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Oct. 7, 2024 - This Past Weekend - Theo Von

02:07:07

E536 Teamsters President Sean O'Brien

Sean O’Brien is the General President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and a 4th generation Teamster himself. He is originally from Medford, Massachusetts. Sean O’Brien joins Theo to chat about his job representing the Teamsters and supporting unions in America, why they made the controversial choice to not endorse a presidential candidate this year, and what led up to his viral standoff with Senator Markwayne Mullin. Sean O’Brien: https://x.com/teamstersob?lang=en ------------------------------------------------ Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com ------------------------------------------------- Sponsored By: Celsius: Go to the Celsius Amazon store to check out all of their flavors. #CELSIUSBrandPartner #CELSIUSLiveFit https://amzn.to/3HbAtPJ ExpressVPN: Go to http://expressvpn.com/theo to get 3 extra months free with a 12-month plan. Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code WEEKEND for $20 off your first purchase. BetterHelp: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp — go to http://betterhelp.com/theo to get 10% off your first month. SimpliSafe: Go to http://simplisafe.com/theo to protect your home with 50% off a new SimpliSafe system, plus a free indoor security camera, when you sign up for Fast Protect Monitoring. ------------------------------------------------- Music: “Shine” by Bishop Gunn Bishop Gunn - Shine ------------------------------------------------ Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to: tpwproducer@gmail.com Hit the Hotline: 985-664-9503 Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: https://www.theovon.com/fan-upload Send mail to: This Past Weekend 1906 Glen Echo Rd PO Box #159359 Nashville, TN 37215 ------------------------------------------------ Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoVonClips Shorts Channel: https://bit.ly/3ClUj8z ------------------------------------------------ Producer: Zach https://www.instagram.com/zachdpowers Producer: Nick https://www.instagram.com/realnickdavis/ Producer: Trevyn https://www.instagram.com/trevyn.s/ Producer: Colin https://instagram.com/colin_reiner Producer: Cam https://www.instagram.com/cam__george/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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	I have some new tour dates to tell you about.
	This week I'll be in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, La Crosse, Wisconsin, Green Bay, Wisconsin, and Moline, Illinois, Colorado Springs, Casper, Wyoming, Billings, Montana, Missoula, Montana, Bloomington, Indiana, Columbus, Ohio, Champaign, Grand Rapids, Lafayette, Louisiana, and Beaumont, Texas.
	All tickets through theovon.com slash T-O-U-R.
	And thank you for your support.
	Today's guest is the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
	He's a fourth-generation Teamster himself, and he's from Boston.
	I'm really excited about spending time today with Mr. Sean O'Brien.
	Shine that light on me I'll sit and tell you my stories Shine on me And I will find a song I've been singing just before And I'll be moving way too fast
	I've never been in a union, I don't think.
	What about SAG AFTRA?
	You did some acting.
	Oh, yeah, that's right.
	I had to get in SAG AFTRA one time.
	Yeah, so I guess I was in that union.
	I used to work at a pizza joint, and one guy was getting fired, and we're like, you can't fire.
	If you fire him, you got to fire all of us, you know?
	That's what it's all about.
	And the guy, he just fired all of us.
	Yeah.
	And he was right, actually.
	Mr. Wayne, he was the owner, and he was right that we were horrible workers.
	We was drinking and just deep frying everything in there.
	That shouldn't be a terminable offense.
	Alex, your attitude.
	We needed you.
	Sean O'Brien, you're president of the Teamsters Union, right?
	Yes, sir.
	Is that the term?
	Yes, it's International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
	Okay.
	And what is a Teamster?
	Well, Teamsters started out traditional trucking, truck drivers.
	They were horse and buggies back in the day and then evolved into trucking.
	And then we've evolved into, we represent everybody from airline pilots to zookeepers and everybody in between.
	So it's not just a trucking union.
	Our largest employer is United Parcel Service, representing 340,000 Teamsters nationwide.
	United Parcel Service?
	Yeah, UPS.
	Okay, UPS.
	You know, we do all the, provide all the transportation needs for motion pictures, trade shows, public sector.
	We're pretty diverse in Lao Junior, 1.3 million members nationwide and in Canada.
	In the Teamsters Union.
	Yes, sir.
	And so they got, so it was a team of horses.
	That's why the name is teams pulling horses and buggies.
	We've been around since 1903.
	Okay.
	So you can see how transportation has changed over the years.
	But, you know, it's a great organization.
	I'm a fourth generation Teamster.
	Yeah.
	Oh, so you're, and are you the first president of your family that was ever in?
	Yeah, yeah.
	All my family members, just rank and file members, went to work every day.
	I started out in a construction yard in Boston, a rigging company hauling cranes around.
	And I just moved up the ladder, became a shop steward, then became a business agent for Local 25 in Boston and just kept moving along.
	Nice, dude.
	And a union is what?
	A union is, you know, we represent working people.
	We make certain we collectively bargain for our members.
	We make certain that we protect them in the workplace, process all their grievances, but more importantly, organize workers throughout the country that want to be unionized.
	And we've been very successful doing that.
	And we just want to represent working people.
	We know 1.3 million right now.
	Hopefully we'll be 2 million in the near future.
	Amen.
	And yeah, because I know unions are responsible for the work week, right?
	Right.
	So unions are the 40-hour work week.
	Look, the unions have set the bar.
	Even non-union people benefit when you organize.
	And, you know, we've organized in every industry, but we're responsible for overtime.
	We're responsible for the 40-hour work week.
	We're responsible for the weekend.
	A lot of people don't know that, you know, so God, thank you.
	But if we do have to work the weekend, we're going to get double time.
	Yeah.
	You know what I mean?
	Yeah.
	And now didn't they just make a law that it's going to be over, it won't get taxed?
	Well, that's a campaign promise from President Trump, I believe.
	Oh, so it's just not a record.
	So, you know, as you know, promises sometimes don't come to fruition.
	But it is recorded, so we'll use it against whoever said it.
	How pivotal is our unions in the American industry?
	Look, we built the middle class.
	We built America.
	Unfortunately, as you know, once big business gets involved, private equity of the world, or there's big money to be made, everybody forgets to get amnesia on who actually is responsible.
	And there was such a decline in the 80s because, you know, politicians put in some bad regulation.
	I mean, I could speak for the teams as they passed trucking deregulation.
	And if I could put the numbers to it, we had 400,000 members alone just in the freight industry.
	And when they passed trucking deregulation, we lost 400,000 members.
	Companies went bankrupt and pension funds took a hit.
	What happened, though?
	Like when they say deregulation, what do you mean by it?
	Well, you know, the whole industry was regulated.
	So every company had rates that they had to adhere to.
	Okay, had to follow a certain set of rules.
	And then once deregulation passed, it was a race to the bottom.
	And, you know, unfortunately, that hurt us over three or four decades.
	And now there's such an opportunity because there's so much corporate greed out there where these white-collar crime syndicates known as corporate America are just, all they care about is the bottom line of their balance sheet.
	And, you know, we've been fighting hard for the last four or five years to expose how greedy these CEOs, these corporations are, but also how corruptible the political system is.
	You know, it's funny.
	You know, before you always had Democrats fighting for working people and, you know, Republicans.
	Now we kind of see a switch where working people feel like, number one, they've been left behind by the Democratic Party.
	Two, you know, the Republicans say they want to be working class, represent the working class.
	They have an opportunity to do it.
	But, you know, I think we've got a huge opportunity to organize and we've been exposing them and we've been fighting.
	And, you know, our biggest opponent right now is Amazon and we're going to crush them.
	Oh, because Amazon, my mom drives, is an Amazon worker.
	Is she?
	Yeah.
	So she's an independent contractor if She drives for them.
	Yeah.
	She delivers stuff for Amazon.
	So I'll tell you the difference, right?
	Okay.
	You look at our UPS drivers.
	We just negotiated the largest collective bargaining agreement.
	UPS is the largest Teamster contract in the country.
	They're a very difficult company to deal with.
	However, our drivers are direct employees.
	Our members are direct employees of UPS.
	And once you're through a four-year progression as a driver, you're making almost $50 an hour, full medical, and a pension that you could actually retire off of.
	And Amazon hides behind an independent contractor model where they pay their drivers about $19,500 to $20 per hour.
	That's the difference.
	Oh, yeah.
	So no one's asking me for a line.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Well, as she should.
	Yeah.
	She brought your ass into this world.
	You got to pay the tariff.
	Yeah, you don't want to piss your mother off.
	Believe me, I got a strong Irish Catholic mother who brought up her three younger brothers in a housing project in Boston.
	And she had three just like me.
	And, you know, she's the toughest one I know.
	That's the only person I'm afraid of, really.
	Be honest with you.
	Really?
	In Boston?
	Yeah, it's like women in Boston, dude.
	I got a.
	But my mother's like petting a python.
	You know, you give her moments, she's going to squeeze the life out of you.
	But I love and respect her.
	And she's the best.
	And if a mouse goes missing around her.
	Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Well, you know, you get the head nod.
	The problem, you know, you get the head nod from my mother.
	It's like she'll go, oh, nice.
	Head nod, done.
	You're dead.
	That's it.
	You're done.
	Yeah.
	It's like someone put a hit on you.
	Yeah, my mother, yeah, she delivers for Amazon.
	Yeah, I don't know how many hours a week she works, but she delivers for Amazon.
	How hard is it to get a group of workers to unionize like at a company that's already like pre-existing like that?
	Well, we're doing it right now.
	Like, so Amazon hides behind this bullshit independent contractor model.
	So they'll third-party leasing arrangement with a company, probably what your mom's working for.
	And they try and say that they're not employees.
	We just won a big case in California where it's called Joint Employer, where it's a masquerade where Amazon controls the other company.
	Amazon dictates the rules.
	Amazon dictates where you buy your vehicles and everything else.
	But they don't take any responsibility when the shit hits the fan.
	So we actually won that case recently, and we're organizing all over the place.
	But what we're doing is we're striking for recognition.
	We're going in there, getting the majority of authorization cards signed by folks like your mom, and then we just strike them and hold them out.
	And it's working.
	We've got, because of that victory we had with exposing Amazon with the independent contract to scam, we get the potential to organize your mom and 300,000 other people.
	Wow.
	So we've allocated tremendous funding to do this.
	And look, Amazon, the one thing about the Teamsters Union and us, we're not good looking, clearly.
	But, you know, we don't have the deep cultures.
	We don't have the deep pockets, but we've got fight.
	We've got intestinal fortitude.
	And we're not afraid.
	We're not afraid to lose because we're supposed to lose anyways, right?
	When you're not afraid to lose, you got nothing to lose.
	Nothing to lose.
	And it's important because we set these industry standards negotiating these contracts so people like your mothers, people that aren't organized, will see the value of becoming a union member.
	And look, there's always people that have something to say no matter what.
	You know, you know, you're doing great.
	You have a great show.
	You're tremendous success.
	There's going to be someone that is jealous and doesn't, you know, just wants to attack you.
	Yeah.
	And we're trying to change that philosophy.
	We're trying to change that image.
	And look, we're out there just want to help people.
	We want to take on schoolyard bullies and we want to put them on their knees, you know?
	Oh, I hope you take the kneecaps off some of these perverts, dude.
	Yeah.
	You know, that's how I really feel.
	And also a lot of these, like a lot of the tech industry came along and just because they're an app or they're a website, they act like they're not an employer, I guess.
	Oh, that's the biggest scam in the world.
	You got Uber, you got Lyft, you've got Google, you've got all these tech companies.
	And the sad part is, you know, these politicians that claim to be out there fighting for work and people are bought and fucking sold by these companies.
	Oh, it's crazy.
	It's disgusting.
	I love it because my job is, and again, I'm wearing the shirt, right?
	Because we are fucking fighting with everybody.
	And we have to because, you know, we have to be someone's conscience.
	And we're going to be their conscience.
	These big tech companies.
	Yeah.
	How does the Teamsters afford attorneys and stuff to be able to fight those battles?
	Well, we have members pay dues.
	So, you know, the dues money, obviously, finance is a whole operation.
	And, you know, we are financially secure.
	We have $400 million in a strike and defense fund, which means that we can strike and, you know, we can support a long-term strike, but also defend against any threat to the organization.
	That all comes from dues money.
	Hell yeah.
	And, you know, that's how we afford it.
	It's like newsies.
	You ever seen newsies?
	Yeah.
	I don't want to tell anybody.
	Don't tell anybody we saw it, but we saw it.
	Yeah, but it was about a strike.
	I just don't want to admit it.
	It's like a couple of those ABC after school specials you watch, but you don't want to admit you watched and liked them.
	Yeah, oh, yeah.
	We're supposed to have a big tough attitude as Teamsters.
	for sure dude speaking of strikes and stuff They are from the top of Maine, I think, to the foothold in Texas.
	Okay, and what is that about?
	It's about, you know, it's like anything else.
	You know, longshoremen provide goods and services.
	So imports and exports coming in.
	They work in the ports and the docks.
	Like James J. Braddock, like that.
	Absolutely.
	And, you know, they work, their contract expired the other night, but their last contract was settled in October of 2018.
	So, you know, they worked through the pandemic.
	There's longshoremen that lost their lives.
	There's longshoremen that, you know, can never go back to work because of the ill effects of COVID.
	But they were out there in the trenches, you know, providing goods and service when supply chain was basically almost coming to a stop.
	And all these shipping lines, like every all these big corporations, benefited just.
	benefited off them being there.
	Yeah, and it's like, you know, let's reward the people that made us a success.
	Let's reward the people that provided goods and services, country, let's reward the people that risked their lives and the safety of their families to go to work so that we all have everything.
	And now it's their time.
	Their contract expired.
	These shipping lines are making, you know, gazillions of dollars and, you know, they want what's due to them.
	And, you know, it's funny, you see this criticism online.
	And, you know, social media is great, but it's just a lot of fake shits on there.
	And it's, I'm reading it this morning and looking at it this morning.
	And, you know, they're attacking the longshoremen for striking.
	You know, people are saying, well, they're going to drive up inflation.
	They're going to cause all the supply chain problems.
	They are, but, you know, do you want these greedy corporations to keep making millions upon millions of dollars?
	But the biggest threat right now is artificial intelligence to the longshoreman.
	If you look what they're doing in the ports in China, you know, everything's automated.
	There's no jobs.
	These are semi-automated at least.
	These are legacy industries that provide, they're a 130-year industry that provide middle-class jobs to people.
	And, you know, they're getting attacked because people are getting a little inconvenienced.
	Well, you know what?
	A little inconvenience?
	Maybe he'll give some support to these workers and hold the people accountable that caused this strike.
	Everybody says, oh, the ILA is striking.
	No, the shipping lines that don't want to protect the jobs, that don't want to reward these people that made them a success, chose to strike themselves.
	Right.
	Right.
	They chose it.
	They could have made a, yeah, everybody says they're the ones striking.
	No, it's this other group that's not choosing to pay, not choosing to come to the table, not choosing to share.
	Like the, yeah, like you said, not choosing to share with the people that have made it happen.
	Yeah.
	You know?
	They're making billions upon billions of dollars.
	So, I mean, it's like, you know, there's not a whole lot of sympathy from us as far as corporations and these shipping lines go.
	And so is that a lot of what the ILA strike is over?
	It's obviously the fears of automation.
	Fears of automation is everywhere.
	I mean, that's a huge, huge threat to the ILA.
	But also, I mean, look, you know, everybody's saying, you know, there's people criticisms on online and, oh, the longshoremen make $140,000 a year.
	That might be true.
	But when you start out, you're starting out with $20 per hour, right?
	And you look at $20 an hour today, would that get you?
	That's nothing.
	And then, you know, if they're making $140,000, they're working 70, 80 hours per week.
	So, you know, there's not a whole lot of, you know, quality time at home with your family.
	They have to work.
	And $140,000 is a great income, but you put two kids, you get college, you've got a mortgage.
	It doesn't go a long way.
	So, you know, it's time that we close that gap between the CEO's pay and in this case, the longshoreman's pay.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	I think, because what I don't understand is at what point is tech valuable to us as a society?
	It's like, do you want, like, I don't want to be a society that there's 11 people watching some robots do stuff.
	That's what it feels like we're headed towards.
	It feels like at a certain point you would stop some technology because it doesn't, it kills your society.
	It kills like the part of you that goes to work, the part of you that comes back that support your family, that gives inspiration to your kids because they see their parents working.
	It's like, it's almost crazy to me sometimes how we keep pushing our society towards advancement if it's not, if we'll no longer be a society then.
	Does that make any sense?
	Yeah, it's a society of convenience.
	That's the problem.
	And people don't realize the consequences of technology at some times.
	I mean, look, to your point, your product, your environment, if you have a hard-working mom and dad that get up every day and go do a middle-class job, that's what you want to do.
	That's what you want to aspire to do.
	This technology, although, you know, we know technology is coming.
	We know technology is relevant and certain arenas, but there's still a lot of value to the best computer in the world.
	That's a human's brain and your instinct.
	And there's got to be an opportunity, even if technology comes in to a certain extent, to create jobs as a result of technology.
	Those 11 people you reference watching robots, well, at some point in time, the technology will get so good that those 11 people will be out of a job as well.
	So it's like, come on, let's slow this thing down.
	Let's figure out an opportunity to keep these jobs and give people an opportunity that may not have an opportunity to go to college, that may not have the ability to be proficient in technology, but have a great work ethic and got a moral compass that wants to go in and give a hard day's work for a fair day's pay.
	So that's the stuff we've got to look at.
	And, you know, as a country, we're so short-sighted on the damage of technology.
	I mean, when you talk about autonomous vehicles, do you want a commercial vehicle, 80,000 pounds going down the street next to your family of four with no human driver present?
	Yes, some guy just in Indy or something.
	He has a iPad or something.
	Yeah.
	He has like an Xbox controller or something.
	Yeah, and there's a catastrophic accident.
	I mean, you know, and then you check the guy's browser.
	You know, you don't really know what to look at that.
	Yeah, he got some other windows open.
	Absolutely.
	He's got VR goggles on over there.
	Looking at P. Diddy Potties and stuff like that.
	You know what I mean?
	He's over there smoking out of his own nutsack over there.
	A lot of perverts over there in India and all over the globe.
	I'm not trying to single them out.
	I'm perverted.
	But what was something I was going to ask you about?
	Oh, so, well, recently we had Bernie Sanders on and he talked about a shorter work week and about giving proceeds from automation to the workers because they're the ones who have gotten us to that point as well.
	Yeah, I mean, look, there's a, Bernie's the best.
	I love Bernie.
	I think he's a little mad at me right now.
	He's yelled at me at a couple of Senate hearings, like flared up.
	But, you know, he is truly committed to working class people.
	There's no doubt about it.
	You know, we're as a Teamster organization, you know, we negotiate contracts based on 40 hours per week.
	But there are some industries that would like a 32-hour work week, paid 40 hours, which, you know, that's going to be a tough fight moving forward.
	You know, my thing is we've got to protect, preserve, and improve what we already have right now.
	Right.
	And once you start giving away some hours, You never get it back.
	Right here, it says: Senator Bernie Sanders, chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, announced that this Thursday he will introduce legislation to establish a standard 32-hour workweek.
	Sanders said, moving to a 32-hour workweek with no loss of pay is not a radical idea.
	Today, American workers are over 400% more productive than they were in the 1940s.
	And he means that the output is because also of automation, but automation is taking the people's jobs.
	So then it's like it only makes fair sense to compensate the people whose jobs are being taken.
	Right.
	And, you know, that's obviously a great justification for it.
	But the reality of it is most of our members have to work 50 or 60 hours a week and have to have overtime.
	So that's an issue that I think we'll be dealing with down the road.
	But there is no doubt that we should be fighting to create jobs as a result of technology being implemented, not destroy them.
	Baron Bernie's the best.
	I mean, he is hilarious.
	He's very entertaining, man.
	He's very entertaining.
	I know you had an issue with Malokowski.
	What is that guy?
	Mark Wayne Mullen.
	Mark Wayne Mullen.
	We'll get to it in a second.
	And we'll definitely put up a link if people want to watch you guys fight where people can lease it.
	And we'll give the money.
	We'll give the proceeds to you guys, too.
	Yeah, we don't need that.
	I'll do that one for nothing.
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	Is there anything else before we move on?
	Is there anything else about the longshoreman strike that we should know?
	Do you feel like?
	Yeah, I think it's important to know that it's not the longshoreman's fault that they're on strike.
	It's the shipping company's fault.
	And, you know, the media is so out of whack at times in creating these scenarios saying that this is a political stunt versus one party versus the other.
	Their contract expired two days ago.
	It just so happens it's in an election year.
	And look, this strike could end real quick if these greedy shipping lines just give the members what they deserve and what they demand, and it'll be over.
	We also, if you think about it, it's like you always hear like the term the shipping heiress or the shipping heir.
	You don't hear like the Teamster's heiress, you know?
	What even fucking side are people on?
	Like to be on the side of just these, just people that have so much, you know, and at a point it's just obvious greed.
	Yeah, I don't think it's.
	It's unbelievable, man.
	And it's unbelievable that our country starts to feel like that's the side it's on.
	I mean, it really feels like even just as a regular person, like nobody is supporting, it's all a sham a lot of times.
	It feels like, I mean, everybody knows that like these, the lobbies are so big now that they control so much.
	But it's like at some point, you would think there would be a break for the common man, you know?
	Well, that's what we're trying to do.
	I mean, that's why we've been working so hard.
	If you see what we're doing all over the country with the UPS agreement, Anheuser-Busch, record agreements negotiating strong contracts, we are trying to close that disparity.
	Right now, we got a big battle going on with United Airlines, right?
	Which, you know, we're telling all these politicians, I don't know if you saw my statement the other day, stay the fuck out of our business.
	Let us do our thing.
	And I always say to people, the neighborhood I grew up in, which had a lot of conflict in it, if there were two people fighting in the middle of the street and you had nothing to do with it, keep walking.
	It's going to end some point one way or the other.
	And that's the struggle.
	But our whole focus on what we've been doing as a union, and look, I'm a fourth generation team, so I love this fucking union.
	It's given me everything in my entire life.
	But the one thing that we need to do is advocate for working people.
	And you know what?
	People say, why should I join a union?
	Why should you join a union?
	Because we're going to get you better wages.
	We're going to get you the best benefits.
	But more importantly, we're going to demand respect in the workplace and we're going to fight for you day in and day out.
	And look, the United, the ILA right now, that's all they're doing.
	That is all they're doing.
	They want respect.
	And to your point, there's no Harris, Harris's, however you say it.
	Yeah, princess or Princess.
	You'll see.
	Listen, just take a look at us, whether it's the ILA or Teamsters.
	We're not royalty, man.
	I've been to Boston.
	They got some definitely, you see a broad out there wearing a Euclid jersey.
	You know what I'm saying?
	She'll fucking.
	Yeah, we've got a lot of us from Boston have fucking faces for radio.
	Definitely.
	Oh, you see a lot of, yeah, yeah.
	A lot of, yeah, a lot of fucking women that are just fucking vaping and just giving hand jobs or whatever, but it's okay.
	That's okay.
	Don't forget the tube top with the C-section.
	Oh, God.
	Oh, dude.
	That's the new Teamsters logo.
	No, God forbid.
	No, we've got, listen, the Teamsters Union, we've got some of the finest, hardest working women, and they're the strongest.
	No, I'm joking, yeah.
	And look, let them fucking play baseball again, dude.
	You know what I'm saying?
	That's what I'm saying.
	Absolutely.
	I would love to see if the union had a league.
	Oh, it'd be nice, wouldn't it?
	Do you guys have a team?
	A baseball team?
	Yeah.
	Well, it's called the Red Sox, but I don't know if they're any good right now.
	Oh, yeah.
	They didn't even make the playoffs, did they?
	No, they didn't.
	Damn.
	No.
	But actually, screw you guys.
	You guys have had so much luck, dude.
	I can't leave make that much money selling cheese and stuff.
	What all do they have over there, Kraft?
	Bring it up, Kraft Goods.
	No, Kraft actually started.
	It's a unionized paper company.
	Oh, it is?
	Yeah, so it's out of Boston or Worcester, which is, you know, probably 45 miles west of Boston.
	The Krafts are actually very good in the community in Boston, but that's not the same family.
	Oh, it isn't?
	No.
	Oh, damn.
	Every time I've, that's crazy because every time I'm cheering against the pats, I'm always yelling like, fuck, lunchables and shit.
	And I didn't even realize that.
	Crustables?
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	I thought it was the same guy.
	No, no, no, no, no, no.
	No.
	They're very good.
	They're very good in the community.
	Oh, yeah.
	Ah.
	Yeah, I didn't know.
	I got to, yeah.
	I filled out some comment cards on some of these websites, too.
	I got to go back and take that.
	Clean it up.
	Especially when they had Randy Moss.
	Yeah, I was really heavy on the keys back then.
	Oh, how funny was he?
	Yeah.
	Oh, he's great, dude.
	Dude, I went to a fishing tournament one time.
	And I thought I should tell this story, but I should, but I will.
	And so I went to a fishing tournament one time.
	Randy Moss put on a fishing tournament.
	This is when he was with the Vikings.
	And you got put with like some fishermen and stuff.
	And you would go out.
	It was in Minnetonka, Minnesota on the lake.
	And I stayed up all night drinking, right?
	And so I get out there and I'm like, I think we're going to be there for 30 minutes or whatever, you know, like I'm fishing with my grandparents or something.
	And they're like, yeah, it's a six hour thing.
	And I'm like, oh, dude.
	And I had like the whore.
	Like I had to go to the bathroom so bad, you know?
	And so I at some point, they're like, well, just pee off the side of the boat, but I don't have to pee.
	You know, I had to fucking do a union job, you know?
	And so at some point, dude, I just had to literally have them troll a little and just hang myself off the side of the boat and just.
	Did you have any dude wipes by ya?
	Oh, no, they didn't even have dude wipes in.
	Oh, man, that must have been awful.
	I just had to kind of hold my legs open and let the water go through fast.
	It was like a redneck bidet.
	Oh, God.
	But thank God, dude.
	And we didn't catch anything.
	I couldn't even pull a fish without having to go to the back.
	Like, the second something would tug on there, I was like, I had damn 40 in the live well, you know.
	Do you think it had anything to do with what you were drinking the night before?
	100%.
	What were you drinking?
	Jaegermeister.
	And it was disgusting.
	And it was, God, I just, I still can't, I can't believe that whoever, whatever company sentenced Jaegermeister on humanity.
	Oh, terrible.
	That's terrorism.
	You know, we don't want to say it out loud, but it's terrorism.
	The dock worker, who's their leader over there?
	Harold Daggett?
	Yeah, that guy's a freaking, that guy's awesome.
	He's taking some heat.
	Oh, yeah.
	He's taking some heat.
	Good.
	Let him take some heat, dude.
	That guy is fucking awesome.
	You know the good thing about what he's doing.
	Play this video real quick.
	Sorry to interrupt you, Sean.
	I just want to hear the Daggett.
	Welcome to Daggett Stand, dude.
	This guy's a gangster.
	It's changing into the future.
	They're not making millions no more.
	They're making billions.
	And they're spending it fast as they make it.
	I want a piece of that for my men.
	Because when they made their most money was during COVID.
	Yeah.
	When my men had to go to work on those piers every single day, when everybody stayed home and went to work.
	Not my men.
	They died out there with the virus.
	We all got sick with the virus.
	We kept them going.
	From Canada to Maine to Texas, Great Lakes, Puerto Rico, now the Bahamas.
	Everybody went to work during COVID.
	Nobody stayed home.
	Well, I want to be compensated for that.
	Amen.
	I'm not asking for the world.
	They know what I want.
	They know what I want.
	And if they don't, well, then I have to go into the street and we have to fight for what we rightfully deserve.
	Fuck yeah.
	These people today don't know what a strike is.
	Right.
	When my men hit the streets, from Maine to Texas, every single port a lockdown.
	You know what's going to happen?
	That's good.
	I'll tell you.
	And so, yeah, when he says a lockdown, that would affect everything, right?
	Yeah, the ports are just shut down.
	There's nothing coming in or out.
	And, you know, we represent a lot of members that we haul off the ports.
	The ports deliver to warehouses where it's separated, loaded on trucks, we deliver it.
	So it's going to have an impact.
	But you know what?
	It's a little, it's a short-term pain for long-term game for these guys.
	And he's 100% accurate.
	I mean, look, we get paid to fight.
	We get paid to fight for our members.
	And that's what he's doing.
	Look, he's a character.
	Have you spoken to him?
	So I haven't, but I deal with the leadership around the country.
	That's the only general president I haven't met that we deal with.
	You know, I know all the other general presidents around the country from all the other respective unions, and I haven't met him.
	I mean, the good news is he's so public right now, it's keeping the shit away from me, to be honest with you.
	Yeah, huh?
	I've been taking a lot of it lately, but I'm good either way, you know?
	I'm good.
	But no, he's look, he's got the right fight.
	Yeah, yeah, it sounds like it.
	It sounds like they got the right guy doing it, you know?
	Cast of characters.
	He's, you know, straight out of the Sopranos, you know?
	Oh, yeah.
	I fucking hope they find some bodies in his yard.
	Oh, hopefully they don't.
	Yeah, yeah, you're right.
	And I shouldn't say that.
	Sorry, Harold.
	I don't know what he's into.
	You know what I'm saying?
	But yeah, that's what I'm saying is, dude.
	It's just, that's one of the things that starts to happen is it's like, if you don't think that automation, there's no effect to it, right?
	Then it's just, there's a human cost to that.
	There's a human cost to it.
	Look when you're going to a grocery store now, right?
	Everybody's running to these self-checkouts.
	I refuse to do it.
	I don't.
	And I was actually in a local grocery store probably about a year ago, and it was like late at night.
	And, you know, my, my, I was, I forget why I was going in there, just get off a flight, and I got something real quick.
	And there was an older lady standing there at the register.
	And I go to go to her.
	She's like, go over there.
	Go to the automation.
	Go over that one.
	Self-checkout.
	She was working.
	I go, listen, if I go on a self-checko, you're going to lose your job.
	She's like, I don't give a shit.
	I don't like this fucking job anyway.
	So it was probably something she's doing.
	I'm like, listen, lady, I know you might not like it, but let's think about the fucking 30 other people that need a job that come here.
	If I go there, then I'm putting you out of work.
	I don't give a shit.
	I'm like, the problem is, it's like something.
	You're not on the version.
	I'm only an elderly version.
	What is it?
	The Golden Bachelorette?
	Oh, yeah.
	I haven't watched it, but I have.
	Yeah, I'll confess I haven't either.
	And I probably won't.
	Yeah, sure.
	Yeah, yeah.
	You know, but no, it's just people.
	That's a good point.
	You don't think about it.
	No, you don't.
	And people, you know, disgruntled or like that lady might have been having a bad night, you know, whatever it was.
	Oh, she might have been out of Zen too, dude.
	She might have been, yeah.
	Yeah, if you're working that late shift, dude, you got to put anything in your jaw to get you through that.
	But the problem is, like, she was in her late 70s.
	And it just goes to show you, like, hey, if you got in a union, you got a job, you got a pension, you wouldn't fucking be working at 70 years old.
	And it's like, yeah, and it's like, you know, you're pointing at, you're pointing for me to go to a self-checkout.
	And I'm like, you're putting people out of work.
	I don't give a shit.
	Fuck that.
	It's like, you know, she ran out of Paul Malls, you know what I mean?
	Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Fuck that.
	Go Raider.
	She's got fucking yelling.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	She probably spends all her money on fucking tattoos.
	Yeah, like Marlboros and fucking scratch tickets and shit, you know?
	Yeah, remember they used to have those miles you would get with the Marlboroughs?
	Remember that?
	Oh, yeah, yeah.
	You'd smoke 400,000 packs of cigarettes to get a Camel Joe jacket or something.
	That you got to wear to your funeral.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	They put you in that thing.
	Oh, yeah.
	Yeah, you'd get like a blender that said, keep smoking on the side of the ship.
	I remember growing up in my neighborhood, Pepsi did this thing.
	And remember that story that was on fucking Netflix?
	The kid won a space shuttle or something?
	Yeah, the kid won a space.
	So I remember there was a kid in my neighborhood that, you know, he was so, his name was Mike Lazaro.
	And he was like crazy.
	Like, you know, you'd peel the cap off and you'd be a prize.
	I swear the kid had dentures by the time he was 15. He was drinking so much Pepsi.
	He was slurping him, huh?
	Yeah.
	Oh, it was crazy.
	Yeah, dude.
	Oh, yeah, what prizes could you get with the Marlborough Miles?
	Bring up the prizes, dude.
	We never look at this kind of stuff, and I think this is important.
	Just to know, back in the day, you had to smoke your way.
	Did they have like Marlboro running sneakers?
	That is unbelievable.
	There's no way they had that.
	You're crazy, dude.
	Like a gift stick to like a lung transplant?
	Swiss Army knife, a neck brace.
	Who the fuck wants a Marlboro neck brace?
	Like at that, like unbelievable hat, shirt.
	Marlborough ventilator.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, that Marlboro thing like this.
	We're doing good, you know?
	Spark on that.
	Those commercials are off.
	Bring up the guy smoking through the hole in his throat, huh?
	And this guy's obviously from...
	Bring him up.
	And there he is.
	And that used to be a man.
	That's how bad smoking can get, guys.
	I think that was my English teacher in high school.
	Hey?
	Yeah.
	I-O-U.
	Sometimes white Dude I didn't have a I used to tell this story, but there's this kid that lived down the street from us.
	This fella Mario was his name.
	And he was Italian, I think, or semi-Italian, you know.
	And he used to, my brother, something happened.
	My brother had to go away for the summer.
	So suddenly I was his friend.
	Like I was, but I was younger than my brother.
	Did you brother go to jail?
	I don't know if he went to jail, but he went to a place where he couldn't come back for about four months.
	And so I got, so suddenly I'm friends with Mary.
	Like the, the, the, I would tag around with them, but I wasn't right there.
	So now I'm friends with this dude.
	And he, uh, I don't know if this is like a union thing or not, but he would like, he used to defecate in his yard and make me bury it, right?
	Make me put it in the ground for him.
	So contracted the workout.
	That's why I wish I'd have known at the time because, yeah, I did over probably, I did at least 112 burials for this dude, right?
	Over about, over that stint, over that third of the year.
	And then actually years later, he died.
	He drove a boat into an embankment and I wanted to be a pallbearer at his funeral.
	And I even wrote a letter to his mom and I was like, I'd love to put him in the ground one more time, you know?
	Yeah, absolutely.
	And they wouldn't let me, dude.
	But if I was in a union.
	Yeah.
	I mean, you could probably go after him for retro pay and shit.
	Yeah.
	All the time.
	Oh, dude, definitely.
	And the rose bushes in his yard.
	Absolutely.
	What are we even talking about?
	Prize winning, brother.
	Oh, Jesus.
	They won Yard of the Month.
	Fucking you definitely needed a union back then.
	Bro, they won Yard of the Month in a leap year, dude.
	Jesus Christ.
	And that's big work.
	And that was me doing it.
	And that was, listen, you contributed to that.
	You should be proud.
	But it is true.
	It's gotten to the point where people don't even think about the people That are doing the jobs behind the scenes, you know, and people that are going in and clocking in day to day, you know.
	You look at like, so we represent UPS, which is, you know, a Fortune 500 company, 340,000 employees, very successful company, difficult company to deal with.
	And, you know, about 53 or 54% of those workers are part-timers.
	You know, they work four in the morning till eight or noon till four or whatever the case may be.
	And they load and unload these trucks.
	And prior to us, you know, completing a successful negotiation, they were making $15 per hour nationwide.
	Come on.
	You had single mothers going to work there, risking their lives during COVID.
	They were the unsung heroes of keeping the supply chain moving.
	And it was a very, very credible argument that we had publicly.
	But the company recognized it.
	And during negotiations, I'm going to say, how embarrassing is it that you're making $100 billion with a B. And you have people that are on subsidized housing.
	You have people that are on welfare that work for you.
	And I'll be honest with you, like we push real hard and part-timers start out at $21 an hour.
	The long-term part-timers are being rewarded.
	They get full medical, full pensions.
	So, you know, they recognized that they needed to take care of these folks.
	And a lot of pushing and prodding from us.
	But at the end of the day, they did the right thing by these part-timers.
	And who are the major groups that are pushing back against you guys?
	Is it lobbies?
	Is it politicians?
	Is it just big business?
	I'll tell you, it's a combination of corporate America.
	And I refer to them all the time as fucking white-collar criminals.
	Yeah.
	Right.
	That all they do is care about the bottom line of the balance sheet.
	Money f ⁇ as I say, dude.
	Right, right.
	Right.
	And so, you know, just so you know that, well, nobody had that yet.
	So then, I mean, fucking prostitutes.
	Yeah.
	And then you have, you know, these politicians, both sides, Democrats and Republicans.
	I'll be honest with you.
	I'm a Democrat, but they have fucked us over for the last 40 years.
	And for once, and not all of them, but for once, we're standing up as a union, probably the only one right now saying, what the fuck have you done for us?
	And I'm getting attacked from the left.
	We've given, since I've been in office two and a half years, we've given the Democratic machine $15.7 million.
	We've given Republicans about $340,000, truth be told.
	So it's like, you know, people say the Democratic Party is the party of the working people.
	They're bought and paid for by big tech.
	Those big tech companies.
	Yeah, tech is the new fossil fuel, man.
	That's what I say.
	Right.
	And you've got the Republicans who are now saying, hey, we want to be the working class party, right?
	And, okay, you've got a great opportunity right now to do that.
	And the Democrats, if 60% of our members aren't supporting you, the fucking system's broken and you need to fix it.
	Start pointing fingers at Sean O'Brien.
	Start pointing fingers at the Teamsters Union.
	Look in the mirror.
	I mean, I had a heated debate with heated discussion two weeks ago with Chuck Schumer.
	And it got fucking ugly.
	Chuck Schumer is a piece of shit.
	And it got ugly because, you know, these politicians, you know, the one thing I've learned, they fucking walk in and they tell you, I did this for you.
	Okay, great.
	Let me tell you what you haven't fucking done for us or our members.
	And we got into it pretty heavy.
	And I'm like, you had no problem taking $550,000 from me three weeks prior to me going on the Republican National Convention.
	And then you want to be a fucking tough guy on Twitter or X or whatever it is and throw shit out there about me?
	Like, whatever.
	To support their campaign, to support the party, support the campaign.
	The Teamsters Union has historically endorsed a candidate, right?
	Right.
	A presidential candidate.
	And this is one of the first times.
	Two times we haven't.
	1976 we didn't endorse and 1996 we didn't endorse okay so the first time in 30 years now that you guys haven't done it and again the reason why we didn't endorse in in 1996 clinton because we endorsed him in 92 and look he created nafta and it fucked a lot of our members over and we lost jobs as a result of it so we couldn't we couldn't endorse and and why would he do it though why because who are they beholden to they're not even though they say we're beholden to working people we're beholden to to to middle class we're beholden to american worker
	they're beholden to look all this money and their next opportunity right because you're not there a long time right and you know their next opportunity it's like what's his name the guy that looks like bradley cooper the governor of uh of california newsom that guy is bought and paid for by big tech you know he had the opportunity to protect the general public and his constituents from ai from autonomous
	vehicles from all this bullshit that we talked about earlier and we the union union men and women actually got him to stay in office as a result of that recall we went out and worked hard for him and what's he do he fucking vetoes all these protections against artificial intelligence against uber against lyft all these all this bullshit and these are the people that we were supporting like are you shitting me seriously so they're turning their back on you so listen i can't speak for
	any other unions but i'm going to speak for the teamsters union i represent 1.3 million members and and you know we've said all along we took over like we want a return on our investment we want to be like big business we make an investment we want a return and that return with these politicians are supporting our issues that's going to protect jobs and promote uh unionization throughout the whole country and you know they've let us down they've let us down and you know what i i'm a person i think probably to my own fault my mother keeps saying you keep fighting with all these politicians you're going to get us all audited well that's
	okay right audited i thought kill but that's how they start they better they better get up early you know can't kill the willing you know what i mean yeah dude you know i'll take my own life that's now what you know i'm saying i showed you and i'll do it on the clock yeah i'll still be on the clock you bet dude you don't think i'm clocking out dude i'll be on double time absolutely yeah but i mean it's just people got to step up and look california governor gavin newsom vetoed a teamsters back bill that would have effectively banned autonomous trucks in the state wow yeah
	and you know how many people there are in california but what does it say assembly bill 2286 would have prohibited the operation of autonomous vehicles weighing 10 000 Pounds or more on public roads for testing, transporting goods, or carrying passengers without a human safety operator physically present in the vehicle.
	There should be somebody in the vehicle anyway.
	It's like, because that thing's also going to get hijacked, dude.
	You think MS-13 isn't going to want a bunch of carrots or whatever's passing through?
	They're going to fucking shoot, dude.
	They sent one of those little gypsy cruisers with the it had a Dotson B210 motorbike.
	It was a little R2D2, but it was like a, it was kind of aftermarket slightly, you know?
	And they had one of those rolling through the hood one time with some ice creams in it or something you could buy out of it.
	And 11 brothers beat the shit out of that thing.
	So there's no, what are they even talking about, dude?
	This shit'll get hijacked so quick.
	But then you're going to have to put a gunner on the top of the, you know what I'm saying?
	Like it's just getting weird.
	Bring that back up, please, Trevin.
	Thank you, bud.
	It's important to note that 35 jurisdictions, including Arizona, Nevada, Texas, Washington, and the District of Columbia, have already authorized the testing of heavy-duty autonomous vehicles.
	Wow, that's what Newsom said.
	California remains the only state to actively prohibit these vehicles.
	But it's also a huge state where there's so much agriculture and stuff.
	And there's a huge port over there as well, right?
	Yeah, LA Port, Long Beach.
	You've got some big ports over there.
	So they're not on strike.
	They're under a different union.
	They're the ILWU, but same issues, I'm sure.
	They'll be fighting the same battle down the road.
	But yeah, this is the stuff that we're fighting against.
	And look, these politicians, they've got to realize that the constituents don't work for them.
	They work for the constituents.
	And that's what they have to be reminded of.
	And there's a lot of good ones that do a lot of great work.
	Like, you know, we've got a great relationship.
	And our goal is to try and work bipartisan because that's the only way we're going to get shit done.
	Right.
	And, you know, there's been a line drawn in the sand.
	And our focus has been as a union and mine as a leader is like, look, we can fucking agree to disagree on a lot of shit and we're going to.
	But let's agree on the stuff that we can and get some stuff done in this country.
	You know, get some real, real progressive, you know, legislation that we can work together on.
	But, you know, the focus has been lost and the whole system's a fucking disgrace, to be honest with you.
	Oh, yeah.
	And it's time to shake these pedophiles down, dude.
	That's how I feel.
	What else does it say on here?
	The Teamsters Union issued a statement criticizing Newsom's veto.
	The vast majority of Californians oppose unregulated, unaccountable, driverless cars and trucks on the road, dude.
	Yes.
	There's already so many.
	Yeah, it's like, because then if somebody hits you, what do you just, you can't even sue anybody?
	You're just what?
	You're like, that guy hit me and the cop's like, who?
	And you're like, I fucking know.
	Why do they need cops?
	What do they need cops for?
	Yeah.
	I mean, that's another thing.
	Public safety.
	It's crazy and it's.
	It's going to get bad.
	Yeah, it's going to get ugly.
	And we're going to be a world of robots if people like us don't step up and hold politicians accountable.
	Look, I'll eat beans, man.
	I'll do what I got to do for as long as it takes, brother.
	If there's no, yeah, as long as I got, I guess, candles, I guess what else do I, yeah, we'd have to have candles, water.
	Dude wipes.
	Dude wipes for sure, you know, unless you're not eating, you know, unless it gets that bad.
	You're not wiping, you know what I'm saying?
	Save money on both ends.
	But yeah, yeah, I'm going to have, we're going to have to get some stuff.
	Oh, God.
	That's why we got these shirts made up, you know?
	Yeah.
	I'd love to get one of those.
	You're going to have one by the time I leave here today.
	You see that?
	See, we deliver.
	Results, not excuses.
	Yeah.
	They deliver results, not excuses.
	Take me through some of the decision and what it was like behind the scenes to make the choice not to endorse a candidate.
	Well, look, the one thing that we pride ourselves on when we took over as leaders was transparency and inclusiveness, right?
	So when you have 1.3 million members, it's important to make certain you understand their perspective because that's who our employer is.
	That's who we work for.
	That's who gives me the opportunity and privilege to represent them.
	And we went through for the first time ever, we brought every single candidate in from the beginning.
	And, you know, we invited every one of them from Dr. Cornell West all the way, former President Donald Trump, former President Biden, and then VP Harris and everybody in between RFK who, I love that guy.
	I love that guy.
	That guy's awesome, man.
	He's the best.
	And we brought them all in in a round table, first time ever, with rank and file members, you know, eight or ten of them from various parts of the country, various political affiliations.
	And we asked them specific questions that were important to us.
	And, you know, at the end of the day, we did the meetings there.
	Then we did polling, straw polling, you know, in the union halls.
	And then we did electronic polling, 1.3 million of our members, QR code, where we had over 40,000 members participate, which is huge.
	And then we did scientific-based polling using the Democratic pollster that the Biden-Harris campaign used.
	And the only poll that was favorable was the poll we did, the straw poll in the union halls, which was polling 44% Biden and 38% Trump.
	So the other polls were 60%, 62% Republican.
	In favor of Trump?
	In favor of Trump, yes.
	Even we sent the electronic polling after President Biden dropped out of the race.
	look, Biden's been, Biden's been great for unions, working people.
	But, you know, the reality of it is, you know, And again, it's like we've got to take into consideration our members' opinions.
	And I don't have the beauty of leaning one way or the other.
	I have to represent both Democratic members and also Republican members.
	And quite frankly, when I spoke at the RNC, that's when the attack started happening from the Democratic left and the Republican right.
	Wait, so just to back up, just so I'm going to close on.
	And so a straw poll means- We have 319 union halls nationwide.
	So you actually have an in-person meeting, town hall, where you get to actually control the meeting, right?
	You control the narrative, but our members get to vote in a secret ballot.
	And when you have meetings like that straw poll, Usually, you can put your thumb on the scale and flip it either way.
	We thought we were going to come out of there with Joe Biden at 80% and the rest because there are your people coming in there for the most part that show up.
	There are people that work on your staff.
	And when it only pulls 44%, something's wrong, something's broken.
	So that's why we started doing extensive polling.
	Because usually the unions are extremely Democratic.
	Absolutely.
	That's what you're saying.
	Okay, I see what you're saying now.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	The Teamsters polling data shows members backed Biden 44% to Trump's 36.3%.
	So that's more lopsided than usual.
	Well, we were thinking that it was going to be 80% by Biden because the people that show up at union halls for union meetings and any type of meetings are usually your supporters.
	I usually the people that are going to vote or follow your recommendations or whatever.
	Oh, yeah.
	Their children dress up like plumbers and stuff for Halloween and everything.
	Well, we do check their membership cards, you know.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Well, because some of them get in when they're 11. I'm only kidding.
	Okay, so at that point you realize, okay, so things are a little bit more, there's people have different opinions.
	There's a divide.
	There's a divide.
	There's a huge divide.
	So then at that point, did you make the decision to not support a candidate or something?
	No, we took all the data and, you know, historically, the Teamsters Union has never, ever endorsed a presidential candidate until after both respective conventions have concluded.
	So we asked to speak at the Republican and Democratic.
	Obviously, we spoke at the Republican.
	And then we didn't get invited to the Democratic National Convention.
	Did they get back to you?
	So you asked them?
	Yeah, they never got back to us.
	They never got back to us.
	And you email them or text them?
	Oh, we called them.
	We sent the invitation.
	We sent the request to speak at both conventions at the same time.
	And we heard from the Republican National Convention right away.
	Now, look, going in there was like, it wasn't easy.
	It was like, you know, going into an ex-girlfriend's house whose family hates you because of a bad breakup on Thanksgiving and saying, how you all doing?
	Oh, right.
	It wasn't a comfortable feeling.
	And, you know, but like I said, everybody else, when we get the opportunity to highlight American workers and or teamsters, you know, we're going to do it at any and all platforms there are, whether we're welcome or we're not.
	And we wanted to do the same at the Democratic National Convention.
	We didn't get that opportunity.
	But, you know, so to get back to your point was after we did all the scientific polling after we after the conventions, you know, we have a general executive board, which are 24 leaders from all around the country, vice presidents and presidents.
	Yes, they make up the general executive board.
	So we presented all the polling data.
	We had, you know, spirited debate and dialogue, very respectful.
	And at the end of the day, you know, there were three people that voted to endorse the Harris Waltz campaign.
	And the majority of the rest of the executive board voted to not endorse and allow local unions and area joint councils to go out and, you know, endorse whoever they wanted.
	And, you know, again, you get criticized no matter what you do.
	But it was the right decision because, you know, both candidates, Harris and former President Trump, you know, didn't answer specific questions of what was important to us.
	So, you know.
	Like, for example, so which ones.
	So it's like our right to strike.
	Like right now, you see the ILA on strike.
	We had the railroad workers when we first took over two years ago.
	They're under what they call Railway Labor Act, where Congress can make a recommendation to implement the contract under the process.
	And they did it.
	And our members weren't happy.
	They did it under the Biden administration.
	And one of our biggest goals moving forward, because we've got this campaign with United Airlines, where they're under the same process.
	We want the right to strike.
	And we can get the right to strike once we conclude the process.
	But a lot of times the government will intervene and they'll obviously implement the contract.
	So that was very important to us.
	Look, if we're in the middle of an RLA negotiation and we want the right to strike, are you going to support us?
	Are you going to stop us?
	Wasn't a commitment from both sides on that.
	On either side, Republican or Democrats.
	On either side on that.
	Not even supporting your right to strike.
	That's crazy.
	That's in certain arenas under the Railway Labor Act.
	Like airlines are under the Railway Labor Act.
	Railroads are under the Railway Labor Act.
	Trucking industry isn't.
	Most private sector that we represent isn't.
	So we still have the right to strike in other arenas.
	But these are important industries for us.
	So we didn't get commitments on that.
	One candidate may have been stronger on the PRO Act, obviously supporting the right to organize, supporting collective bargaining agreements.
	We didn't get a strong commitment from the Republican side on vetoing national right to work.
	And again, when you're face to face with people and you're asking questions, and look, we give the questions to all the candidates prior.
	So it's like, fucking prepare.
	Lie to us.
	Tell us what we want to hear.
	And when they can't answer the question, well, they try and go around to you.
	Look, we're pretty sophisticated now.
	We're not as dumb as we look.
	And our members are certainly not dumb.
	Yeah, some of them were on break or whatever.
	Yeah, someone might be on break.
	You know what I mean?
	Look, that's fine, brother.
	Third coffee break of the day.
	They earned it.
	Thank God for the unions.
	Yeah, yeah.
	You know, but they didn't answer the question.
	So it's like put the polling numbers together, put the in-person interviews.
	You know, we did the right thing.
	We did the right thing, buy our members, no matter what.
	And I'll defend that all day long.
	But, you know, the problem is it's like the good news about this whole situation is you see how treacherous the far left can be and the far right.
	And I think it's fucking hilarious because, you know, don't threaten us with a good time.
	You want to fight?
	Let's do it.
	Yeah.
	You know, and, you know, we'll cut their money off.
	We'll do whatever it takes.
	They're going to have to earn it moving forward.
	They've done a lot of personal attacks.
	They've done a lot of attacks on our members.
	And, you know, we're ready to go.
	Whoever wins either way, you know.
	They're going to have to deal with you.
	They're going to have to deal with us.
	We control commerce in this country.
	Fuck yeah, dude.
	And we're powerful and we're not afraid to fight.
	We'd rather just fight corporate America instead of dealing with this other bullshit, which is a distraction.
	You know, we've had politicians, right, that, oh, we support you.
	We support you.
	When we're doing the UPS negotiations, you know, there were some high-profile people that, you know, it's senators that, you know, claim to be the working people, the Schumas of the world, and some others.
	We're pro-union.
	We want to support unions.
	They wouldn't sign off on a support letter for UPS workers prior to going into these negotiations.
	They wouldn't sign off of support letters while we're striking these DSPs where your mom works in Amazon.
	So it's like, what does that tell you?
	It means, you know, they're afraid they're going to get their campaign contribution taken away from Amazon and big tech.
	Well, don't say one thing and do another.
	Be consistent.
	If you want to be in bed with big tech, just tell us.
	Be transparent.
	Like you'll always hear me say, the one thing I do, and this is me, probably to a fault, I always state my fucking intentions clearly.
	I'm going to come after you.
	We're going to get X, Y, and Z for our members.
	And if you don't, you're choosing to strike yourself.
	So accept the consequences.
	If you're going to screw us over, don't fucking hide behind false promises.
	Screw us over.
	You know, tell us you're going to screw us.
	I'm happy.
	We'll figure out how we deal with it moving forward.
	Don't fuck me in the face.
	Don't fuck me in the rear or whatever.
	How some people do it.
	I don't do it like that.
	No, no.
	No baby oil here.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, dude.
	Yeah, if only Diddy would have unionized, man.
	He would have definitely violated every human resource policy and procedure.
	He probably wouldn't have lasted too long.
	Yeah.
	And one of it, yeah, the first one, wash your hands.
	That's the number one.
	I mean, that's above every sink, you know.
	Or age appropriate.
	Amen, dude.
	You know, I got my producers some tickets to the Tennessee Titans versus Green Bay Packers game a few weeks ago, and I did it on game time.
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	Game Time.
	This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp.
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	But behind that, sometimes there's a whole orchestra of stuff going on.
	Thoughts and feelings and uncertainties.
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	That's better H-E-L-P, betterhelp.com slash Theo.
	Yeah, that whole thing's crazy.
	I think that they, I think the government or somebody, the CIA, whoever's busting him, they're going to use that as leverage to get people to speak out for political leverage or speak out in favor of politicians in lieu of getting exposed.
	I don't know if that's true or not, but I just wouldn't put anything past any of these organizations now.
	So that was why you guys didn't endorse a candidate.
	Is there still the possibility for you guys to endorse a candidate?
	No, we're not going to endorse it.
	We've made a decision that we're going to stay out of it and see what happens.
	Nothing would change that?
	No, nothing at all.
	Nothing at all.
	Look, if we change our position either way, we look weak.
	We're strong.
	And we're strong in our position.
	And there's people that don't agree with it.
	And that's fine.
	That's great.
	And the problem is, remember one thing, everybody's opinion matters, right?
	Especially our membership.
	And I'll tell you, I'm so disgusted with the behavior of people attacking each other personally.
	It's like, we're the best country in the world, which we're provided the greatest freedoms in the world, where we can say and do whatever we want within reason, not breaking the law and not be retaliated or retributed or any retribution against us.
	And this whole process, that's complete opposite of what we stand for.
	And it's a fucking disgrace.
	People are laughing at us around the world.
	They're laughing at us because we're not taking care of our workers.
	Right.
	Workers or the communities.
	I mean, we're getting involved in stupid shit, attacking people personally.
	Oh, you mean union members are?
	No, it's just the whole political bullshit.
	Oh, yeah.
	Oh, yeah.
	It's unbelievable.
	It's disgraceful.
	That they would then want to make you guys look bad.
	It's crazy.
	Yeah, for workers not to get paid.
	But then you do have people that say, well, these guys make so much money and this and that.
	But a lot of that you're saying is just bullshit.
	That's not the starting out salary.
	No, it's not the starting off salary.
	And, you know, majority of our members are working 50 to 60 hours per week.
	Oh, yeah.
	You know, life-family balance doesn't exist in certain industries.
	And we've been fighting hard to make sure that we negotiate contracts that, you know, limit overtime or limit People being forced to work.
	And, you know, people might think, you know, everything is great in this country.
	There's still a lot of workers out there that are hurting.
	There's still a lot of people that are hurting that are living week to week, paycheck to paycheck.
	Oh, indeed.
	And it's a disgrace.
	And we're giving money out left and right.
	That, you know, let's take care of our workers.
	Let's take care of ourselves.
	If your worker's last name was Israel, you'd have all the cash you needed, you know?
	That's for damn sure.
	But it is unfortunate.
	Yeah, my mom's out there.
	She's driving a fucking catalytic converter 30 miles out into the desert to drop it off or, you know, deliver an auto part sometimes.
	And, you know, and it's like, and she's not even getting paid by the per mile or whatever.
	Just you got to think about all those things, you know.
	And who's making the money?
	Who's doing all the work and who's making the money?
	It's easy.
	Yeah, Big Muffler.
	Or whoever, yeah, whoever it is, dude.
	New York Amazon delivery drivers join the Teamsters in surge of momentum.
	That's exciting.
	Hundreds of Amazon drivers at a delivery station in Queens, New York marched on their bosses today to announce they're joining the Teamsters.
	I think striking's fun, dude.
	If you have somebody out there with a drum or something.
	Oh, we get it all.
	I mean, we've got strikes are awesome.
	I mean, the one thing about strikes are two things.
	When you strike for recognition, it sends a strong message to the employer that, you know, our members are united, our members are strong, and they want to fight for a contract.
	And if you don't, we're going to withhold our labor.
	I mean, there's a lot to be said about disruption and the positive effect on it.
	And look, it is what it is.
	And, you know, it's not easy at times, but you got to fight.
	You got to stand up.
	And it's a great litmus test for us because we know how strong the group is or isn't.
	And these Amazon workers, I got to tell you, they have courage and conviction like I've never seen.
	And, you know, two, two and a half years ago, you know, we put this as a priority.
	We've got to organize Amazon workers.
	And we have been working, you know, tirelessly around the country.
	And this is going to be a reality.
	This is definitely going to be a reality.
	You know why?
	Because once you shut, you know, companies like Amazon down or you shut a DHL down or any company, you shut the ports down, it sends a strong fucking message on, look, this is important.
	And these corporations need to realize who's actually in charge.
	And it's not them.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I agree, man.
	I long for the day that everybody just like all of these like Facebook headquarters and different Verizon or whatever.
	I don't care if my cell phone doesn't work, dude.
	I don't want a cell phone anymore.
	Yeah, I know.
	It ruins everything.
	It's awful.
	It's awful.
	It's like we've ruined kind of, it's like we've let technology take away so many things that were valuable to us.
	And then you see the effects of it on children and they don't know the difference, right?
	But then you see some countries like Poland who are standing up for like whatever their beliefs are as a country and like their moral fortitude.
	And it's interesting.
	Sometimes I wish that we did more stuff like that.
	We started to realize like, hey, just because this is a technological advancement or because it makes things easier, is it good for us to have dummied down society?
	Oh, yeah.
	You know, I mean, look, think about this.
	You know, we talk about phones.
	I used to be able to memorize 10 or 15 phone numbers, right?
	Because I'd go to a payphone and I'd call someone and I didn't have the number written down.
	I'd have to memorize it.
	Oh, yeah.
	Right now, I can't even tell you.
	I'm lucky I know my own phone number because all you do is just speak into a microphone in your phone and call Theo.
	Yeah.
	Bang, call you.
	I don't even have to know your number.
	Yeah, call my bookie or whoever you.
	I want a beeper.
	Let's get a beeper back.
	Beeper, let's put payphones back in the corner.
	Payphones.
	You're a home run.
	The best part about payphones was when you were on one and some guy, like a homeless guy or whatever.
	Someone trying to rob you, you can just hit them with a receiver.
	But it was never long enough.
	It would get so it would get an inch from their skull.
	Oh, you'd be like, oh, shit, now he's going to hit me.
	Yeah, you'd have to put in 40 more cents and you'll get like three extra inches of cord, you know?
	And you could beat the guy, you know?
	Crank calls were the best from payphones, huh?
	Payphones were the best also because, well, first of all, you used to be able to hide from people.
	You could be like, I can't be that.
	Nobody could know where you were.
	They couldn't get in touch with you at all times.
	Do you share your location?
	You'd have to, oh, no, I don't share my location, dude.
	I don't either.
	Yeah.
	I'm not sharing my location, dude.
	That's crazy.
	I don't even know who would.
	Yeah, but that's crazy.
	You're not going to see me coming, motherfucker.
	Imagine your parents tracking you like 25 years ago on social media.
	No.
	I would have tied my phone to a cat's back or whatever.
	Oh, yeah, yeah.
	Let that bitch hit the streets.
	Duct tape it to like the German shepherd's caller.
	Run around.
	Oh, it'd be awful.
	They tracked it down.
	I'm 53 years old, and we ran wild back in the day.
	Oh, yeah.
	And I couldn't imagine my poor mom, my mother, we ran her hard.
	You know, we ran her hard, but I can't imagine.
	Like, these fucking idiots put everything on social media now.
	And it's like, really?
	We used to be able to lie.
	They rat themselves out.
	Oh, yeah.
	People rat that they tell their boss they can't come in and work and then they're partying or something like Buffalo Wild Wings or whatever.
	Dude, yeah.
	We used to used to be able to lie to somebody and they didn't know you were lying.
	No.
	What about that beautiful piece of America that we lost?
	You're willing to lie and not get caught?
	Yeah, dude.
	You could tell a woman you were a lawyer or whatever, and she's like, you're 11. And I'm like, who cares?
	The defense rests, you know?
	But those were the days, man, you could go into another city and, yeah, you could just make up stuff.
	You didn't have to be a criminal forever if you were online or something.
	So much of the fun is gone because a lot of the mystery is gone.
	But the last thing we can, if we lose the, like, man, it's just so crazy because so much of the fabric of our society has started to dissolve.
	It's like, you know, it's not as much of a Christian nation anymore.
	It's not, we haven't stood up for even, and even if it's, if it doesn't have to be a religious nation, it should be a moral nation, right?
	And we don't protect like, we don't stand for things morally.
	Like business has just taken over.
	It's, yeah, like greed.
	It's just, it's gotten people, how about people?
	You know, everybody talks about, you know, all this righteous bullshit, right?
	And a lot of it's, some of it's good, some of it's bad.
	But, you know, recently I work in Washington, D.C., and there were people actively desecrating monuments and lighting the American flag on fire.
	Now, regardless of what your position is on anything going on in the world, like growing up, one value that we add is you respect that flag and you defend it with everything you got.
	And I kind of posted a picture of an American flag on social media, and I'm not really allowed to touch my social media, you know, because like guys like Will and Brian, my good people that are around me, chief of staff, they protect me from myself because there's certain things that just drives me nuts.
	But I posted the American flag and I wrote, I will defend and honor this till the day I die, and everybody else should.
	We're in the greatest country in the world.
	I got attacked on these private DMs saying, well, Supreme Court said it's legal to burn a flag.
	Okay, so it's legal to burn a flag because the Supreme Court says is it morally right to desecrate something so sacred?
	So that's where like, I think we got to get back to basics and say, look, I agree.
	Let's fucking cut this bullshit out.
	We're in the greatest place in the world.
	But we don't even, but now it's almost if you say America, you say USA, you're suddenly far right.
	You know, it's like if you put an American, like some people think the American flag, it's like it's been positioned by the media that it's not even, that it's not our unifying flag anymore, you know, that it's for one party.
	And they did that on purpose.
	And it's, it's unbelievable.
	It's sick.
	And we took the Pledge of Allegiance out of schools.
	Little things that I think have an effect on yourself and your psyche in a positive way to make you feel like you're part of a group.
	And when you don't feel like you're part of a group anymore, you don't feel like you're part of the fabric of America, that it's not a real thing, then you start to only look out for yourself.
	And that's when I think things get really sick.
	Well, if it was so bad, wouldn't people be leaving here left and right?
	Oh, yeah.
	All those people that said they were going to leave or whatever and they're leaving, dude.
	I wish they would leave.
	I love this country.
	And it's, look, do we have our flaws as a nation?
	We all.
	We have our flaws as human beings.
	Yeah, look at the Jets.
	Right.
	Yeah, I know.
	I know.
	Jesus.
	But, you know, it's a great country.
	It's something that people should be proud to live here.
	And they should respect it.
	And the fight isn't amongst ourselves.
	You know, for us, guys like me and our union members, it's like we were afforded freedoms because of that flag, because of the country we live in, where the enemy is not ourselves.
	The enemy is corporate American crooked politicians.
	It's fucking easy.
	Yeah.
	It's weird when the enemy now is in your country, though.
	That's the thing that's gotten different.
	It used to be that your enemy was other countries or the countries you had conflict with.
	And now it's gotten to be that the enemies are running our country or they are in debt to people who are running our country.
	Or our leaders are in debt to our enemies.
	That's what's gotten weird.
	Our leaders are in debt to people who don't care about the morals of this country and who don't have any.
	No, and it's there's got to be a solution to the problem, though.
	That's what I hope, brother.
	I fucking hope, dude.
	I will fucking chew the tires off somebody's asshole, brother.
	I fucking hope that we can change things, dude.
	You know, and I think there's a lot of guys out there who can, you know.
	So that phrase you just said, chew the tires off someone's asshole.
	So if I had to interpret that in a Boston interpretation, what do you think that would be?
	Oh, man.
	Might just give him a Swift kick in the nuts.
	No, I think it would be happy.
	Yeah.
	No, I'd put a cannoli in there somewhere.
	Yeah, North End?
	Yeah.
	Italian section.
	Which that one place is so good.
	Every green awning, it's open all night.
	Oh, the Bovas.
	Yeah, you go in there and they got Mike back in the back, and he doesn't have, he has, he may still have a couple teeth.
	I don't know.
	There's an update you can get online.
	I haven't checked it.
	Nice tooth?
	Yeah, yeah.
	And they're like, tell him Mike, and he'll be like, I think that's Bova's Baker.
	Yeah, yeah, that's it, bro.
	Oh, that place is good, dude.
	I'm not gay, but I'll suck off one of those canolas, brother.
	I'll tell you that.
	You know what I'm saying, dude?
	BLM, dude.
	Those things are good.
	And, bro, you go in there.
	You can meet a lady.
	They got some people in there, dude.
	And the guy that works in there works with his ex-wife in there.
	They're in there running it all night.
	But yeah, they got the guy in the back who's still got, he's got a, you know, he's got a couple of horsemen left in the stable back there.
	And every now and then.
	There's some Thoroughbreds back there.
	Oh, every now and then he'll sound off, you know.
	Every now and then somebody will.
	You know what's good about that place?
	And every now and then, yeah, they put him in a Vince Wilford jersey back there, and he'll fucking start rattling around.
	Back in the day, that place used to be great because you come out of the bars in Fanuel Hall or North Station, and it was the only place open.
	And, you know, after drinking 35 beers, it's a good idea to fucking eat a couple cannolis in a little taramizoo.
	But then you'd end up in the corner, and you end up fucking getting in a fight, argument.
	It was like WWE after eating cannolis and Italian pastry players.
	Oh, man.
	WWE.
	Two guys beating the shit out of each other with fucking frost cheeks.
	Oh, it's crazy.
	One guy's got a fucking apple kreller just slammed him in his throat.
	It's funny.
	I live right now there and it's still open.
	Oh, last time I was there, we went in there.
	And yeah, it's so good, dude.
	Oh, that place is good.
	Solan battery with a cannoli.
	Yeah.
	Oh, bro.
	They got the best stuff in there.
	Bring it up.
	Bring up their website.
	What's it called?
	Yeah, see what they got on there.
	Let me see some of the items over there.
	Oh, you got to go with the whoopee pie.
	Oh, they got them?
	They got them right there.
	Oh, yeah.
	Yeah, some of those things.
	Oh, they got those little from brulee's, brother.
	Now, my son that you met today, he's a type 1 diabetic.
	Is he?
	And he always tells us joke, right?
	But, like, see that stuff right there on the website?
	It's pretty sad when that can save his life.
	Forget CPR.
	That'll save his life.
	Put a little Kreller in him, huh?
	Put a fucking little bit of Boston cream in his snout.
	Absolutely.
	Bring him back to life, brother.
	That fucking sugar narcan, homie.
	That poor kid has diabetes.
	These politicians have fucking liabides.
	That's a good point, dude.
	Oh, I hope you almost, it's almost weird because you're almost like, will some country come and rescue us?
	But it's our own country, you know?
	It's like that's the part that's going to be.
	We got to rescue ourselves from ourselves.
	We do.
	We do, but it's definitely greed is one of the biggest things.
	So with the country kind of divided and even with the union having different views in politics, how do you keep the union unified?
	Like, is it tough to do or is it – You know, we're not a dictatorship.
	Our leadership is something that's never been done where we are out there, myself and my general secretary, treasurer, my partner, and all this, Fred Zuckerman.
	We are actually out three, four days per week in work sites all around the country.
	We're not talking to leaders.
	We are talking to rank and file members in every industry we represent.
	And look, this political shit that's going on right now, the presidential race, it's important.
	But what we do is represent workers.
	That's the most important thing.
	So what do we do to keep them unified, negotiate the best contracts, be out there, be visible, be transparent, be inclusive, but more importantly, be honest with them.
	Part of the issue with a lot of situations we've been through over the last two and a half years is in the success we've had, it's because we've been honest with our members and we've empowered them.
	We've empowered them where they know we have their backs.
	They know that if they want to take on a fight, okay, we're ready to go.
	There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
	Yeah.
	And should every worker be part of a union, do you think?
	I think every worker should be part of a union.
	I mean, look, think about it.
	You know, we set the tone nationwide on industry standards.
	And look, everybody should have health care they don't have to pay for that an employer is paying for.
	Everybody should have a pension that they can retire on and actually maintain their quality of life while they're retired.
	So yeah, everybody should have that.
	That's the American dream.
	Yeah.
	And unions, it would feel like are especially disadvantaged because even because their health care costs go up year over year and those costs get levied out to the members.
	The members have to, even if their salary is going up, the cost of the healthcare is going up the same or is similar.
	So it all washes out, you know?
	Like I was reading the other day about there was a union 32BJ, I think it is, 32BJ.
	S-E-I-U, yes.
	Which has workers paying 37% of their compensation of their earnings to health care.
	The members spent, what you're saying is the members spent $37 million towards the cost of some of their premium that they pay in the health insurance.
	See, with us, we… Yeah, so they're paying a cost, part of their compensation towards their health care.
	We go into every single negotiation.
	The majority of our members in the big industries do not pay anything towards the premium.
	The employers, we demand that they pay the full.
	Now, there are some industries that pay a certain percentage towards it, like public sector, but we get the ability to negotiate that.
	We get the ability to negotiate free health care and stuff like that.
	And that's important this day and age because, again, you get back to big business.
	We're out there fighting for the best benefits for our members, healthcare.
	We want zero to low cost.
	And who's making all the money?
	These fucking providers, like, you know, the Blue Cross company, the Black Insurance Company, Blue Cross, Blue Shields of the world, you know, the Kaisers of the world.
	And, you know, they act like they're providing us all these great benefits.
	We're fighting for them.
	And they're actually a vendor to us.
	So in some instances, we're investing in our own demise in certain situations, right?
	So, you know, we've tried to change that narrative as well.
	But yeah, it's a disgrace.
	That's a disgrace.
	Yeah.
	And I read an article that in New Jersey, police, fire, and teachers unions are expecting a 20% increase in their health care premiums for 2025.
	I mean, you know.
	So you take a wage increase that's, you know, you get a 5% wage increase, right?
	But your health insurance goes up 20%.
	Right.
	That's all.
	You just lost money.
	Right.
	Right.
	And why?
	You shouldn't be losing money.
	No, it's all part of the same scam.
	It's like, yeah, well, okay, we'll give you an increase, but this is going to be even higher than that.
	So we know we're going to get the money back.
	So think about this.
	You get a teacher that is responsible for cultivating the next generation and educating that next generation.
	Yeah.
	You get a firefighter that's running into a burning building to save your children.
	And you're in healthcare.
	And you have a police officer that's risking his life every single day with zero support from communities now.
	Except a Marbrow neck brace.
	Yeah, right.
	Yeah, right.
	Exactly.
	And you want them to pay more for the health insurance?
	Are you out of your fucking minds?
	Bro, it's literally going to get to the point, Sean, where you're literally going to have to smoke for medical care.
	It's going to be like, all right, if you want an IV, it's 20,000 Marbrow.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
	You want a Tylenol, you're going to smoke a fucking cotton of cigarettes, break them off.
	Yeah, it's crazy.
	But that's a medical full body, like just a full body Winston cask, you know?
	Just a full body Parliament cask.
	You know, this costs 30,000.
	Tarrantin 100th?
	Oh, God.
	That must have been a bustle.
	My grandmother, my grandmother used to smoke Tarrington 100ths, right?
	And she had like a three-inch ash.
	And you'd be sitting there.
	I'd be like, all right, when's this going to light the couch on fire?
	Oh, no.
	When is it going to light the dive van on fire?
	I didn't know what the fuck on the dive van.
	Yeah, I didn't know what it was.
	The dive van?
	The dive van.
	Well, yeah, my grandmother called it a div van.
	Yeah, whatever it was, yeah.
	Yeah, they both were.
	Smoking butts.
	They all smoked through pregnancy, right?
	Oh, yeah, brother.
	Oh, you'd see a kid be born.
	He'd be, you know, four ounces, brother.
	You know what I'm saying?
	She'd put him in.
	My grandmother put one, my brother in a curio cab.
	The kid was craving like fucking tab, tab cola.
	Dude, they had, Fuck, what was I going to say?
	My brain's not working good today, man.
	Some days it's on, some days it's off.
	You know, it's union.
	You know what I'm saying, brother?
	Might be on your off shift.
	But hey, it's hey, but hey, bro, it's part of the union, dude.
	Hey, FMLA.
	Hey, it knows no matter what that it's going to be rewarded.
	FMLA, Friday, Monday Leave Act.
	what was it What else was I going to ask you?
	Yeah, why do every, why does every, did we already ask this?
	Why does every worker need a contract with their employer?
	Well, because look, if you don't have a contract, right?
	And I tell this to people all the time we're organizing workers because, you know, we have these meetings with groups that want to organize.
	And you always get people that don't want to organize, right?
	They want to be friends with the boss or they think that they're being taken care of.
	And I always tell them, look, take a piece of paper, write down all your demands, write down your guarantees.
	Like I, Sean O'Brien, demand for my boss and my boss will provide for me 7% wage increase every year, free health care, job security, respect in the workplace.
	And if you give that to your boss that you're not organized, you think he's going to sign that?
	Absolutely not.
	There's no guarantees, right?
	Well, the union contract, you're guaranteed.
	You're guaranteed yearly wage increases.
	You're guaranteed medical.
	You're guaranteed retirement.
	You're guaranteed holidays.
	You're guaranteed vacations.
	It's simple.
	It's easy.
	And that's the litmus test.
	Hey, if you don't believe us, then everything that you want, write it down as a contract.
	You individually go give it to your employer.
	And I guarantee you, one of two things is going to happen.
	He's going to laugh at you, and then he's going to fire you.
	Damn.
	And now in smaller businesses, it might be different.
	Yeah, I mean, look, there's a lot of smaller businesses that actually take care of their employees that, you know, we've had instances where, you know, you've had a small business, you know, a couple of people come to you and, you know, and when you get into the weeds, deep down in the weeds, you see that, you know, these, you know, this, this might not be a great opportunity for a union and or an employer that is actually doing the right thing by the members.
	That's the one thing that people lose sight of is what we do as a whole holds other people accountable.
	So what we get as a union may encourage these small employers to do the right thing selfishly to keep us out.
	So we do set that bar pretty high.
	But there's a lot of family-owned businesses that, you know, that I know of, especially in my area where I grew up where, you know, they take care of their employers.
	You know, I have a friend of mine, Paul Nazaro, who started his own business and he sold it for a lot of money that he probably never has to work again.
	But he's an example where he always took care of it was a small tech company.
	And when he left, he had an employee that worked for him for 35 years on a forklift.
	He gave him a $500,000 check.
	Wow.
	Just stuff like that.
	So there are good stories out there.
	But the majority of people, and again, I'll stand by it.
	I think everybody should have the ability to join a union without retaliation or retribution.
	And again, but there are a lot of good employers that small businesses, family run, that have done well and have rewarded the people.
	So it's not every employer is bad because they're non-union.
	Yeah, man.
	I used to, speaking of forklifts, I used to work over, I used to work at this place.
	We was galvanizing clevis clamps or something, some bullshit.
	I don't know.
	I got really bad sunburn doing it because we had to do it outdoors or whatever because we weren't unionized or whatever.
	But yeah, we'd be out there galvanizing shit in the sun.
	And, oh, at lunch sometimes we would get real high and we would put each other on a pallet on a forklift and then put it all the way to the top and get the highest dude and just put him way up there and leave him up there while he went and eight.
	You guys definitely needed a union.
	Yeah.
	Oh, yeah.
	Was it the junior guy or the senior guy you put up the?
	Oh, no, it was a low on the totem pole guy.
	It was me.
	Did they drug test at that company?
	Did they drug test at that company?
	Fuck no.
	But you knew people were on drugs.
	Yeah.
	So you didn't have to test.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	You already knew it.
	Yeah, it was just kind of baked.
	Was it like a prerequisite?
	Yeah, I don't know whether or not, but it was baked.
	Yeah, that's the one thing that we do when we stand by.
	Everybody's got to get drug tested?
	For the most part, most of our members do, which is a good thing.
	Do you guys use USADA?
	Who do you guys use?
	I don't even know.
	Oh, you don't?
	No.
	Usada?
	No.
	They're a big drug testing company.
	Oh, one of America's greatest mysteries is the Hoffa mystery, right?
	So we got to ask about that, you know, and what happened to him, right?
	Because he was the Teamsters president.
	He was.
	He was, well, there was the father and then Junior.
	The father was an icon.
	I mean, he put the Teamsters on the map.
	Did you ever meet the father?
	I didn't.
	No, I was born in 1972.
	He disappeared in 75. No, but I know a lot of people that did out of my local and everything else.
	And, you know, he was an icon.
	He really was.
	Greatest labor leader ever.
	And he put the Teamsters and organized labor on the map.
	And then he went missing, right?
	Yep.
	Do you think he's still alive or not?
	I mean, he'd be 105 or something like that.
	So I don't know.
	Probably not.
	He's getting overtime if he's.
	Yeah, he might.
	Yeah.
	I mean, he's probably on the clock still, you know?
	Probably on the clock.
	Or yeah, do you think he's still on the clock?
	That's probably the appropriate term.
	Dude, once you become president, do they tell you what happened to him?
	Because he went missing.
	No one knows what happens to him.
	I mean, that's the biggest mystery.
	There's all these theories that, you know, you get killed by the mob.
	There's all these theories that, you know, he's buried under giant stadium.
	No one knows.
	I mean, you know, all the theories.
	But the one thing that is like, look, he's gone, but the work that he did should never be forgotten.
	I mean, that guy.
	Yeah, he's buried under a dunk in Don.
	It's out there.
	Yeah, whatever.
	Yeah, probably South Medford or something.
	Yeah, there's always, like, we're not digging up another dunk.
	We got munchkins to make.
	But no, I mean, it's unfortunate what happened.
	But, you know, back then, I mean, you know, the Teamsters, it was a very controversial, very influential organization, which I think today we're not as controversial, but we're just as much influential.
	And no, I don't, I get asked this question all the time.
	I'm sure.
	We had that.
	But I'll tell you one thing, fascinating thing in my office.
	I'm in the same office that he had, and then his son.
	His son, Jimmy Jr.
	James P. Hoffman.
	James P. Hoffman.
	James P. Hoffer.
	Yeah, definitely not his father.
	You know, was born on third base and actually thinks he hit a triple to get there.
	You know, great name recognition, right?
	But in my office, you have, it's been all done over, but the one thing is there's a little closet in my office that, you know, they kept part of the history.
	And you open the closet door.
	There's a little closet door on the hallway.
	And there's actually a two-rail tape recorder that's still there.
	So he used to tape record all his conversations in his office and listen to him.
	You didn't even know you were getting taped.
	So it's actually still there.
	It doesn't function.
	But, you know, it's funny.
	Bobby Kennedy tells a great story, and it is true.
	You know, there's no love loss between Jimmy Hoffer Sr. and Bobby Kennedy's father.
	Actually, this is the, if you see this, that's President Hoffer at a Senate hearing.
	Flipping him off.
	Flipping off Robert Kennedy, right?
	But Robert Kennedy Jr. tells a story how driving past our headquarters with his father, he was probably 14 years old.
	He was probably 14 years old, and he's driving past our building.
	And his father had like a vendetta against Hoffa.
	And he saw that he was in there like 9 o'clock at night working.
	The lights was on.
	So he dropped Barbie off and said, I got to go back to work.
	If he's working this late, he's preparing.
	I got to prepare.
	So it was funny, the story.
	But, you know, he was definitely an icon.
	And he made the Teamsters what it is today.
	Yeah.
	You know, I had a falling out with his son who, you know, as far as I'm concerned, you know, he didn't do what was right towards the end of the union.
	And that's the great thing about having a Democratic union.
	And does everybody's vote in the union count for the same?
	All our rank and file members vote.
	Yeah, we're one of the only unions where one voice, one vote, each one of our rank and file members gets the opportunity to vote on their leadership.
	And so now every union member can vote for also for any president that they want or any elections.
	Whoever's running, whoever's declared candidate, they can vote for whoever they want.
	So most of the time we run as slates.
	So you'll have like the Sean O'Brien slate.
	I think we had, it's the Oz, the O'Brien Zuckerman slate.
	And we had our opponents last time were membership slate or something like that.
	And, you know, you run as a slate, a team of 24. How often do you have to run?
	Every five years.
	Every five years, yep.
	So we ran in 2000.
	Well, our election was in November of 2021, and we take over March of 2022.
	So we'll have another election in November of 26 and take over, you know, obviously get sworn in for another term, hopefully, in March of 2027.
	And do you have a campaign slogan, or did you have like a campaign slogan?
	No, but I think, yeah, well, we did, yeah, bigger, faster, stronger.
	And I say it all the time, you know, we've got to be bigger, we've got to be faster, we've got to be stronger.
	And we definitely have, we definitely have done that.
	Is the union growing?
	It's growing.
	We've organized just the teams alone in two and a half years, organized 50,000 new members.
	And we're organizing in traditional industries.
	But I know for a fact you've probably never done this.
	You've probably never smoked weed.
	But we are organizing in the cannabis industry where there's 425,000 W-2 employees nationwide.
	Bud slaves, they call them.
	A lot of people are calling them, yeah, because they're not unionized.
	No, and we have organized, I think we've got 2,000.
	We've got 2,000 of them organized, I think, throughout the whole country.
	So they're into cultivation.
	There's workers that are in warehousing, and then they're going to be in distribution.
	So all in our warehouse are what we're doing.
	There's 425,000 of them.
	Is that one of your largest growing sectors?
	Well, yeah.
	Is it sector of the term?
	It's divisions.
	Is that one of the largest growing divisions?
	Well, we're hopeful it will.
	I mean, we're doing a lot of things differently where, you know, once this is legalized nationwide, which I think both candidates are supportive of legalizing it, you're going to see, and the safe banking laws are changed where, again, these companies can put money into actual banks,
	you're going to see private equity come out and try and buy up all these smaller companies where what we're doing is we're working with a private equity fund utilizing contributions from our pension funds and investments in our pension funds.
	To be the buyer of them.
	To be the buyer of them.
	Let's go.
	And obviously organize within this industry.
	So there's $425,000.
	Is it a conflict of interest, though, to be an owner?
	No, we're not an owner.
	It would be the private equity firm that we invest in.
	So it's not uncommon.
	We do it all the time in other industries.
	Would you still make the best deal for your capital?
	Oh, we're going to make the best deal because think about it.
	A lot of times in pension funds and health and welfare funds, we make investments off contributions because that's what you're supposed to do, right?
	And it's usually a pretty dynamic asset allocation.
	You invest in real estate.
	You invest in private equity.
	You invest in stocks.
	You invest in bonds and stuff like that.
	So, or infrastructure.
	So think about investing in a lot of times, especially with private equity, you're investing in competitors, non-union competitors that could potentially put good companies out of business.
	So we're taking a different look at it now and approach and say, look, why don't we invest in the industries that we actually represent?
	And instead of investing in our demise, we invest in areas where we can help.
	So for instance, 30% of this portfolio will be dedicated towards a cannabis investment, and the other 70% will be in all kinds of other investments, right?
	We're hoping to raise a billion dollars by January or February of 2025.
	And that gives us the opportunity as well is like if there's a distressed company out there, like a small business that's unionized, or even a big business like Yellow Freight, who went out of business because they couldn't get financing because there was a greedy private equity firm known as Apollo, If we had this fund up and running, you know, a couple of years ago, we could have bought Apollo's position out at $600 million, restructure the company, and actually keep 22,000 jobs, right?
	So we're doing creative, innovative stuff like that as well.
	You know, you have to.
	Oh, you have to because, like I said, we're a lot more sophisticated and our members deserve the investments we're going to make on their behalf.
	And how, and like you look at the cannabis industry, for instance, right?
	If it doesn't get organized, what future do people have going to work there?
	So we organize them.
	We negotiate contracts that have health care, that have retirement benefits.
	We're not just creating a job.
	We're creating careers for people, right?
	Cultivation, warehousing, distribution.
	I mean, you know, that's what we should be doing.
	Yeah, that's really interesting.
	Yeah, and I can't believe that's one of the biggest growing, that's one of the largest growing.
	They have one of the largest growing sectors for you, they're saturated heavily with licenses nationwide, right?
	And that's a good thing, but they're capital poor right now.
	So they're waiting for this legalization federally and the safe banking laws to change.
	And you're going to see a grab.
	And if we're not controlling that grab, the best interests of these workers are not going to be at hand.
	So we want to make sure, first and foremost, that's what we're doing.
	We're not really concerned with doing double-digit return on investments.
	We're concerned on taking care of these workers that work in this industry and making certain that they have the ability to have a career if they choose.
	But how crazy that it's even come to that also, that now, in order to ensure that the workers are going to be safe, that the company, that the organization making them safe also wants to be a vested interest in the, like, you know what I'm saying?
	You got our skin of the game.
	You got our skin of the game.
	It makes sense, but it's crazy that people wouldn't just think, yes, we need to take care of the workers.
	Yeah, well, so again, you get back to corporate greed.
	You get back to bottom line of a balance sheet before people.
	Yeah, it's unreal, man.
	And then there won't be any more people.
	It'll just be a robot and some, you know, you know, some, I don't even know.
	Just who knows, you know, some Israeli lizard licking a Bitcoin somewhere, jerking off in a bank vault.
	One of your most viral moments was you had a confrontation with a fella from Oklahoma.
	Was he a senator?
	Yeah, U.S. Senator, Mark Wayne Mullen.
	Mark Wayne Mullen.
	And did you guys ever patch that up?
	Because you guys almost did a charity fundraiser fight right there in the Senate?
	Yeah, we had two run-ins, you know, one of the things that I don't know.
	We had two run-ins.
	I was testifying at a Senate hearing at the request of Senator Bernie Sanders, who I got a lot of respect for and I'm a huge fan of.
	And this guy attacked me first.
	What was he upset about?
	Well, so when you go into these hearings, and again, we have to submit a 15-page brief, right?
	So you give that 24 hours prior, and then you're going to condense that in your testimony to about two and a half to three minutes.
	So I'm reading my testimony, and you usually have witnesses pro and con on each side.
	And you have, you know, the Republicans on the help committee and the Democrats on the help committee.
	And I didn't know this guy from a hole in the wall.
	And he had an issue with a different union.
	He owned a business, a plumbing, a pipe fitting company in Oklahoma.
	And I guess they, you know, they picketed his house.
	He had 300 employees or something.
	So he took it very personal, which, you know, hey, someone shows up at your house that is personal.
	But the reality of it has nothing to do with me.
	So he started attacking me on all this stuff.
	And of course, being from Boston in the neighborhood, I'm like, fuck you, dude.
	Like, whatever.
	Like, you're a clown.
	I just started shitting on him.
	He started shitting on me back, right?
	And poor Bernie, like, I thought he popped a nitro.
	He was like, enough, enough, enough.
	And so that was, it was like, you know what it was like?
	It was like, you know, you're sneaking into your grandmother's house in high school because you're drinking and your grandfather's up screaming at you.
	But I felt bad for him.
	And then, so that was an extra.
	He goes to bed.
	You're like, this is definitely.
	You got a Marlboro?
	Yeah.
	I'm two points shy.
	Right?
	Yeah, this is insider trade.
	So we get into this big exchange.
	And then I didn't know who he was.
	It was actually comical.
	That was the first time.
	And then, so after that, of course, I start attacking him on social media.
	And he starts attacking me back.
	And we're going back and forth.
	So then I have to testify another herring.
	And he come in, and he was all fired up, you know, because clearly I hit a few nerves.
	And he's like, stand your butt up.
	And I'm like, you stand your butt up.
	I am fucking, he goes, you want to do this?
	We'll do it right now.
	I'm like, let's do it.
	And they didn't let y'all fight that long?
	No, it was like, you know what it was like?
	You know, I played a little bit of hockey and I don't even think I could jump over the boards anymore.
	But, you know, if I got over there and he got over, I mean, it's on.
	But, you know, and poor Bernie, you know, he's yelling and everything else.
	I just saw that clip.
	I mean, he was, he called me the next day.
	He goes, did you have fun?
	I go, I had a fucking blast, to be honest with you.
	Right.
	And so then as time went on, you know, Mullins people and my people were bumping into each other up at Capitol Hill, and they all determined it would be in the best interest if, you know, we sat down and, you know, try to air our differences if we couldn't air our differences, whatever.
	But, you know, he challenged me to a fight, like a charity fight.
	He's supposed to be an MMA fighter.
	And I'm like, dude, I walk to work.
	I'll just meet you at a park, you know?
	Yeah.
	And we'll see what happens.
	But thankfully, it didn't get to that both sides.
	For the best.
	You know, no, I'll be honest with you.
	Like, I met with him.
	We agree to disagree on a lot of things.
	But, you know, he's a sitting U.S. senator, one of 100 should be well-respected people.
	I get the privilege of representing 1.3 million working people.
	You know, we both probably could have done things differently that day, but it was fucking fun as hell.
	It was fun.
	Yeah, it was good.
	And it was great because.
	And you need some of that shit because C-SPAN, whatever that channel is, is fucking boring.
	Oh, yeah, yeah.
	It's like, I'm lying to you.
	And you don't even know what's going on on there.
	every now and then.
	C-SPAN's awful.
	It's like watching old people, you know, hump.
	And they're all, yeah.
	I mean, yeah, if you've done it.
	No, I haven't never done that.
	Yeah.
	Never watched that stuff.
	As long as you're not watching it.
	Yeah, but maybe I'll watch the Golden Bachelorette now or something, you know?
	As long as you're not watching it on the clock.
	No, no, definitely no.
	Be in the break room.
	Yeah.
	In the break room.
	Dude, the break room is always so much fucking fun, dude.
	I'll tell you this, and I've definitely stolen from my employers.
	I used to work at the grocery, right?
	And I was a checkout guy, right?
	We did stocking and checking out.
	And then I got moved up to checker and bagger, too, dude.
	And I got up, and when I'd go to school, baggers.
	Bagger sounds a little deviant.
	Yeah, Bagger's definitely...
	And then when poor people came through, I wouldn't ring their items up.
	But I'd remember, like, okay, I got three boxes of cereal.
	So you're like a modern day Robin Hood at Publix?
	I mean, yeah, it wasn't anything big.
	It was just some fucking cinnamon toast crunch or whatever, but I definitely helped out here and there.
	You know, did what you could.
	Because some families, they didn't notice it, you know.
	It's still, it's still stealing.
	But what we used to do is when we'd go to break, we would walk down like our fate, whatever aisle had our favorite food, and we'd just steal some shit right off the shelves.
	So that's, I feel sorry about that.
	I want to apologize.
	That place is called Dell Champs, I think.
	Went out of business.
	Do you think it went out of business because of the employee pilfering?
	I don't know.
	I didn't take much.
	I usually took Swedish fish and shit?
	No, I'd do like a banana, maybe a little bag of funyans or something.
	Not one of the big bags.
	But yeah, it was just, everybody did it.
	But see, that's not a fairest thing.
	Everybody does it.
	It just implicated all your co-workers.
	Oh, dude, definitely all of them.
	Chad, Giddy, all those dudes.
	This one dude used to come, clock in, go home.
	He worked for us for four months.
	That's funny.
	Like, who is he?
	People would come to work and they're like, where is he?
	They came at a piece of picture of him one day.
	Where is he?
	This kid named Chucky or whatever.
	And we're like, who is he?
	And like, your employee, you're going to rat him out.
	I'm like, I don't even fucking, we never seen that kid.
	We don't know him to rat him out.
	Yeah, dude.
	But, yeah, working at a grocery store was fun.
	Do you see more, do you see the union growing now?
	Yeah, absolutely.
	I mean, we can joke about like the breaks and all that stuff.
	Oh, yeah, for sure.
	But unions have proved, they're the hardest working, most productive workers in the country.
	And I think this new generation, you know, that have an appetite to fight and they want to take on the boss.
	And, you know, they're very in tune with social media.
	And I think there's a great opportunity.
	I mean, when you see places like Starbucks and Chipotle and all these, you know, industries that have never been unionized where the young workers that are 18, 19, 20 years old demanding recognition, demanding representation in the workplace, I think the sky's the limit.
	And I think, again, it sets the tone for the next 10 or 15 years in the labor movement.
	We definitely have seen growth in the Teamsters and a lot of those industries that have never been represented.
	It's exciting times.
	Yeah, I know.
	It definitely seems like, well, we're just, I'm seeing as more big businesses and things become conglomerates and stuff like that.
	Yeah, the last thing you have is it almost seems like it's the last choice, you know, and it's the best choice.
	You know, you have to have somebody fight against these groups for you.
	This article says this summer alone, 10,000 workers organized with the Teamsters for the first time at a wide range of employers and traditional Teamsters industries like transportation and delivery, including DHL.
	Oh, we were already talking about that.
	Yeah, so do you think that, oh, it says also including Amazon, the American Red Cross, Costco, and cannabis dispensary nationwide.
	So it's everywhere.
	Yeah, we are.
	We're hitting every single opportunity.
	We don't solicit.
	We have targets, like Amazon, because they're such a bad employer.
	But DHL, like we represent DHL around the country.
	Some places were unionized, some weren't.
	So what we did is we just started striking them for recognition and we shut them down at CVG, which is the airport in Cincinnati last December, right during the busiest time for them.
	And what we did there, there was 2,300 workers.
	We got a first-time contract there for 1,300 workers.
	And the remaining 1,100, we got cod check neutrality, which they didn't want to give us.
	But we said, look, no problem.
	Next December, we're going to do the same thing to you.
	We'll shut you down.
	And the good thing for us, once you have a union contract for the most part, whether it's DHL, UPS, UNFI, Cisco, or any of those, we have what they call picket line protection.
	So we get to honor picket lines all over the place.
	So we can extend picket lines at different locations and shut down industries nationwide.
	And again, that's a choice that an employer makes that they shouldn't make.
	And we've been successful doing that.
	So as a result of that, DHL is funny.
	I think they are owned by the Deutsch Post Office, I believe.
	I remember when they shut up with those yellow trucks.
	Yeah, they're awful.
	They're Kansas City Chiefs.
	What's going on?
	Yeah.
	So we, you know, we organize and we have, you know, but they're, again, you know, they're a European company.
	And I met with the CEO after we struck them.
	And I said, he's like, we want to reestablish our relationship.
	And I'm like, okay, give us card check neutrality.
	What is card check neutrality?
	It means they just agree to, once we get the majority of the employees assigned cards, we give them to a third-party arbitrator who decides the validity of the cards.
	And then if we have the majority, they sit down and negotiate a contract with us.
	There's nothing else.
	The validity of the cards.
	What do you mean?
	Like, they just, the arbitrator will determine if we do have the majority or not.
	And we don't usually submit these cards to an arbitrator unless we have 80% of the contracts.
	People signed up.
	I want to join the union.
	Got it.
	Okay.
	So, you know, they'll determine that, and then they sit down and negotiate a contract.
	So we had a meeting in Washington.
	They sent these three, the CEO, their lawyer, and the CFO.
	And I went with our attorney, Fred Zuckerman, and I'm a general secretary treasurer.
	We sat down and they're like, we want to reestablish the relationship.
	One guy had an English accent and really fucking aggravating.
	G'day, we'll see about it.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, all that bullshit.
	And well, we want to have a relationship.
	I go, well, the only way we can have a relationship, you give us cod check neutrality.
	And he said, yeah, we don't believe in that.
	I'm like, okay, great.
	Meeting's over.
	I'm not going to beg for this.
	Go fuck yourself.
	See you later.
	And then like two days later, our attorney's on the phone and their attorney's like, we rethought this because we told them, we'll just shut you down every chance we got.
	And you don't want to be like that.
	But when they come in and especially, you know, they're not an American company.
	You know, they could give two shits less about us.
	But, you know, we've reestablished our relationship where, you know, we've made them realize how important their work is and how important a relationship is with the Teamsters.
	So, you know, we've been successful there.
	And, you know, look, we'll work with anybody.
	Say in the weed organization, right?
	Say the people that work for weed companies, how do they become part of the union?
	How does someone who's working somewhere who feels like, okay, I'm not supported or maybe I'm at a place that should be supported, how do they approach you guys to be hopefully potentially be part of the union?
	They'll go to a local union, like a Teamster's local, and they'll, you know, start at a local level.
	Yeah, they'll go to a local level, talk to the local union.
	Local union will either send in their organizer or we'll provide an organizer for them.
	They'll go out, talk to the workers, establish a relationship, establish trust, and have them sign authorization cards, meaning they want to join the union.
	And especially in the cannabis industry, I think we've gotten more card check recognition because I think two things.
	They know that we can strike them for recognition.
	And two, they know that we have this ability to make investments in their businesses as time goes on once this fund is created.
	And it's good.
	It's good for the industry because think about it.
	We're going to regulate that industry.
	So if we don't organize them, the mom and pop that are charging X amount.
	And I've never done drugs in my life.
	I don't even know, I've never smoked weed or anything else.
	I've done them.
	They're all right.
	Yeah, I mean, they're all right.
	Yeah, I mean, I didn't do them because I probably would have fucking loved them.
	God did.
	But, you know, I don't know, but you don't want to undercut each other in this industry where it's a race to the bottom.
	So there are a lot of employers out there that have welcomed us in because of that reason.
	Like, we don't want to sell a gummy, you know, 25 cents cheaper than the guy down the street.
	So, you know, we've actually regulated this industry to a certain point.
	But the other thing, too, which is very important in this industry is continuity of employees, right?
	So if you're providing employees with a union contract, good wages, good benefits, you know, there's not going to be a turnover ratio, right?
	You know, when we first started this organizing campaign, we were seeing 20, 21-year-old kids that, you know, they weren't stealing a banana.
	They were sampling the product, right?
	Oh, yeah.
	And they'd get, you know, fight or they'd leave.
	So, you know, we've actually instilled some stability in this industry just because they know there's an opportunity and they're organized and there's a contract and there's a future.
	Yeah, I think then you feel like you're part of something, which is the same thing, which goes back to our conversation about America.
	It's just like feeling like you're a part of something, feeling like, you know, I think it used to feel like your country was unionized.
	It definitely felt like that when I was a kid.
	And we haven't catered to that, you know, and our leaders haven't catered to that and our decision makers haven't catered to that.
	One last question.
	Wait, so does the union also work with the employer to do certain things?
	Yeah, I mean, there's times where we have to work with each other on legislation that benefits both our members and the company.
	There's a lot of common fights that we have to work together on.
	It's not always a line drawn in the sand.
	And the good thing is, it's like a lot of political issues we have coming up, like certain issues with Reauthorization Act and a lot of federal legislation.
	We'll work with a lot of our larger employers, especially if it's more beneficial for our members.
	So yeah, we do work a lot with employers.
	Some employers, you'll never be able to work with.
	They just dig in and they want to fight all the time.
	But we're ready for it either way.
	But we'll work with anybody.
	Do you think you'll be able to unionize Amazon workers?
	Without a doubt, we're going to be able to organize them.
	Oh, yeah.
	Without a doubt.
	It's going to be a battle.
	It's going to be a fight.
	But that's where we're going to call on the Dems and the Republicans and everybody involved that say they are passionate and supportive of these workers.
	We're going to call them out.
	We're going to expose them and we're going to put them to the test.
	And that's what needs to happen.
	Good.
	We're going to be there conscience.
	I want to represent your mother.
	Yeah.
	Absolutely.
	I appreciate it.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	I think that would be awesome.
	She likes to work hard.
	That's one thing my mom's always been is a worker.
	She likes to work.
	You know, it's probably her favorite thing to do.
	Absolutely.
	So where did you get your work ethic from?
	Probably from her, I guess.
	You know, it's funny.
	It's like, yeah, there's so many things that, but I do thank her for that, actually, a lot of times.
	Yeah.
	It was like she was always working, but yeah, I do have a strong work ethic because of her.
	Yeah, no, it's, well, you're a product of your environment.
	If your parents sat on the couch, smoked butts, and drank beers, chances are that's probably what you're going to do.
	You know, I had the ability growing up where I grew up.
	My father worked two, three jobs and hustled his whole life.
	My mother, the same thing.
	So, you know, we try to instill that work ethic in my two kids and my nephews as well, you know, which is important.
	And that's, I think, we've got to get back to basics in this country.
	And, you know, I think we have the ability to do it over the next several years.
	Well, and a worker should be able to know if they're going to lock in with a company.
	They're going to be like, I'm going to be here, that I'm going to know that when I get home from work every day, I'm not going to also wonder, do I need to go back out to another job to pay for insurance this month for my wife and for my children?
	And then they're not home to be home with their children.
	And so then the children grow up without their parents around.
	And so then they run into all types of things.
	So then they're in therapy and they're out using drugs or they don't, and there's no sense of a family.
	And it just, everything starts to dissolve, you know, and it's just, and it definitely is, there's a part of it is greed at the top.
	And a part of it is that in a first world country like this, in a country that has the highest GDP in the world, you would think that we would also want the workers to be happy and worrying about what's next always isn't that you can't stress alone, you know, can cause so much damage to someone.
	Think about your personal life, my personal life.
	When you're happy in your personal life, you're productive.
	Yeah.
	Right?
	You're driven.
	Same should hold true with people that go to work every single day.
	The employer should realize that if you have a happy employee that you embrace and you respect, they're going to work that much harder for you, right?
	And you reward, more importantly.
	Yeah, reward, I think for sure.
	Sometimes it's, you know, it's tough to be the certain type of employer to everybody, but that they should be rewarded for sure.
	There's no doubt, you know?
	I mean, you talk about therapy when you're a kid.
	I just look back and my therapy was a wooden spoon over the head if we acted up, you know?
	Oh, yeah.
	Oh, my mother.
	That was the good old days, wasn't it?
	Oh, dude.
	My mother would hit us like Teddy Brewski did.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	She would just fucking.
	My mother had more hits on us than Justin Bieber.
	Oh, yeah.
	Oh, my mother would put on a Pedroia jersey and just fucking tear into us, dude.
	Just hitting triples right off of my brother.
	Oh, that's good stuff.
	Yeah.
	Did you laugh when your brother was getting beat?
	Oh, no, dude.
	Every now and then I chimed in, dude.
	I'd shatter a wooden chair over that freaking mixed breed.
	Remember how, like growing up, I don't know how you grew up in your house, but we'd be eating dinner.
	My father would work two or three jobs, and you'd be sitting there eating dinner.
	We grew up in a pretty modest house, very simple.
	And God forbid, you know, you couldn't poke the beer.
	God forbid someone spilled something at the table.
	It'd be Jesus fucking Christ.
	And you'd start, you'd be firing, your fork would be have sparks on it because you want to get out of that table because you don't want to feel the wrath.
	You know what I mean?
	It was awful.
	But those are the best times.
	Oh, yeah.
	It was so much fun.
	And part of what you're talking about is a family being able to sit and have dinner together, right?
	And part of that was because, like, yeah, because people are being compensated fairly and a mom was able to be at home sometimes and sometimes they weren't.
	But yeah, and now we've gotten to this point where it's like both parents have to work and nobody and people aren't even building a family unit anymore.
	And it's, and I don't mean that in a negative way.
	Some people still are, but people should be able to afford to do that.
	In a country that brings in this much, that produces this much, it's got to start to change.
	There should be a work-family balance.
	And look, I'm guilty of this charge.
	I went out to work and I wanted to work 80, 90 hours a week.
	I still do.
	And I always did it with the objective of taking care of my family, taking care of my kids.
	And thankfully, my kids didn't end up fucked up over it.
	Well, I mean, maybe not completely, but Sean's all right.
	Sean's good.
	We'll see.
	Yeah, we'll see.
	Jerry's still out.
	But no, you went to work to provide for your family.
	And now it's like, you know, you made that choice.
	Now you don't have a choice, you know, because it's just so hard to make it.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, we can definitely do better.
	And it starts with the individual people.
	And sometimes the individual people can't do it by themselves anymore because they don't have the lawyers to back them up.
	They don't have the voice they need.
	So the individual people have to get together and they have to unionize.
	And that's where you guys come from.
	Yeah, you can't survive as an American worker not represented now.
	The deck is stacked against you.
	And the average person, look, you want to go to work, do your job.
	Let us fight for you.
	Let us take on the grievances at work.
	Don't bring them home.
	That's the beauty of a union.
	You have the backing of a union.
	You don't have to fight with your employee.
	Make a call and say, hey, to your business agent, you work for me.
	This is my issue.
	This is my grievance.
	I have faith you're going to fix it.
	Yeah.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	You don't have to take on all that stress.
	What do they lose by being a part of a union?
	What does a worker lose?
	Not a thing.
	Not a fucking thing.
	Before you go, Sean, thanks so much for your time.
	I appreciate it.
	Thanks for representing people and supporting people and being a voice for people.
	And yeah, and sharing things so clearly with us today.
	I think that we've learned a lot.
	Is there like a movie or a song?
	Like, is there something from the Dropkick Murphys or something from a movie or just something that like really you feel like is like like has a union fucking feel to it for you ever?
	I mean, one of my favorite movies of all time, I knew I wanted to be a Teamster truck driver my whole life was Convoy.
	That poor guy just died this past week, Chris Christofferson.
	But oh, the Dropkick Murphys are the best.
	Kenny Casey's a buddy of mine.
	Chris Christofferson right there.
	He just passed away.
	Just passed away.
	People love him.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Rode Scholar, too, I guess.
	Was he really?
	He was a smart guy, yeah.
	Wow.
	And he drove truck, too.
	Well, I don't know if he drove.
	It's just for the movie, maybe.
	It was probably a teamster, though.
	I'm sure a teamster was driving it back in the day.
	That was filmed.
	Imagine if nobody's driving, you don't have anybody to flip off if they go by.
	I know.
	Robot's going to give it a finger?
	What fucking fun is that?
	Yeah, how are you going to do that?
	I know.
	It's crazy.
	That's the last piece of America we have.
	Yeah, blow the air horn.
	Oh, yeah.
	And if you can't be a six-year-old flipping off a trucker, dude.
	Or like picking your nose and stuff like that.
	That's crazy.
	What is this country coming to where you can't even flip off?
	The dropkick Americans are the best.
	Kenny Casey's awesome.
	Yeah?
	He's my guy.
	He is my guy.
	He's a good friend.
	Very active in the Sober community as well.
	Oh, is he?
	Kenny Casey.
	I'm going to have to learn more about him.
	Yeah, he is awesome.
	He's a character, too.
	He is?
	Absolutely hilarious.
	Cartoon character.
	But very, very committed to sobriety, very committed to working people, working class guy.
	He loves unions.
	Real good friend.
	Wow, I'm going to have to tap in with him.
	I'll have to send him a DM or something.
	Yeah, I can hook you guys up.
	Yeah, it'd be cool.
	Absolutely.
	Yeah, people loved him from up there.
	That's definitely.
	I mean, people get married to their music and buried to it.
	Coming up to Boston, shipping up to Boston.
	That was the departed.
	Yeah?
	You were in it?
	No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
	The song was in it.
	Oh, their music.
	Yeah, dude.
	I'm a Boston Bruins fan, dude.
	We're going to sign that goalie or what?
	Huh?
	We're going to sign that goalie or what?
	Oh, Ratlet?
	No, no.
	No, Swayman.
	Oh, I don't know.
	Not that big of a fan.
	He's in a big contract fight right now.
	He is?
	Oh, yeah.
	Public, too.
	Cam Nally.
	Jeremy Swayman.
	There he is.
	Yeah, fucking sign him, dude.
	Is he unionized?
	Yeah, Monty Walsh is representing him, right?
	Former Secretary of Labor.
	He's the head of the National Hockey Players Association.
	I love their coach, man.
	Oh, yeah, he's good.
	Well, my friend's their assistant coach, Joe Sacco.
	Oh, yeah?
	Guy's the best.
	We all grew up together.
	Yeah, family best friends.
	Joe's the best.
	Oh, that's cool, dude.
	Right there.
	There he is.
	Yeah, Monty's the best, dude.
	Joe Sacco, that's cool.
	Monty's just a fucking Monty's hilarious, too.
	So where I grew up, we had about four or five guys make the NHL.
	One on my street, Keith Kachuk, his two sons play in the league.
	T-C-A-C-L?
	Yeah.
	They call him the Rad or no?
	No, no.
	That's the brother?
	No, so the father was my age.
	We grew up in the same street, and he's got two sons that are in the NHL right now, Brady and Matthew.
	Matthew just won.
	This Keith right there.
	Matthew just won, right?
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	What's Matthew's nickname?
	Oh, I don't know.
	They call Keith Big Walt.
	Oh, they do?
	Yeah, me and him went to a UFC fight not too long ago with Brian.
	We went with Dana White.
	It was hilarious.
	Dude, I was going to say, because you kind of look like Dana White.
	But Dana's a good man.
	Dana's the best.
	Oh, that's him.
	That's the guy.
	They call him the rat something, right?
	What's his nickname?
	Matthew.
	That kid is hilarious.
	So the mother's a longshoreman.
	Yeah, they call him the rat king, dude.
	We'll fucking see about that.
	Keith's mother is a longshoreman, and she's on strike.
	I was with the sister yesterday on the picket line.
	She's a longshoreman as well.
	And Keith's father, their grandfather, just retired a few years ago, Boston Fire Department.
	Great family.
	Wow.
	The ka-chiks.
	No, the kachik.
	Kachuk.
	Ka-chuck.
	They're definitely.
	Look, I'm not saying they're using extra letters, sir.
	Oh, yeah, absolutely.
	I'm not trying to snitch or nothing like that.
	You know, so it is what it is.
	It's going to fill the back of that jersey.
	Hey, also, in Boston, fucking, who knows how to spell anything?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Listen, we have a rule in Boston.
	If it's any more than three claps as a word, you don't use it.
	Oh, I see what you're saying.
	Three syllables.
	Three claps.
	You got to sound it out.
	That's a nice rule.
	Yeah, dude.
	Wow, Sean, I appreciate it so much, man.
	Yeah, thank you so much for your time, brother.
	I appreciate you, sir.
	Thank you.
	Really appreciate it.
	It was informative.
	And anything else that you think you need to share?
	I'm an Aries and I like long walks in the park, my friend.
	Look, as long as you're back in an hour.
	Absolutely.
	Now I'm just floating on the breeze and I feel I'm falling like these leaves.
	I must be cornerstone.
	Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this peace of mind I found.
	I can feel it in my bones.

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