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Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman discuss the absolutely awful and intentionally cruel situation the governors of Texas and Florida have put asylum seekers in. Plus, Biden gets a potential win by helping to stave off a potential railworkers strike by getting some basic worker's rights. What episode would be complete without touching upon The Pillow Guy, Mike Lindell?
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Welcome to the Weekender Edition of the Muckrake Podcast.
I'm Gary D. H. Sexton.
I'm here with Nick Halsman.
Just a heads up, everybody.
Later on in this episode, I have, and Nick, I just want to put you on notice, I have two irate rants that I'm going to go on because I am hot about a couple of things.
So if you are interested in hearing those and hearing this entire episode, you need to go over to patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast in order to become a patron.
Nick, how are you doing, buddy?
I'm doing well.
I'm doing well.
I can't complain about anything, actually, right now.
Biden's approval rating is creeping up into the mid-40s.
I actually heard on the radio and I felt like a little ting, a sparkle in my smile.
A little sparkle in your smile.
Well, it might go up a little bit, and things are a little bit tenuous right now.
We need to go ahead and start this show off.
In a bit, we've got to talk about, I don't know, Republican governors shipping human beings around the country.
We've got to talk about Russia interfering in elections and democracy.
And of course, we've got to talk about Mike Lindell and the difference between Hardee's and Carl's Jr.
But first of all, we've got to do an update on a story that we've been following over the past couple episodes.
There was an 11th hour deal that was made between the rail workers unions and the railroad companies.
It is not done.
It is not put to bed.
The rail worker unions have to vote in order to approve this.
There's a little bit of question about whether or not it's going to happen.
We'll get into the specifics of everything in a second.
But listen, Nick, have I been critical of Joe Biden on this podcast?
Yeah.
Have I been critical of the Biden administration?
Sure.
I have to tell you something.
Joe Biden and the Biden administration in this situation with the potential railroad strike really, really did some good work.
And I want to give credit where credit is due.
We had a situation here where Biden was personally involved.
His Labor Secretary, Walsh, was just absolutely... I believe yesterday, we're recording this on Thursday, they were in 20-hour meetings.
This was a case, and we'll get into why this was such a good showing from the Biden administration, but as of right now, there is a possibility that a historic railroad strike might be averted.
It's amazing what gets done 60 days out from a crucial midterm that will determine the fate of democracy, right?
It really is, particularly when you're dealing with an industry that moves over a quarter of all goods, and you're in a situation where the economy is on the precipice of falling into the abyss.
It's really shocking how that makes you sit at a table for 20 hours.
Yeah, I mean, who would have thunk it?
But thank goodness they did, at least from the Democrats' point of view, because it would have been disastrous.
It would be tough times.
It really, really would.
Just to get everybody up to speed in case they haven't been following this, The rail workers of the United States of America have been just absolutely summarily abused by their employers.
This is very, very reminiscent of what happened to truck drivers over the past couple of decades as their unions have been absolutely hit one time after another.
We're talking about people who enjoy maybe 10 days off a year.
They have no sick days.
They get penalized, possibly fired if they go to the doctor, if they have a family emergency.
They're not able to schedule themselves to get off and take care of things.
Part of the issue in all of this is that the railroad companies, Nick, are running skeleton crews.
They have absolutely pared them down to only the essentials.
They're working people to the point of exhaustion, which, by the way, if you're keeping track, puts all of us in danger constantly.
And, Nick, is it going to shock you to hear that the railroad companies are enjoying record profits as they're doing this?
You know, I was about to say, I'm sure it's because austerity measures were really necessary because railroads are just dying in our new economy.
Turns out they're not!
It turns out you still need to get things around from point A to point B.
You know it's the rules or however they're operating it sounds like circa like 1883 like seriously hadn't changed since then and where they were like I'm picturing people getting like you know beaten for not showing up on time like that kind of stuff I mean in the days of COVID now the fact that you wouldn't have sick leave is insane Especially because you're right, the amounts of danger involved in running that whole infrastructure is huge.
At least, you know, Biden didn't do what, you know, Reagan did with the air traffic controllers, which was fire all of them summarily.
By the way, air traffic controls are pretty vital and pretty dangerous thing as well, wouldn't you say?
Well, I mean, if you don't want planes zooming around in the sky, ramming into each other and killing everybody, I guess they're important.
Yeah, yeah.
And trains are even more so because they're on the ground.
So, nonetheless... I love your power rankings there.
It's more dangerous because they're on the ground.
I guess.
Well, I don't know.
There's more of them.
There's not more of them.
Whatever it is, it seems... I see trains going through the intersections a lot, and it makes me nervous.
Do you do that?
When you drive through an intersection across the train tracks, do you ever, like, kind of really look?
I come from a railroad town, so I am very cognizant of railroads.
Yes.
Although, I also feel like as I'm crossing, you never get a great vantage point a lot of the times, like through the buildings or whatever.
So by the time you can really get a good look down the track, it would be over.
You'd never know.
It would be beneficial if the people who were operating these giant behemoths that can absolutely destroy everything weren't overworked, they were able to have rest, they were able to be healthy, they felt good, they weren't overstressed.
And, you know, this is a situation, and you'd brought up the idea of them being beaten.
The history of this country is built on railroad labor struggles.
I mean, this is the type of thing, we don't really teach this in history class, this used to result in massive labor movements and massive labor organizations doing battle in the streets.
I'm talking about fighting hand-to-hand with Pinkertons, with company men, with police.
I mean, this type of back-and-forth has been going on as long as industrialization has.
Yes.
Do you know what I'm gonna play here?
There we go.
So much for trying to do it in the, uh, smoothly.
You recognize this?
Yeah, I do.
I was not expecting it.
I thought this would be a good background for while we're talking about the history of the railroads.
Go on.
Sorry, forgive me.
Well, yeah, to go along with this, you know, we talk a lot about how presidents sometimes don't have as much power as we always subscribe to them.
But one of the things presidents are capable of doing ...is setting the tone in the tenor of discussion and the relationship between labor and employers.
And, you know, in the past, the president was always the person who would, like, send the National Guard out there, you know what I mean?
Or send the Army out there in order to sort of, you know, quote-unquote, tame these labor unions.
Well, if a president doesn't go ahead and put their bully pulpit behind the employers, it changes things.
And there's a giant message that has been pushed here, which is the Biden administration is not going to completely out of hand side with employers and go ahead and ensure that employees are going to show up to work or else they'll be fired and they have no bargaining.
What Reagan did, and actually what Carter did, Carter had issues with the truckers as well.
What we see with presidents over and over again is that they're able to put weight into the issue and change the environment.
And I want to point out, these people weren't going to go on strike, and possibly still go on strike, because they wanted more money, Nick.
That's not the problem here.
They literally wanted one to three days in order to go take care of emergencies, get medical care.
And on top of that, they wanted consideration of what came to their healthcare premiums.
This was a situation where the Biden administration took them seriously, Got them at a table and did not pressure them to help the employers.
That changes a lot of things.
And that can change history, honestly.
It's a watershed moment for employees.
And it's really been fantastic since COVID to see.
And by the way, again, it's funny how when suddenly you don't have a lot of workers who you can hire to do the jobs you need, how they suddenly shift the priorities.
And it's about time.
It really has.
I mean, It had been the same way and the abuse had been this way, even though there's been a little bit of, you know, advocations for workers' rights.
But like, you know, since the beginning, since we founded the country, it's been that way.
So this is a watershed moment.
I'm really excited to see, you know, employers being held accountable for even their behavior as well, which is important.
We just saw that with the Phoenix Suns as well, in a way that finally this old boy network is going to get dismantled, it looks like.
Oh, it's way, way overdue.
And one of the things that happens, and I'm not sitting here telling you that this is Teddy Roosevelt, you know, going out and supporting unions or necessarily breaking up trust.
Although, my lips to God's ears, please let it be that, because it's what needs to happen.
This is a watershed type situation.
It could develop because we have so much burgeoning labor and solidarity energy.
Nick, I'm going to give you a statistic here.
Right now, American support of unions is at its highest point in decades.
We're talking literally the highest since 1965.
68% of Americans support unions and labor solidarity.
Let me give you a couple other figures on this too, Nick.
90% of Democrats, which is important because the Democratic Party lost its way when it moved away from labor unions.
Are you ready for the number of GOP Who support unions?
Yeah, lay it on me.
47%.
That's amazing.
That's a big number, is it not?
47?
Yeah, I mean, I would thought it'd be like 27 maybe, only because of certain states, but that's amazing.
That number is huge.
Massive.
Really.
When I was getting ready to take a look at this study, like, I had... I'm with you.
I thought it would probably be 15 to 20 percent, and even that I thought was going to have been, like, up from past numbers, which it would have been.
In this case, we're literally talking about the population of the United States of America realizing things are so off balance that something has to shift.
Now, unfortunately, do you think that our media was up to the task of covering this situation, Nick?
Yeah, sure, why not?
What was wrong?
Well, it's because they go from a wealth class perspective.
Nick, every single article about the potential rail strike, which, by the way, they completely ignored until the midnight hour, the possibility that it could completely interrupt the economy, because that was their main concern.
One article, one piece of coverage, one segment after another.
All they talked about was the economic impact, the political fallout that would happen.
No mention of the actual material conditions for the workers at all, because they were going to be the problem.
And I'll tell you something else, the railroad companies, they understood that.
They were already preparing to lock out the workers, knowing that the media was going to report it as a full strike, as opposed to a lockout.
Wow.
Well, the only thing I'm wondering is, are they going to end up getting concessions from the government to subsidize some of these things?
And if that's the case, you know, with the notion of record profits, that's just ridiculous and that shouldn't happen.
I hope that Biden didn't make that kind of a deal.
And we'll find out, I guess, soon enough.
But that would be a shame.
Yeah, because I mean, that's the thing here is basically all of the aid that they're getting, all of the support that they're getting, all the profits that they're getting.
I know this is going to shock you and our listeners, Nick.
It's going to, you know, the corporate It's going to buybacks.
It's basically just being used in order to basically line these people's pockets.
And meanwhile, let's call this what it is.
It's literally people who are being abused by a system.
Your body suffers, your mental health suffers, your family suffer.
It needs to change.
And you're exactly right.
There is a possibility that this is going to fall on the government in order to provide some sort of support here or whatever.
These people have, they absolutely have to start supporting workers, and this continual emphasis on sustained perpetual growth, it does not work.
You can't have record profits and then expect record profits on top of record profits, because all it's going to lead to is exploitation.
Well, the next area they have to focus on after we get through the railroads is teachers.
Yeah.
You know, there's huge shortages of teachers now.
I was a teacher.
I was rough.
I was never treated that well.
And that's why one of the reasons I'm not still teaching.
So, you know, here's a little newsflash in case people don't realize if you want like good workers and you have to pay them a little bit, pay a little bit more maybe than you had been.
And I'll tell you what, as a person who's been in the trenches just like you, you also have a choice, right?
Maybe you don't pay people as much as they're worth, but maybe don't keep them in an environment that's miserable.
You know what I mean? - Right. - You can do both, and you should do both, but at the very, very least, at least treat people with respect.
The way that these rail workers, and by the way, the reason why there's this massive teacher shortage that we've talked about, is because these environments do not take in consideration their well-being.
It doesn't take into consideration their bodies, their mental wellness.
It literally is squeezing every last drop of blood out of these people.
And I can tell you, as a member of a family of miners, factory workers, laborers, they're going to juice you for every bit they can get.
And then what are they going to do?
You go to the doctor?
They fire your ass.
Right?
That's it.
You're done.
Next one up.
Let's go and let's go.
This situation is fluid.
We don't know what's going to happen, but there is a potential that something good can come out of this.
Biden administration handled this the right way.
They took care of business, at least on their end.
But, Nick, unfortunately, we have to talk about where shit's not getting done and people who aren't taking care of business and they're not actually making things better.
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