do what?
Have you just read some of your favorites?
You know, a couple of your favorites when we get to that section, you know, like what just happened, what just happened was good.
So we can log that one.
I'll edit that one in.
But yeah, any other ones?
So the structure was going to be, you know, I was going to introduce the show, introduce you guys, plug the, you know, the appearance I did on the show.
And we'll put that link in this episode's description.
And then I'll read the one comment that I got from that, and then we'll go to you guys with your comments after that.
Uh, then I wanted to talk about, uh, the Teamsters and NLRB decisions, both of them.
Uh, there might even be more coming down the line.
Uh, I'm sure you guys have talked about that, but they're pretty, pretty cool.
Pretty exciting.
Yeah.
Um, and then I want to talk about a like argument I got in with another Teamster online specifically about like Trump and the NLRB.
I think I saw that.
Yeah, really brief, you know, really brief stuff, but I just think it's it's interesting.
And then I got a story about the new legislation in Australia that gives employees the right to refuse to engage with their boss outside of work hours.
I don't know if you saw that.
No, I didn't see that.
Yeah, you know, I'm not sure how toothless it is, but it is cool.
And you know, I got some funny backlash to that.
And then if we have time, I saw this.
Insane application that this restaurant was making people fill out if they wanted to work there.
And they were called, they're called the Union Grill.
So.
Oh God.
That's a lot of stuff.
Probably won't get to all of it.
Cause again, I just want to do like an hour 15 or whatever.
So that last segment might get cut off or whatever.
And for your guys' comments, just like two more, maybe.
Okay.
If that's cool.
We can take some time, too, if you want to look through them right now.
Yeah, let's take just a second.
Get a real job, Commie.
That's probably what you need.
Short and sweet.
Union, that's funny.
Get rid of unions entirely.
Yeah, decimating them down to like, what, 12% of the population isn't enough.
Unions are still so strong, you can't let them control even 8% of the private sector or whatever they control.
You need to obliterate them entirely and that's when we'll have the capitalist utopia.
Here's one that's really good that we'll definitely have to talk about.
The UAW was founded on its support for Israel.
That's why they did the sit-down strike in 1937.
They were ahead of the curve on that.
Well, I mean, clearly they studied the Bible, and they knew what would happen.
They knew what that area of the world was for.
For sure.
Here's a good one.
We did a segment on, like, the rail labor stuff.
I listened, and I will just say that he should buy a railroad and run it!
Absolutely!
Start your own railroad!
We've been saying this for years.
Start your own railroad.
What right do you have to complain?
Again, this is like standpoint theory.
Have you ever been a railroad tycoon?
Have you ever worn a waistcoat, sir?
Do not speak to me on this.
That's, that's, no, no.
We need to keep talking about that.
That's so, that's so funny.
Like, do you think he really believes that?
Do you think he really believes that, like, you can just start a railroad?
And you used to be able to.
That's the thing, is this is outdated.
You used to be able to.
Now, with all the red tape, it's impossible.
It's impossible.
Do you know how many permits you got to get to start a railroad now?
Yeah, it's too much.
That's what's keeping the working class down, is that there are too many permits to start railroads.
That's the problem.
But yeah, I do think he's serious because this guy in particular is a frequent commenter, and that's like, he's just always saying shit like that.
He's always like, anytime we'll have some... I don't know why he keeps watching, frankly, but he does.
He watches regularly.
And, you know, we'll be talking to somebody, you know, like on the rails.
Why don't you just buy one of the railroads?
Or talking about somebody, you know, during the AT&T strike.
Why don't you just run a telecommunications giant?
Why don't you just do that?
No, it makes sense.
It's like Americans are like individualists to the atomic level.
Everybody should have a gun, right?
That's the only way we'll all be safe.
Everybody should also have their own business.
Everybody should have their own railroad business, cell phone business.
And then we all just charge each other ...to talk or charge each other to visit, you know?
That's the only way to have a polite society.
For sure.
Here's a good one.
We did a segment on AMLO's successor winning in Mexico and talking about how she has some cool stuff that she wants to do for workers.
And here, Richard Ramirez-FF7TD said, I am sure she'll do it, but it come with feminism and gay agenda.
Yeah.
She'll toss the people some money, but at the cost of their morality.
So, you know, I mean, you really got to weigh these things.
I mean, it's I that's like true.
That's that's true.
And it's good.
You know, like that's that's the way a coalition works.
All right.
I'm sorry.
Not all of it's going to be for you.
So, you know, you might not be part of the gay agenda, but there you're there.
They're there.
You gotta work with them, you know?
Oh, here's a good one.
Here's a good one.
We have to, for sure, have to talk about this one.
We did a segment about, some nurses went on strike, and the hospital sued them, and won, and so the union has to pay like six million dollars to the hospital.
What's it for, like sabotage or something?
What did they actually get charged with?
No, it wasn't even for sabotage, it was for, I can't remember, but no, they didn't sabotage, it was just because they didn't work.
Wow.
Which is crazy, but here from Kirk Johnson 6638, All unions should be sued for reparations for oppressing non-union workers, extorting corporations and limiting consumer options, resulting in higher prices and lower quality goods with one thumbs up.
Wow.
Wow.
There's he's got at least one other person out there for him.
We're not sure if it's him.
I mean, we can't see who did the thumbs up.
You can like your own comments on YouTube.
Right.
Oh, yeah, that's true.
It should be like it should be the same as when the author likes it.
You know, you get a special heart, but it should be like a special like stink lines.
You know, if it's your own like, it should be like a highlighted like.
That's sued, sued for reparation.
Yeah.
So he's talking about like having to pay union dues, even though you.
No, no, no, no.
He's talking.
He said the unions should be sued for oppressing non-union workers.
Right.
So they're so awful.
We owe everyone.
We owe everybody.
All 10 percent of us in the U.S.
We owe the other nine percent.
Do you think this guy knows what prevailing wage is?
Unions have done immeasurable amounts of good for the entire workforce, not just union members.
And we can keep working on that, frankly.
Right.
But we also make more than non-union workers, so that's oppression of non-union workers.
And we're the reason that they make less.
That would be his assertion.
Right, but like literally, if you're in a good state, you make fucking prevailing wage, even if you're not union.
If you're hired for a union set, because that's the whole thing is like, you don't want underpaid workers to undercut what you're making, what your wage is.
And it's the same argument for immigrant, you know, against supposed argument against immigration or illegal immigrants.
Or whatever.
It's like if you have unions, if you have labor representation at your job, all those other arguments go out the window.
They can't hire a scab for half your pay.
They can't hire an undocumented worker for half your pay.
Everybody just makes the same because we all have the same rights.
You know, that's the goal.
Yeah.
People don't understand that.
Even Building Trades union members in Alabama don't understand that.
I remember one of the stations that we were on is a conservative radio station, and so I listened to it sometimes at the detriment of my own health.
There was this guy who called in to one of these right-wing radio programs who was a member of the Laborers International Union of North America.
He works at a nuclear facility in the area.
He was talking about how Something about how great his union was, and that's why he doesn't need to vote Democrat, because we have prevailing wage.
So cool.
Because it's a federal worksite.
We don't have prevailing wage in Alabama anymore, but he has it because he's on a federal worksite and he doesn't, you know, I mean, he doesn't understand.
He doesn't understand.
Amazing.
Yeah, I had I had people in The Teamsters Facebook group arguing with me.
And these could, these could be spooks.
These could be CIA agents designed to get me mad at my fellow Teamsters instead of, you know, organizing properly and engaging charitably with them.
So I keep that in the back of my mind at all times.
And you should too.
If you're any sort of, you know, online union worker, which I'm assuming a lot of you are, if you're listening to, you know, your guys, your guys' audience and our audience.
Resist the urge.
Resist the urge to get mad and start name-calling who could be, you know, one of your union brothers or sisters, even if they're an asshole, you know?
And it's, I don't know.
Yeah.
It's hard to do this shit online anyway, so who knows if any of it matters at all, but, and now I'm trying to remember what this specific argument, oh yeah, it was a whole, like, I don't know.
It was some, some anti-Trump post or some like pro-Tim Walz post in posts in one of the Facebook groups.
And like the top rated comment was like, you know, it was like the post about how great the Kamala Harris administration would supposedly be for unions.
The top comment was like, some things are more important than my union rights.
And I was just like what like fucking litter boxes in your son's bat in your son's school bathroom That's that's more important than then your mortgage you dumbass No, but people actually do believe that.
Like, so I grew up as God.
Yes, that's true.
That's people do believe that.
You know, I grew up in a very religious family, not you know, they were conservative, but they were not political.
Right.
And they actually, as a principle, didn't vote because they didn't want to be in the jury pool because they didn't feel like they could be on a jury.
Right.
So they didn't vote.
And and so During 2016, that's when I got politicized.
I was talking to members of my family, and I was able to get them on, like, yeah, probably everybody should have health care.
Bernie Sanders, that makes sense.
$15 an hour, that seems reasonable.
Free college, that probably would be a good thing if we did that.
It seems like other countries do that, and everything works fine.
Basically, all of the Bernie economic agenda, I was able to get my religious, Pentecostal-type family, a couple of them, on board.
But even granting that, if they would have voted, which they didn't in 2016, they would not have voted for Bernie because he supports and supported gay marriage and abortion.
And they couldn't because they felt like they feel more convicted about these social issues than they do about like making sure that, you know, like you said, they can pay the mortgage.
And it's just just bonkers to me, because even it just seems to me like even if, you know, abortion, I guess, is one thing, because they literally think it's actually murder, which is kind of difficult to grok.
But, you know, they believe that.
But the gay marriage thing, like you even mentioning that, you know, Even if you disagree with it, just don't get gay married, like I don't understand.
It's weird, but people believe it, and they vote that way.
It's bonkers.
That's the thing is like, so you saying that I use my lizard brain a lot of the time from like doing this show and, you know, being poisoned by the internet and all that.
So I, so I, I hear you say this and it's, it, you know, it sounds not obvious, but it sounds like, yeah, that's definitely happening in a lot of places.
They might be economically progressive, but socially conservative or whatever.
And in the lizard part of my brain, I'm imagining these like opportunists jumping on this and saying, we have to jettison gay people.
We have to jettison abortion rights.
And they do.
There are there are people like this and they pretend to be on the left or whatever.
It is not.
Like, those are such important issues that can't be jettisoned.
Like, those are fundamental rights, and they weren't always such a big deal.
There's another option than throwing women and people with uteruses and gay people, queer people under the bus, and it's fight for them and make and, you know, reverse this insane tide that's been rising against them.
It happened.
It can also be undone.
And I think it is being I think people are fucking speaking up about this shit a lot more forcefully than they have been in, you know, the last 10 years or so.
And it's, you know, it's about time.
Oh, yeah.
Well, and, you know, you also have to think about that if you jettison these groups, then you don't just magically get to retain their votes and retain them as coalition members while jettisoning everything that they care about.
Yeah, you can't.
You can't jettison them.
Exactly.
So, I mean, yeah, you just, you know, you know, you kind of said it jokingly, like, you know, LGBT people are part of our coalition.
So, like, we have to, you know, but we do, we have to include the gay agenda.
Otherwise, we lose them as coalition partners just on, like, real politique.
Like, even if you You don't care about people having freedom and liberty and things like this.
Just as a real politique, if we want rights and improvements in the material conditions for working people, we have to make coalition partners.
And it's going to be much easier to make coalition partners of other marginalized groups, LGBT folks, immigrants, and people like this than it would be to make coalition partners with small business owners and big business owners.
It's so funny, yeah.
Go ahead.
Yeah.
No, that's it.
That's that's the thing.
Yeah.
And I also just wanted to say that, like, people forget that queer folks are workers.
Yep.
Right.
Black folks are like, you know, like the working class is the most diverse class.
Like, definitionally, we we are the most diverse working class folks are.
And so, you know, that's always weird when people try to, you know, separate those identities that way.
Because at the end of the day, all these marginalized folks are, for the most part, working people and are experiencing working people issues.
And so, yeah, it's up to us to present solidarity instead of bigotry as the option for moving forward.
That's how we move forward, is fighting for each other, having each other's backs.
Because it's the same assholes who are coming for all of us.
Like the Alabama legislature, it was remarkable.
How like every group this year they targeted including unions, right?
And so that was a conversation that I had with some, you know, white maybe more conservative leaning union workers was you do realize like they're coming for you.
They're also coming for those trans folks.
They're also coming for the black folks.
They're coming for all of us.
It's the same assholes who are coming for us.
Disconnect the dots here.
You better get over it.
Right.
Honestly, like you better get over it.
If you're if you feel icky about any of these groups fucking man up like it's it's really it's really stupid, you know, because yeah, like and you said real politic and that's yeah, that is that is what it is.
But it's also just like scientific.
It's also just like these are the workers.
These these this is like.
Who we are as a class and also like, I mean, not to sound like, I don't know, fetishizing or tokenizing or whatever.
Queer and black and brown people are fucking organizing.
They are, they are doing this, this work, you know?
And so it's, it's insane.
It's like such a bad faith argument.
when I see these like post left arguments or whatever, cultural conservative labor stuff, it makes no sense.
And it's either coming from a place of insane bigotry or obvious like conniving, obviously trying to do some damage to the labor movement.
Okay, so all the- - I think, I mean- No, a lot of that is, yeah, it's for sure.
It just doesn't make any sense.
And I do think there are people who want to try to put a jacket over their bigotry and like, I feel weird when men hold hands.
And so now I'm going to make it my whole political identity that we have to jettison these people.
Right.
So that I can have higher wages.
And it just doesn't, you know.
You don't have to understand everybody's situation.
Right.
I mean.
I don't.
I don't understand.
Like, I'm just a regular dude.
Just a regular old.
Just completely normal.
We're all normal.
And never, never taken any, like, gender studies classes or anything like that.
So, I mean, I don't have to understand everybody's situation to know they got rights.
Right.
And they should be treated with respect.
And, you know, an injury to one is an injury to all.
So, like, I think, yeah, you just have to get past anything that you don't understand and just recognize we're all going through our own shit.
We're all just out here trying to struggle to survive the best we can.
Let's help each other out with that.
Yeah, absolutely.
I also I think it goes both ways.
I think, you know, the left or, you know, more like self-aware workers Should be willing to, like, engage with, you know, culturally conservative or people who voted wrong in the past or whatever.
You know, we have to.
I mean, we already do because we work with these people.
We already talk to them every day.
You know, you have to treat like these people, you know, your co-workers in general with a modicum of respect, you know, and just be just as a feature of a functioning relationship.
And that's not to say you tolerate Slurs or you tolerate bigotry or anything like that But right you have to be able to like work across these lines and meet people where they are Etc and maybe you know, maybe you're you can't fucking stomach that because and I'm not even saying that in a judgmental way I just mean maybe you don't have the fucking time or energy to Yeah, and there are people out there like that.
You know, I just, I just tweeted, I was just talking to Adam about this before we went live.
kind of energy.
I think that that can be a valuable conversation.
You know, these can be valuable conversations to have.
Yeah.
And there are people out there like that.
You know, I just, I, I just tweeted, I was just talking to Adam about this before we went live.
Um, you know, I'm the, I'm the president of the labor council in North Alabama.
And we had, um, we, we put out a, um, uh, an article on our Facebook page about the new poll showing the unions are more popular than we've been in 60 years, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And there's this guy who commented on the Facebook page, solidarity with a, you know, with a, uh, uh, you know, strong arm, uh, and his Facebook picture, uh, profile picture was, is a Confederate flag.
Wow.
I, I was going to guess it was the Trump assassination photo.
That's usually the one I see.
But yeah, Confederate flag, great.
Good shit.
Sorry, go ahead.
I think you were about to say to use a Confederate flag on a pro union post is kind of ironic.
But I was going to ask, did he use the white flesh colored flexing arm or was it the yellow?
Which one was it?
He used the white one.
Yeah.
See, okay, so yeah, that he's being color brave.
All right, that's what we've decided.
That's what Starbucks calls it.
And, and that's what we call it on the show.
I think it's cowardly.
If you're a white guy to try and hide your privilege with the yellow, use the yellow emoji.
But if it's a Confederate guy, well, maybe he's probably doing it for different reasons.
Maybe he's a little too little too proud, perhaps.
Yeah, yeah, I think he specifically found that one, I'm guessing.
He's looked for it before, is my guess.
Oh, man.
But yeah, so I, um... But, you know, obviously, like, you know, you were just talking about, like, we talk to people like this, I know people like this, but I tweeted that the median voter is indecipherable, because that's, it's a bit, it's funny, right?
And just some effing guy who's like, just drive-bys me on Twitter.
It's spoken like somebody who's never volunteered for a political campaign.
If you were really serious about your organizing work, you would know this.
If you had any real dedication to your organizing, maybe this wouldn't be a mystery.
And it's like, who the hell are you?
What's going on here?
What?
I don't know.
Is this like a Democratic operative who's whining about how racist union members are?
Like, I don't.
I'm trying to.
I also love the implication that if you were a real organizer, you would go door knock for a presidential candidate.
Right?
For sure, for sure.
Yeah, it was weird.
I don't know.
I'm not totally sure.
The thing that I got was that he was thinking that, like, I'm a big lib who hates socially conservative people.
Maybe this is like one of those post-left guys, right?
Maybe.
Right, yeah.
Cause he's saying like, I don't under, you know, he's saying that if I had any dedication, I would understand this dynamic.
Uh, and you know, I mean, maybe he just doesn't understand a joke.
It's what I'm thinking.
That's part of it.
But, uh, where they're coming from is a mystery.
It's yeah.
It's wild.
The post left thing.
Oh, right guy.
So, you know, I don't know.
It's unclear where he's coming from.
Yeah.
I think he's, he's talking about the racist white working class that everybody was talking about in 2016.
2020 and all that.
That's probably what he's implying.
I don't know.
Yeah.
Like, like you've never met a conservative union guy in your, in your career.
You know, it's just funny.
Sorry.
Union Jake.
Like you, you really think I'm totally, I can't, like, I literally can't decipher this, this voter here.
Like, you know, obviously I fucking can't.
Well, it's like you were talking about earlier, in our unions.
Especially if you're a unionist, you have to be able to talk to different kinds of people.
Our workplaces are diverse.
We don't pick our co-workers, necessarily.
And if you're a unionist in the South, you damn sure have to be able to talk to people, especially being leftist.
I can't just only talk to people who agree with me.
It won't be a very big conversation.
We're not going to get a lot done.
So like coalition building and being able to interact with folks and try to have good faith dialogue with people.
And like you said earlier, try to build relationships with people because that can make a difference.
It really can.
And that's why I don't understand why people spend so much time on social media arguing with people as their politics.
But I guess that just makes sense in America, where everything is just a form of your consumption.
And so, politics is like, yeah, the media you consume and the bullshit you express online in reaction to that consumption.
Well, it also means I can organize.
It means I can organize while watching Curb Your Enthusiasm.
If I do it online.
Right.
Yes.
I've heard that that's like part of the strategy.
You know, if you if you're watching HBO Max, you're maxing out your numbers.
That's a good slogan.
That's what I've heard.
It all amounts to nothing if together we don't stand.
There is power in our union.
Now the lessons of the past were all learned with workers' blood.
The stakes of the bosses we must pay for.
From the cities and the farmlands to trenches full of mud.
Wars who has been the bosses?
Why, sir?
The Union forever!
You know, it is very frustrating.
And also I see in Alabama, the wild thing is how many people focus on presidential politics, like exclusively, knowing that our state hasn't been a competitive state in a presidential election since what, George Wallace?
That's why posting is so important because you reach people in other states.
Exactly.
That's true.
That's why the Democrats in Alabama keep posting so that their friends in Georgia will see it.
Right.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
Yeah.
I just love that because, you know, it's all hinging on that Facebook post.
Absolutely.
So this is an argument I got into with a guy at a Teamsters Facebook group, and it was over this image, which is so sick.
You guys have probably seen this logo.
So like the Teamsters logo is like horse driving, you know, cargo carrier kind of stuff.
But A lot of the graphics have changed the horses into, like, undead steeds of the Grim Reaper, which is super sick.
Probably a tattoo I'll get at some point, I'm just gonna say.
And I think there's a local Who has a semi-trailer and their graphic has like the Grim Reaper's horse, you know, and it's just like red eyes snorting smoke.
It's so fucking sick.
Yeah.
And so when this guy saw this image, his first response was, thank God we are endorsing Trump.
Uh, and as Teamsters, you know, uh, our president was at the RNC, uh, complimenting Trump a lot.
So that might have people confused as to whether we're endorsing him or not.
Uh, we, we have not endorsed him and I'll be really embarrassed If we do, but I mean, you know, the choices aren't aren't that great in general, so I'm not going to spend too much time fretting about it like we were talking about earlier.
I try not to talk about presidential politics with my coworkers or with people.
I'm trying to like do a class pill at all because it's just it's such a distraction.
It's such a culture war.
It's such nonsense and I the only time I do it is when other people kind of bring it up and Right.
So when he says, you know, thank God we're endorsing Trump.
And I was just like, yeah, I'm excited for him to gut the NLRB again so that we can't organize Amazon.
It's going to be great.
And this dude comes back with that's not true.
It's like, OK, well, he already did it, man.
It already it already happened in 2017 in 2016.
Really wild.
And he says his explanation, he like goes on to say the National Labor Relations Board oversees unions.
It's where you go when your union isn't representing you properly.
Under like a Republican administration.
Yes, that is where you go when you want to dismantle your own union because you're fucking stupid.
Like this is insane.
Does this guy know what he's saying?
Or is he just like regurgitating the propaganda that he's seen about?
About how unions are, you know, they only serve themselves.
And you know, I had there's like a bunch of what fucking John Stossel clips there that date back 20 years that are like unions put this mother in hot water when she had to pay $20 a week for her dues or whatever.
I was about to say that that is one of the functions of the National Labor Relations Board.
You might file a failure to represent, but would you file that with the National Labor Relations Board or would you file that with the Office of Labor Management?
Something OLMS or the Department of Labor.
Would you actually file that with the NLRB?
I'm not sure.
Yeah I don't know and listen I know a lot of unions aren't perfect and a lot of unions don't Represent their their members to the best of their ability I'm not saying nobody could ever have a problem with their union But like in my mind the NLRB is a force for workers and that just includes making your bad union Do its fucking job like
I don't see that as any conflict with what I had already said, but it seems like, I don't know, that these guys on the cultural right or the even economic right, question mark, I don't know, That's how they view the NLRB is like purely to protect members from the unions themselves Very weird because I don't really hear the NLRB talked about in that respect, but it makes for a compelling like right-wing populist
Thing like something that Josh Hawley would say or something that Ted Cruz would say or whatever.
And so I just, I sent him all these links.
I actually fucking like went out and I was like, and I didn't even use bias language in the searches.
I was just like, show, show me the NLRB under Trump.
And it was just like four pages of articles about the fucking damage they've done to the, to the labor, you know?
And not only that, Like specifically with these NLRB rulings that we're about to talk about, the one in Staten Island that ruled in favor of the Amazon Labor Union, who is affiliated with the Teamsters, the lone dissenter was a Republican NLRB appointment appointed by Trump in 2017.
It's this guy, Marvin Kaplan, who dissented.
He wrote the whole dissent.
And in June 2017, President Donald Trump nominated Kaplan to be a member of the NLRB for a term expiring on August 27, 2020.
He was confirmed by the Senate by a vote of 50-48 on March 2, 2020.
Trump announced that he would re-nominate Kaplan for a second five-year term expiring in 2025.
So he fucking did it twice.
He put this guy on the board twice along with the other Republicans and also held seats vacant, didn't fill seats.
A lot of things to sabotage one of the only state organs For labor power, really, unfortunately, Republicans, Republicans have still been doing that with federal employees.
You know, the National Labor Relations Board, National Labor Relations Board is the administrator for private sector labor law.
But there's another body for federal and federal labor relations authority only literally a month ago.
Have we filled the FLRA?
For basically the entire Biden administration, federal employees have been without a full FLRA.
So that means any subject on which the Republican and Democratic appointee would disagree, the cases have not been able to be completed.
And even though we have now finally filled that position with Ann Wagner, because Ernie Dubester was not able to be confirmed because the Republicans opposed his nomination, I think including Josh Hawley, the general counsel position, which is the Jennifer the general counsel position, which is the Jennifer Bruzzo equivalent, it's the same title, the Jennifer counsel position is still not filled because that, I believe, has to have a Senate confirmation as well.
And without the General Counsel, the FLRA is not able to issue injunctions against agencies.
So the FLRA might be able to find an agency in violation of the law, but they can't issue injunctions because they don't have a General Counsel, still.
Because of Republicans.
Wouldn't it be cool?
He has not said anything about this.
Donald Trump hasn't said anything about this.
And, you know, and Josh Hawley voted against voted against confirming Jennifer Abruzzo to the National Labor Relations Board, who we're going to talk about.
This decision, you know, is something that ostensibly he supports, but he did not support the woman who made it happen.
It's right.
I don't know.
Right.
Wouldn't it be cool if we had a labor leader like a national figure who had the ear of people like Josh Hawley or other conservative populist senators or even a presidential candidate or whatever and asked them to do these things publicly?
As just like, I don't know.
It's so funny.
Like I'd never believe that any of those guys are going to be on my side, but it would be fun watching them squirm.
It would be fun watching them have to like respond to this.
And then on the off chance they did like a Hail Mary and we're like, okay, sure we will.
Good.
Then I'm glad they did it.
I'm still not going to fucking vote for them, but like we, we pressured them into doing it.
Then good.
You know?
Exactly.
And that's happened before.
With the TVA, when we first started doing this radio program, there was an outsourcing fight at the TVA with the IT department.
Those workers were represented by IFPTE, the engineering association at the TVA.
It's a union.
TVA is the Tennessee Valley Authority.
Oh yeah, I guess y'all wouldn't know that.
The Tennessee Valley Authority, New Deal Program, Electrified, the Rural South, really important and really cool thing.
So they have an IT department and it had like 80 people and there was a move by the I think Trump appointed CEO of the TVA, which is still a federal government entity, still owned by the federal government, but it does have a CEO.
There was a move by the CEO at the time, back in 2020, to try to outsource a lot of this work.
And the union appealed to the Trump administration and all this kind of stuff to try to get them to not do it.
And Jeff Sessions actually spoke at a rally hosted by the union, which is very, very funny.
I remember that.
I remember that.
Yeah.
Yeah, and you know, the right-wingers kind of did like a little bit of xenophobia and, you know, it wasn't great, but the union was very clear on their messaging that it wasn't about bigotry, it was about protecting jobs and good wages and working conditions and things like that.
And they won!
And the Trump administration stopped the outsourcing of these 80 jobs.
From Chattanooga and Huntsville.
So, you know, it's cool, but it shows you what?
Yeah, it doesn't mean like, I don't know.
It doesn't mean Trump's good.
It just means we we made him do what we wanted, you know, like, yeah, it's just it's backing up your point that it would be cool if we had a labor leader who had the ear of Josh Hawley and these types of people on, you know, these sorts of issues that that would be cool.
Yeah, and again, I don't want to be too disparaging of my Teamsters president because I'm proud to be a Teamster.
I did vote for Sean O'Brien.
I think he could have been better than the alternative.
Doesn't mean I'm going to vote for him again.
It just makes me wonder, because it's like, when you go up there and flatter these guys, why?
Why are you flattering them?
You know?
It seems like all this stuff we're talking about are pretty big weaknesses for them.
It seems like you're just trying to be friends with them instead of make some material wins.
And I'm not...
Casting aspersions.
I'm just saying that's what it looks like from the outside.
I don't understand what this strategy is, unless it's to just appeal superficially to conservative union members.
That's like the most charitable explanation.
And understandable.
I get it.
You want to get reelected.
You got to appeal to the people who are going to vote for you or whatever.
I just don't see it as a successful strategy outside of that, you know?
So it's very, very frustrating to see.
Very, very funny to see him during the DNC on Neil Cavuto on Fox News.
I thought that was... He's gone on Neil Cavuto like three weeks in a row.
Have you seen that?
No, I haven't watched a single one.
I just think it's... I saw the thumbnail image of During the DNC.
Good job, dude.
You played that one well.
Congratulations.
Wow, you got to be on Neil Cavuto three times.
Cool, dude.
Yeah.
In a row.
Is he banking on the retired Teamsters vote?
I don't get it.
How many Teamsters watch Fox Business at 1pm?
Yeah, the 65 and over sect, you know, I guess that's right.
Right.
OK, but yeah, these are these these decisions we're talking about, though, are, I think, pretty phenomenal.
I mean, you guys probably know more about it than I did.
But, you know, especially the one in California.
And this is the only unionized Amazon driver crew, I think, in the nation, or at least the first one, let's keep it positive here, from Palmdale, California, who organized, even though they were technically employees of a third-party contractor that Amazon uses to do all this shipping, even if they have Amazon vans or whatever, the contractor, the business,
is renting the van from Amazon or whatever.
And it's and it's they're using the Amazon apps to organize the deliveries.
The drivers themselves have to be up to Amazon's standards.
They're like.
By all intents and purposes, managed, operated, disciplined by Amazon themselves, but But because of these like contract laws, they were just considered third party contractors.
I mean, people probably know.
All about this by now, but it's it's a way of companies getting avoiding paying certain, you know, weight, minimum wages, or it's a way of them taking on responsibilities for the maintaining their own fleet of vehicles or for getting insurance for those vehicles or getting, you know, people having people pass the sort of like D.O.T.
exams you need to drive.
It absolves the company of so much Responsibility and yet they you know, they keep all the gains from from the operation as well.
And so this decision What it what happened was is after the successful unionizing in Palmdale by these drivers Via the Teamsters.
I think it's Teamsters local 396 Yeah The Amazon, like, severed their contract with this third-party contractor, Battle Tested Services, is I think the name of the subcontractor.
That's so, that's so cool.
Everybody just, yeah, issued a Punisher skull patch for their, for their backpack or whatever.
But right out, yeah, Amazon canceled their contract.
And so This, I, like, the union was arguing several things, I believe, in this case.
They were arguing that it was like, you know, union busting for Amazon to cancel their contract with BTS.
But I don't think the NLRB found in favor of that specific argument, but they found in favor of the much broader argument that these employees of BTS were also employees of Amazon.
They were, it's like a joint employee situation.
And that is, that is groundbreaking.
That is, it is like canceling out these, these contract, you know, these independent contractor loopholes that have been put into, you know, state law by all these, you know, big business special interests.
Can, can you guys fill in any blanks I might, I might've left out?
I'm on the press list for the NLRB, so I have the email that they sent out with this.
This is from the NLRB directly, from their press secretary.
The regional director determined that Amazon and Battle-Tested Strategies, BTS, are joint employers.
Regarding the specific allegations, the regional director determined that the joint employers unlawfully failed and refused to bargain with the union over effects of the decision to terminate the BTS contract, eliminate or transfer unit work, and terminate all unionized employees.
Delayed start times by grounding vans and not preparing packages for loading and solicited grievances.
The Regional Director further determined that Amazon made unlawful threats, held captive audience meetings, and failed and refused to furnish relevant information to the Union.
The Regional Director did not find merit to the remaining allegations.
And the Regional Director will issue a complaint on the meritorious allegations unless a settlement is reached.
And so when you successfully unionize, there's a duty to bargain over any change in working conditions, right?
Even if you don't have a contract yet, just by virtue of...
Successfully winning a union election, you now, as the union, have the exclusive right to represent the employees, to represent yourselves in any change.
Any change in working conditions, any change from the status quo has to be negotiated and has to be negotiated in good faith.
I don't think specifically the NLRB would say it's illegal to terminate this contract, but Amazon did it without negotiating with the union over what it would mean to terminate the contract or if there was anything else going on.
And then, in the run-up to the termination of the contract, there were some other things like holding captive audience meetings, which Jennifer Abruzzo asserts is illegal.
and other unlawful threats.
And so that's basically like the specifics of the decision.
And yes, rolled up into that is that they found that Amazon is a joint employer of these delivery service providers, which are of these workers of the delivery service providers, which Amazon, as you rightfully pointed out, you know, specifically created as you rightfully pointed out, you know, specifically created this kind of fissured structure to get away from, to make it that much more difficult to unionize, right?
Because, you know, they're kind of theory and understanding.
Under a Republican NLRB, this would be able to be done without any sort of legal consequences.
The theory is that if one of these contractors unionizes, we'll just end their contract, which is what they did.
And, you know, under a conservative or Republican NLRB, they would say, that's fine, that's great.
And this one, Jennifer Abruzzo, says that's illegal, actually.
You're a joint employer and you have a responsibility to bargain with the union.
So, yeah, it's really important.
Josh Hawley claims that he supports this, but like I said, he did not vote to confirm Jennifer Abruzzo.
It'll be interesting to see if he votes to confirm her for another term, if she is re-nominated.
But it is absolutely a huge decision for the unionization of Amazon and so many of these other Fissured and franchised workplaces.
I have a couple.
Thank you for that clarification, by the way.
That's really important.
It's like they arrested you without reading your Miranda rights.
Exactly.
It doesn't necessarily mean like they didn't have cause or they weren't allowed to arrest you.
They just did it without you having representation, without even talking to you about it, which they have to if you've organized.
I have a couple of questions.
Can this ruling be taken to the Supreme Court?
I saw that argument being made that this was going to be overturned by a conservative Supreme Court.
I don't know at all how that process works.
If you could fill us in, that would be great.
Probably, yes.
I think, ultimately, it could be.
This is not, even yet, a board decision or a ruling.
There was some language that the Teamsters used that may have given the appearance of that.
The NLRB, in their statement to the press, did vaguely push back against some of the language at the Teamsters reunion.
They said, as a reminder, a merit determination, which is what this was, is not a, quote, board decision or ruling.
It is the first step in the NLRB's general counsel litigating the allegations after investigating an unfair labor practice charge.
If the parties don't settle, which Amazon could do, theoretically, with the Teamsters, although I don't imagine the Teamsters would want to settle unless Amazon just agreed to everything.
But it's conceivable that Amazon could offer a large enough sum of money that the drivers would want to take it.
I don't know.
But a settlement is a possibility.
If they don't settle, then the NLRB will issue a complaint.
After a complaint is issued, a hearing will be scheduled with an NLRB Administrative Law Judge, who can order make whole remedies.
The Administrative Law Judge's decision can then be appealed to the board, like the big board in D.C.
Can I just cut in real quick?
Make whole is terminology for repayment.
Like make whole means he that judge could order the company to pay restitute, you know, pay to make whole the workers that were fired and had money taken from them by virtue of them being not working for however many months they've been out of out of a job.
Yes.
And it's worth noting, while we're defining make whole, that Jennifer Abruzzo has expanded the definition of make whole.
Or she is trying to, at least.
I'm not sure where she is in the process of this.
But, you know, she is saying that any interest accrued on high-interest loans that you would not have had to take out if you had had your normal wage should also be paid back.
That's right.
Fuck yeah.
Exactly.
Whereas previously the definition, again under conservative NLRBs, was that it's only and exactly and no more than and most of the time not even the wages that you would have had but for your dismissal if you were dismissed from employment.
And they would take that, right?
So if I worked at McDonald's, I was fired for organizing, and then I got a job a week later and continued making money, the NLRB previously would have taken the total amount that I would have made if I kept working at McDonald's, and then subtracted the amount that I made in the interim from whatever other employment.
And so ultimately, if I got a better job after that, I would be left with zero dollars from the previous... Probably fucking make you pay McDonald's if it's a negative sum.
You owe us.
I'm sure Peter Robb would have loved that, which was Trump's appointee to the National Labor Relations Committee.
Okay, so we've defined make whole remedies.
The administrative law judge's decision can then be appealed to the National Labor Relations Board, the big board in D.C., which can then be appealed to a federal appeals court.
And then, obviously, once it gets into the federal court system, that could be theoretically appealed to the Supreme Court, and it would be on the Supreme Court to accept it or not.
So, yes, it is subject to review by the federal judiciary.
We will, we'll see.
I don't know.
It's such an insane argument.
Like look at, okay, so this is one of the pro, one of the pro, uh, independent contractor arguments I found in the Washington Post comment section.
Cause they all, they all fucking hate Amazon.
They're right, rightfully so, even if they're just libs, you know, uh, Bijals says we desperately need to move away from the contract work.
Employers don't want the responsibility for employees, but they want the work done.
Ding, ding, ding.
They need to suck it up and treat the people who work for them as employees.
That's part of being running a business is you have to, you have to acknowledge the, you, you want to have this paternalistic relationship to your employees, but you don't even want to fucking acknowledge their existence.
like they're a bastard love child or something.
You know what I mean?
You can't even get that part right.
And Willie Mays Hayes.
Wow.
That's what the fictional baseball player from Major League.
I have no idea.
Yeah, this guy.
Yeah, originally I think he was played by a man.
Who was it?
Was he played by Cuba Gooding Junior?
No, he was played by.
What's what's his name?
I'm blanking blade.
What's blades name?
Wesley Snipes.
Yeah, he was played by Wesley Snipes and then he was played by a different guy in the sequel.
Sorry, I'm just looking it up here.
Yeah.
Man, what a good movie.
Omar Epps.
He was played by Omar Epps in Major League Two.
Man, I haven't watched those movies in a while.
So yeah, just imagine that this is Wesley Snipes talking.
Willie Mays Hayes says, in other words, employers should assume the added costs of taking contractors in-house because social justice warriors think it's a good idea.
Sorry.
I haven't heard that one in a while.
Yeah, that's one thing that social justice warriors are always arguing about is, uh, independent contractors.
Um, like, yeah, no, it is.
It is a big organizing issue, but it's, it's funny to be like those fricking blue hair, you know, septum piercing, gender studies majors.
They always talk about labor law.
It's fucking annoying.
Yeah.
It's so it's so feminine.
It's so feminine to talk about labor law.
You know what I mean?
Talking about words and numbers and stuff like that.
Get a real job.
Sorry, but running a business includes keeping keeping down costs.
That's like that's not just running a business that's running capitalism, that's running the the economy itself, the way it is currently organized.
Is just about profiting, people getting a profit off of what we're doing.
We're familiar with this idea.
And this is, I like this argument because it's like, yeah, this is the logical, we're not even at the end point.
This is the logical trajectory of rapacious capitalism.
Everything is going to get weeded out.
We've seen it happen, but everything is going to get nibbled down to the nub by these fucking parasites unless we stop it, unless we make them stop.
Because, yeah, it is in their interest to pay you nothing.
It is in their interest to not let you live.
Essentially, they don't give a fuck about whether or not you can live.
You know what I mean?
So it's just like, yeah, we have different interests.
I agree with you, Willie Mays Hayes, but that's part of a business.
That's why I'm opposed to you, you know?
Right, right.
That's why we got to bring him to heel.
So don't expect me to pay more just to salve some anti-business activist's conscience.
This is the argument you could make for outsourcing.
Like, what does this guy think about outsourcing?
Child labor.
Yeah.
Slavery.
Slavery kept costs down, didn't it?
Yeah.
You know, this, that's where the argument leads you to.
And people might think I'm being hyperbolic, but it's like, no, that, you know, outside of human rights that we establish for ourselves, that's where it leads.
Right.
Just bottomless greed.
Yeah.
And of course, you know, and this guy's talking about, don't expect me to pay more.
Like he literally thinks he is entitled to the labor of somebody else at whatever price he thinks is fair, apparently.
He thinks the fair price is as low as it could possibly be for him as a consumer.
That's something that we really don't talk about enough with these business types, is their entitlement.
People like to say that, Two union folks.
They want to say that we're greedy, that we're entitled.
But really, the entitled people are the ones who think that they deserve to be able to profit from the labor of others.
That's some crazy entitlement.
People that think they're entitled to any kind of labor that they want at whatever price they think Make sense.
You know, this guy thinks he's entitled to get his Amazon delivery in two days in 48 hours.
I'm entitled to an Amazon delivery in 48 hours.
And no, the guy who does that shouldn't get paid like that's crazy.
We're going to say something, Adam.
No, I really do think it is bizarre.
The idea that your demand, your entitlement to lower prices, trumps other people's human rights.
I remember a couple years ago, we had someone call into our show, and they were complaining about immigration and the idea that bananas might cost a few cents more.
Wow.
Workers were paid living wages.
Wow.
That person really that person really missed their heyday.
Born in the wrong born in the wrong generation.
If you would like to see some fucking war crimes about bananas, boy, you missed out.
I guess there's always Wikipedia, you know.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Going down those rabbit holes.
1954 Guatemala, all that.
But yeah, it's it's wild.
Like, I would prefer, you know, to think, like, to just go through that process in your head, like, you know, I understand some people may get exploited or oppressed or even die, but my bananas didn't go up 15 cents.
I guess it's OK.
Yeah, it really is very mind-boggling.
What we talked about the whole time was this individualism that is so ingrained in people.
Individual consumption is your one form of expression in this country, I guess.
I guess it's natural.
people think about any given issue with, how does it affect the prices I pay for the shit I buy?
And how convenient that process is for me personally.
And yeah, there's a lot of folks who like, that seems to be kinda how things boil down to, like, how does it affect my personal consumption and how convenient that shit is for me personally.
There's also just this insane, like, appeal to authority that so many people have where they just take Amazon's word for it or any business owner's word for it that they can't afford to pay.
You're rich.
You're successful.
They wouldn't lie.
Like, they have to be smart or they wouldn't have made all this money.
I hear that all the damn time.
Yeah, they're smarter than you.
They're not stupid.
They're the rich one, you know.
They are smart.
They're smarter than you.
They've been successfully able to trick you.
Like, I agree.
I agree that they're smart, but you have to, like, look past what they're saying and think about motivations, you know, and it's the same.
It's conversely, again, lizard brain acting up here.
But I was just thinking about this.
It's like people who say, Oh, if you believe Black Lives Matter or if you believe in queer rights or whatever, you're actually not raging against the system.
You're actually parroting the corporate line.
Because we all know how much corporations love black people and they love queer.
They just can't get enough of them.
It's not that they want to sell them products.
It's not that they want to make money off of them.
So they say, Oh, yeah, sure.
Black people deserve the human right to buy our products.
Like it's I don't it's it's very you just have to like barely take a fingernail to the surface of any of these.
And you'll see what's actually, you know, operating.
You'll see what what's actually in effect.
So, yeah, very.
Very funny.
I don't know, but these hopefully, you know, doesn't get overturned by by the Supreme Court.
I guess I guess we'll see.
Do we know?
We should have a we should have a general holiday about it.
If it gets overturned by the Supreme Court, we should all go on freaking holiday.
And I mean, you know, Joe Biden still has the option to drone strike the Supreme Court for the Supreme Court.
That's true.
Yeah, that's always.
Well, we're, we're selling stickers on our website that say abort the court, uh, which are available for a five for five bucks bumper stickers and, uh, the proceeds go to abortion, uh, services.
And it's just, it's just a cool, it's a cool, like I don't, you know, It's a cool sticker if you don't have a uterus, right?
There's a shit ton of cool stickers if you do have a uterus.
You know, like you could make one with the uterus holding a gun that says, you know, stay away from me kind of a thing or whatever.
But if you don't have a uterus, you might not feel comfortable putting that on your car.
This one, it's just, you're just talking about, you know, killing the Supreme Court.
To individual members.
In Minecraft.
Never do.
Just the organization.
You know, we want to what?
Drown it.
Drown it in the bathtub.
That's how they perform abortions in California.
And that's what we want to do to the Supreme Court.
Wait till it's born, it's been born, and then drown it in the bathtub.
Right.
DNC or something, yeah.
Yeah, well, if we're plugging merch, we have matchbooks for $5, which are really cool.
They say, fire your boss on it, and it's like an actual union-made matchbook.
Wow.
$5, tvlr.fm slash store.
Hell yeah.
You guys should make matchbooks that when you open them up, it's like a little cartoon guy, his dick pops out.
Like, like the one my grandpa gave me when I was like 12.
He was like, hey, look at this.
It was actually, I'm actually like... It's an inappropriate gift for a 12-year-old.
Nah, it's about the right age.
You know, not a stranger, but... Yeah, that's hilarious.
I've never come across such a matchbook.
It's news to me, but yeah, we'll look into it.
We'll put our top people on it.
It was actually more specifically, it wasn't even a cartoon guy.
It was like a cartoon baby.
And then when you opened the matchbook, the little, it was like a little felt, it looked like a match.
It didn't look like an actual dick, but it looked like a little pink match that popped up.
And then it said how big I was when I was one year old.
Uh, so it was like a joke about your, like, if that, if that was your dick when you were one, imagine how big it is now.
You know, there you go.
That's how humor used to work in what the sixties or something like that was a joke.
That was a joke.
You would tell, Hey, I guess what?
I got a really big Dick, but I'm going to make it funnier by talking about my Dick when I was a baby.
Yeah, yeah.
Love it.
Could be precedent.
I'm just saying, you know, the copyrights probably expired on that, guys.
Yeah, it's probably free grain, free game there.
Free real estate, yeah.
Well, thanks so much for coming on the show.
Lots of fun.
Thank you for having me on your show, The Valley Labor Report.
Why don't you go ahead and plug your stuff?
Tell people where they can hear or watch you.
Yeah, sure.
Like you said, the name of the program is The Valley Labor Report.
We're Facebook, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts, all at that name.
We've got a couple of newsletters that you can sign up for at tvlr.fm contact.
Last Week in Southern Labor, where we take a look at what workers in the U.S.
South and the American colonies were up to the week prior.
And Boss Watch, where we take a look at what bosses in the U.S.
South and the American colonies were up to in the week prior, mainly breaking the law.
So those are some pretty cool newsletters that I think are good.
We also, like I said, we have a merch store, tvlr.fm slash store, and we got some cool stuff there.
And if you are in Huntsville or Muscle Shoals, Alabama, or Whitesburg, Kentucky, or New Orleans, Louisiana, you can hear us on the radio at various times.
So, you know, check out our website and see when we are on the radio locally to you.
And if we're not on the radio near you, particularly if you're in the South, then you should find a radio station that will host us and we will send them our MP3s.
But yeah, that's about it.
Hell yeah, please do that.
Spread the gospel.
Spread the workers call to arms, call to action.
Exactly.
Absolutely.
That's what we're trying to do every week.
Yep.
Excellent.
Yeah.
Well, thanks to everybody for listening.
You can support Minion Death Cult by going to patreon.com slash Minion Death Cult.
Also, I have an announcement.
I will be hosting an evening with Means TV in Seattle, Washington at the Beacon Cinema.
On October 10th, similar to how I presented Chris Bell's Miss Me Yet, his series about the George Bush era.
Fantastic.
It's like crazy Dave tape if it instead of pornography and like Found footage stapled together.
It was all the George Bush presidency, which is also pretty horrible, but riveting stuff to watch.
This time it's going to be several comedy series that will be shown on that evening that I'll be introducing and hope to see everybody there.
I'll put a link in this episode's description.
There'll be more information about what series we'll be viewing.
And then I think I can announce We will be doing a live commentary at the same theater, Beacon Cinema, on October 18th with special guest Brian Quimby.
We will be, Tony will be up here and we will be doing commentary for a movie that I cannot say the name of for legal purposes.
It's something pertinent to the show.
It's something we've covered on the show.
Um, and let's just say, uh, it is the movie itself is, uh, something to perish for.
Uh, you're not going to want to miss this.
If you're in this, this is a, this movie's not easy to watch either.
So if you just want to see the movie come out to Seattle, Washington beacon cinema, October 18th 7 p.m.
The link will be in this episode's description Got to be a lot of fun again with Brian Quimby and Tony up here.
