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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the Daily Dive Weekend edition. I'm Oscar Ramirez,
and every week I explored the top stories making waves
in the news and some that are just playing interesting.
I'll connect you with the journalists and the people who
know the story and bring you news without the noise
so you can make an informed decision. You can catch
a new episode of The Daily Dive every Monday through Friday,
and it's ready when you wake up. On the weekend edition,
(00:27):
I'll be bringing you some of the best stories from
the week. There was an incredible health and science story
this week, as we learned of a twenty two year
old man named Joseph Dimio, who was the world's first
person to receive his successful face and double hand transplant.
After a car crash left Joseph with eight of his
body burned and twenty surgeries later, his doctors thought he
(00:49):
would be a good candidate for the transplant. He is
now six months out from his surgery and healing and
progressing very well. For more on how this all happened,
we'll speak to Karen Weintraub, health reporter at USA today.
He received twenty different surgeries and his plastic surgeon said
look I've done everything I can do, and introduced him
to a surgeon at n y U Lang own who
(01:09):
had done a number of face transplants. That gentleman saw
Dr Eduardo Rodriguez. He saw Joe Demio and said, I
can help you, but I think you should have hands
as well. And it was about a year long process,
little less than a year of testing Joe to make
sure that his eyes despite the burns on his face,
he couldn't move his eyelids, but his eyes themselves were fine.
(01:32):
His teeth were fine, So underneath this burned facade, he
actually was in pretty good shape. So that made him
a good candidate. He was young, he was also incredibly determined.
He wanted to get his life back and his independence back,
so he was a great candidate for this procedure. And
miraculously they found a donor who would work for him.
Because he'd had blood transfusions after the accident, he had
(01:54):
a lot of antibodies in his blood stream and so
percent of people in the world his body would have
rejected a transplant from them, So they needed one of
these six percent people, and they found him about ten
months after they started looking. Obviously, the tragic side of
the transplant is one person gets to live, but somebody
else has passed in order to make the donation. So
(02:14):
it's incredibly generous donation from the family to give the
face and lower arms from the forearm down to this
young man. And there's six months out from the surgery
now and the team is trying to declare a success
with it. Obviously he's way ahead of schedule. As you mentioned,
the swelling in the face will go down over time,
but you know, he's already regained some sensation in the hands.
(02:36):
He's been able to use them, you know, a brush
his hair and all that stuff, and do even some
light exercises, lifting weights, doing push ups from like a
bench and stuff. I mean, that's a lot within six months.
And as you mentioned, the donor gave everything, you know,
from the top of the head down to the neck
over to the ears and the arms at the forearms.
That's a lot and a lot of stuff to connect
(02:57):
to reconnect. You mentioned that the team, the operation team,
spent over a year practicing all of this. They went
through great pains to be able to do this right.
And it was about an eight person team involved, so
it's a huge number of people and probably another fifty
or sixty was involved in his rehabilitation. So this is
not a simple procedure at all, but obviously dramatic for
this young man. It's given him a life back. And
(03:19):
yes he's got two goals left. He's achieved everything. As
he said, he can shower by himself. Spaghetti is this
favorite food, but he was having trouble picking up. He
couldn't pick up a piece of pizza or a hamburger
with his burned hands. He didn't have enough opposable thumb
and four finger enough grip to do that. And now
he can eat by himself. That way, he can play pool.
He's very into physical fitness and he is lifting weight
(03:39):
even on days he doesn't do physical therapy. He does
that at home. He tries to stay fit, but he
likes food a little too much. Um, so he's not
a he's not as as he would like to be.
But it is really an incredible story. The other piece
that I found really striking about this story is that
in order to help the donor family, which obviously was
making this this incredible donation, and to help them feel
(04:01):
less of a sense of loss, actually during the surgery
and aspect of n Y. You printed out three D
printed the man's face and arms, and they put it
back on the court so that he would look normal
to the grieving family. Um and I just found that
an astounding aspect and obviously important to the family. And
we don't know much about the donor other than he
(04:21):
died of a stroke. I know the family wants to
remain anonymous for now, and Joseph did send them a letter,
you know, thanking them for all of it and everything.
One of the other interesting things that I thought too,
was kind of the psychological effects of this whole thing.
That's why the doctors said they wanted to give him
the face transplant too, because a lot of times victims
can't recognize themselves if they've been disfigured something, but they
(04:43):
can recognize themselves a lot quicker, you know, if they
do the face transplant and things like that. So that
was the psychological effects of this was also very interesting. Yeah,
I found that fascinating as well, that even in an
m r I and a brain scan, you know, when
you look at a picture of yourself, if you're severely burned,
you don't see that as you but when you see
any other face he was able to very quickly adapt
(05:05):
to having this new face and seeing it as himself
and seeing his hands as his own hands as opposed
to something outside of himself. Well, I, like I said,
just an incredible story. Wish him the best of luck
and continued healing and and just getting back to normal
as best as he can. I know he's got as
you mentioned, he's very driven. He's got a lot of
goals still that he wants to achieve. So good luck
(05:27):
to him. Karen Weintraub, health reporter at USA Today, Thank
you very much for joining us. Thank you. This week
we also had two big Amazon stories. First, we learned
that Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos stepping down from
(05:48):
his post and instead he will be serving as executive chairman,
so he won't be going far. But another story with
possibly even bigger implications for Amazon, we learned that starting
February eight, workers at their Best Alabama warehouse will be
voting whether to unionize or not. If they vote to
do so, it will be the first Amazon warehouse in
the United States to have union representation, and this could
(06:10):
have a big impact on the company as other warehouses
could also push for the same and In the meantime,
Amazon is doing everything they can to discourage workers from
voting yes. For more on this unionization effort, will speak
to Jay Green, reporter at the Washington Post. There are
a group of workers at a warehouse at Amazon just
opened left March in Bestmer, Alabama, which is just outside
(06:30):
of Birmingham, and they want to organize a union. They
filed with the n l RB to form the union.
The nl RB has determined that there are five thousand,
eight hundred and five workers that would be considered part
of the bargaining unit, and so unless some legal actions
by Amazon prevail, those workers will vote or have the
(06:50):
opportunity to vote starting on Sunday. There's a seventy week
mail in period to vote, and they vote yes or
no if they want to be part of the union
or not. Amazon for it's part obvious, he says, the
workers there don't need a union. They point to the
wage that they start workers off. I think it's like
fifty cents an hour, which is above the federal minimum
wage and higher comparable to a lot of other places.
(07:12):
You can say. They give them healthcare, vision and dental benefits,
a retirement plan, so they're touting all these things as
a reason for not wanting to go for it with
a unionization. The union counters right, and they they say
it isn't really about money, although they wouldn't mind more
money too, But they talk about things like dignity and respect.
But you know, workers in Amazon's warehouses are measured on
(07:35):
specific performance metrics. So if you are someone who stows
items as they come into the warehouse, you have to
stow a certain number of items in a given time
period in an hour, and if you fall below that
performance metric, you can be marked up. There are other
things where you know, workers say the facility investmrates in Alabama,
it can get hot in the summer. Workers say they
(07:57):
have been you know, workers who've been overheated because of that.
There are other those sorts of complaints as well. And
then the other thing that some of the workers I've
talked about too is in the midst of this pandemic,
and at the beginning of the pandemic, Amazon gave workers
a bonus two dollar an hour bonus. Workers called it
hazard paye, although Amazon doesn't call it that. But at
(08:18):
the end of May, they Amazon elimited that, eliminated that
and workers would love to see that bonus come back, because,
as we all know, the pandemic continues to rage. Let's
continue on this just for a little bit more. You
mentioned that the warehouse has only been open for about
ten months. Was there anything that sparked this call for
unionization or was it just kind of people haven't been
(08:40):
happy since it started opening. I know the pandemic plays
a huge role in that, and there was a lot
of safety concerns, but I think Amazon put in almost
a billion dollars into coronavirus safety efforts. I think this
is across the entire company now, not necessarily just in
this one warehouse. But was there something else that might
have sparked this or is it Is it really just
the workers kind of unhappy there. It's interesting because it
(09:02):
was surprising that it turned up at a new warehouse,
and also in the conservative South, where unions don't always flourish,
so it is a little surprising. But the workers that
I talked with have said, you know, it's really about
the conditions that they have seen since they started, and
I do think a lot of it actually relates to
the pandemic. There are two things I think that are
going on one is really obvious one, which is people
(09:24):
are scared, right They're showing up to a job and
they see coworkers have the virus and they get scared
that they might get it too, and it it affects
not just their lives, of course, but their families lives
as well. But I think the other thing that's going
on is as the pandemic raged, more and more people
started ordering online and so you know, you'd get all
kinds of things from Amazon among others that you might
(09:47):
have typically driven to the store to get. And Amazon
has made a ton of money off of that, but
it's also put a lot of pressure on these workers
to produce and to sort of meet the expectations of
the customers wore ordering the stuff. The fear for Amazon
they just added four thousand workers during the pandemic. They
have one point one million workers worldwide, and in Europe
(10:08):
it's a lot of different unions are kind of enshrined
into the work culture there, so a lot of Amazon
workers over there are already unionized. And the big fear
for Amazon is that if one big warehouse like this
goes to unions, then it's going to spark these fights
across the country. Yeah, that's exactly right. And I think
that's why Amazon is particularly concerned about this, and you
(10:29):
see it in the methods they are engaging in to
try and discourage workers from joining this union. But I
talked with Rich Trump, goes the head of the a
f L c i OH for this piece, and they
are supporting this union drive which is being led by
the retail warehouse and Department store union. But the a
f L is getting behind it because they know the
(10:50):
consequences of this. They know that if they can convince
one Amazon warehouse to join the union, others will as well.
Let's talk a little bit about what going to happen
next and what's happening now to the mail in balloting
for these workers to say, you know, if they want
to be part of a union now begins on February eight,
and a lot of workers are reporting that, you know,
(11:11):
there's a lot of anti union messaging there at the workplace.
It follows them to the bathroom and these very limited
bathroom breaks that they say they get, you know, like
inside the stall, there's a little poster or something that says,
do you want to pay your union dues? Where is
that money going to go to and this kind of
gets into all this interesting part of it. You know,
Alabama is right to work states, so you don't really
(11:31):
have to pay union dues, but they're making that an issue.
You've spoken to a lot of people, they're from that plant,
and a lot of them do say they do support
the union. How how has all this been playing out?
So as you say, the vote, it starts on Sunday
or the ballots are mailed out to workers on Sunday,
and that the voting period lasts about seven weeks. And
(11:52):
it's kind of an interesting phenomena because of the pandemic.
The NLLB is allowing for mail in balloting, which is
something they typically might not have done, and so it
changes a little bit of the dynamics of the campaign.
But right now Amazon is working very hard to convince
the workers from that whereous not to vote for the union.
And you know, as you mentioned, I have something in
(12:13):
my article about Amazon putting up a flyer on the
inside of the bathroom stall, on the inside of many
bathroom stalls in their warehouse. They're also texting workers fairly regularly.
They're engaging in what is often a common practice during
UNI campaigns. And that is what are these mandatory meetings
for some workers to come into training rooms and they
(12:35):
get half an hour or longer session about why the
union is a terrible thing. Now, what's interesting is we'll
have to see what happens starting on February eight, because
Amazon then is required to end those captive audience meetings,
that's what they're called. They can engage in other types
of electioneering, but that has to end, and so there
(12:56):
will be this ongoing sort of churn of information shin
that comes out over the next seven weeks as both
Amazon and the union try to convince members to join
their their cause. Jay Green, reporter at the Washington Post,
thank you very much for joining us. Thank you so much, Oscar.
(13:22):
The last couple of weeks, we also saw the big
roller coaster on Wall Street as Reddit users banded together
to buy game Stop stock. But this is the story
that I wanted to hear. A twenty four year old
graduate student from m I T got on the game
Stop train and turned five hundred dollars into over two
hundred thousand dollars. He did it like many others getting
advice on the Wall Street bet subreddit, and felt like
he was part of something bigger. In the end, his
(13:44):
family and friends convinced him to sell before the stock dropped.
For more on this graduate students wild game Stop ride,
will speak to Gregory Zuckerman, special writer at the Wall
Street Journal. He's an easy guy to root for. He's
a grad stud it's twenty four years old, m I.
He's got a stipend of about thirty six thousand dollars
a year, so he's not like he's rolling in money.
(14:05):
And basically he had a little bit of cash, about
four thousand dollars or so that he decided to play with.
And he did that starting about a year ago back
in martin In the pandemic really began and he lost
a good chunk of fits trading the market, so he
was down about two thousand dollars. And then he stumbled
upon roll Street Bets, this suddenly popular subreddit on the
(14:29):
Reddit site, and they were talking about game stops. So
we got excited at any bought these options, which basically
are bullish trades bet on game stop and yeah, he
did really well. The article in to Row two kind
of talks about the roller coaster that he went on.
He got in through Wall Street bets, like a lot
of people did. He started feeling like he was becoming
(14:52):
part of something bigger, you know, taking on Wall Street
kind of thing. Then he started making some money in
his family and friends had You don't have an intervention
for him to say, hey, don't play around too much.
Cash out the money that you want that you have already.
So part of that roller coaster he started with four thousand,
went down to two thousand, up to fifteen thousand, up
to eighty thousand, and then he sold at a little
(15:13):
bit over two hundred thousand. Tell us a little bit
about that sense of being a part of something bigger,
because a lot of people were feeling that same way.
It's exactly right. That's what I found most fascinating. That
you're with a group, you're with a community, and I
think that's where a lot of people are attracted to
when it comes to this Subredditt Wall Street bets. It's
(15:33):
not just the money yet I love making the money.
They feel part of something large or you know, we
all want to be part of communities, and not everyone
goes to the church and the googa anymore. And we
looked for things, and some people look for politics, and
now others are drawn to trading, and as you suggest,
he sort of got into it early on. He was
skeptical on being he was more of an investment decision,
(15:55):
and he made his best decision. He bought five hundred
dollars only put five into the options. But before he
knew it, he was caught up. He couldn't do anything else,
couldn't think about anything else. He was playing tennis with
his friends and literally after every point in the match,
he was ripping out his phone and checking into the
car and price how much he was making, how much
he was losing. It was real, all encompassing, and you
(16:17):
know he was thinking about selling, but he'd go on
this fight this uh Wall Street bets and they were saying,
no, no no, let's going to us thousand's going to five thousands.
Don't tell, don't tell, And he got caught up in
in it. And I don't mean it sparaging. Say it
was called like but you could see how people get
caught up and it becomes a frenzy. And that's what
happened to him, and he almost see it jokingly calls
it a mini intervention. But he sort of had to
(16:38):
have his friends step in and say dude, sow, you're
up two hundred dollars. You don't know what's gonna happen here.
You need the money, sells now, and he did. That
was the mantra for a lot of people on Wall
Street bets. You know, hold, don't sell, We're gonna keep
writing this. We're gonna keep writing that. It didn't really
play out that way. He sold. When he sold, it
was right before the all time high. Thankfully, obviously before
(16:59):
it dropped. It was in like three D four hundred range.
I don't remember exactly what the all time high was.
I checked right before we did the story, and the
numbers changed constantly, so it could be different by the
time you know you hear this, but it was about
ninety three dollars. He picked the perfect time, and he
told his parents right after he did it. He didn't
want to worry them, he didn't want to stress him
(17:19):
out about what he was doing, so he told them
right after he got out, oh, by the way, are
you hearing him aout the game stop crazines? And they
were like no, they' anything like games Stops Sheriff. And
then he's like, yeah, I just made training his thing.
And his dad right away. I love the response. He's like, um,
were you insider training into his own sons? But the
mothers like he wasn't even like taken by it until
(17:42):
you heard a few days later some segment on NPR.
But um, as you suggest, he said he got bucky.
His mom was all impressed, his friends were pressed. He's like, no,
I got lucky here because because he got out at
the right time. And if it wasn't first friends started
leaning on him to get out, he probably got hold
on and he'd be down a lot. So a lot
of it's luck, and you feel bad for the people
that got in at the end. But he got out
(18:03):
at the right time. That's why I love this story. Really.
As you said at the beginning, he's an easy guy
to root for. He's a graduate student. The way he
was pretty frugal going through about his life. He recounted
a story him buying chicken for the whole week and
cooking it with rice and pasta so he didn't have
to spend too much on food costs. It's just this
is the kind of stories you want to hear when
something like this happens. And that's what it was. You know,
(18:25):
a lot of it was luck writing that roller coaster
and just kind of ending right at the right time.
So it's it's just a great story, I think. So
here's a guy. Yeah, he would cook up a storm
Sunday night every week and then eat the same exact
meal and he still does. I don't know he's going
to change his diet, but he eats the same exact
meal lunch and dinner every day and every night. All
(18:45):
just chicken size and some rice, some pasta, and once
in a while some frozen vegetables. So yes, he's not,
you know, rolling in money, and he was trying to
save money for school and such, and he isn't. He's
got root fort in and you can see what people
get it up and you feel like you're taking back
the power from Wall Street. And you know when you
press them on that all see And he realizes he's
(19:06):
got friends who work out Wall Street, realize that not
everyone's evil on Wall Street. But it feels good. Just
think you're the David and you're going up against Goliath.
So one reasons we wrote the story is it shows
there are a lot of reasons why people are making
these trades. Some are just trying to make a lot
of money, but other people feel as a larger cause.
Now should they be doing it or not? I don't know.
It's not for me to say, but I found his
(19:27):
story quite interesting. Gregory Zuckerman, special writer at The Wall
Street Journal, thank you very much for joining us. Oh
great to be here. Don't forget to join us on
social media at Daily Dive Pod on Twitter and Daily
(19:48):
Dive Podcast on Facebook. Leave us a comment, give us
a rating, and tell us the stories that you're interested in.
Follow us and I heard radio or subscribe wherever you
get your podcast him Oscar Rameras And this is the
Daily Dive weekend edition.
Welcome to the Daily Dive Weekend edition. I'm Oscar Ramirez,
and every week I explored the top stories making waves
in the news and some that are just playing interesting.
I'll connect you with the journalists and the people who
know the story and bring you news without the noise
so you can make an informed decision. You can catch
a new episode of The Daily Dive every Monday through Friday,
and it's ready when you wake up. On the weekend edition,
(00:27):
I'll be bringing you some of the best stories from
the week. There was an incredible health and science story
this week, as we learned of a twenty two year
old man named Joseph Dimio, who was the world's first
person to receive his successful face and double hand transplant.
After a car crash left Joseph with eight of his
body burned and twenty surgeries later, his doctors thought he
(00:49):
would be a good candidate for the transplant. He is
now six months out from his surgery and healing and
progressing very well. For more on how this all happened,
we'll speak to Karen Weintraub, health reporter at USA today.
He received twenty different surgeries and his plastic surgeon said
look I've done everything I can do, and introduced him
to a surgeon at n y U Lang own who
(01:09):
had done a number of face transplants. That gentleman saw
Dr Eduardo Rodriguez. He saw Joe Demio and said, I
can help you, but I think you should have hands
as well. And it was about a year long process,
little less than a year of testing Joe to make
sure that his eyes despite the burns on his face,
he couldn't move his eyelids, but his eyes themselves were fine.
(01:32):
His teeth were fine, So underneath this burned facade, he
actually was in pretty good shape. So that made him
a good candidate. He was young, he was also incredibly determined.
He wanted to get his life back and his independence back,
so he was a great candidate for this procedure. And
miraculously they found a donor who would work for him.
Because he'd had blood transfusions after the accident, he had
(01:54):
a lot of antibodies in his blood stream and so
percent of people in the world his body would have
rejected a transplant from them, So they needed one of
these six percent people, and they found him about ten
months after they started looking. Obviously, the tragic side of
the transplant is one person gets to live, but somebody
else has passed in order to make the donation. So
(02:14):
it's incredibly generous donation from the family to give the
face and lower arms from the forearm down to this
young man. And there's six months out from the surgery
now and the team is trying to declare a success
with it. Obviously he's way ahead of schedule. As you mentioned,
the swelling in the face will go down over time,
but you know, he's already regained some sensation in the hands.
(02:36):
He's been able to use them, you know, a brush
his hair and all that stuff, and do even some
light exercises, lifting weights, doing push ups from like a
bench and stuff. I mean, that's a lot within six months.
And as you mentioned, the donor gave everything, you know,
from the top of the head down to the neck
over to the ears and the arms at the forearms.
That's a lot and a lot of stuff to connect
(02:57):
to reconnect. You mentioned that the team, the operation team,
spent over a year practicing all of this. They went
through great pains to be able to do this right.
And it was about an eight person team involved, so
it's a huge number of people and probably another fifty
or sixty was involved in his rehabilitation. So this is
not a simple procedure at all, but obviously dramatic for
this young man. It's given him a life back. And
(03:19):
yes he's got two goals left. He's achieved everything. As
he said, he can shower by himself. Spaghetti is this
favorite food, but he was having trouble picking up. He
couldn't pick up a piece of pizza or a hamburger
with his burned hands. He didn't have enough opposable thumb
and four finger enough grip to do that. And now
he can eat by himself. That way, he can play pool.
He's very into physical fitness and he is lifting weight
(03:39):
even on days he doesn't do physical therapy. He does
that at home. He tries to stay fit, but he
likes food a little too much. Um, so he's not
a he's not as as he would like to be.
But it is really an incredible story. The other piece
that I found really striking about this story is that
in order to help the donor family, which obviously was
making this this incredible donation, and to help them feel
(04:01):
less of a sense of loss, actually during the surgery
and aspect of n Y. You printed out three D
printed the man's face and arms, and they put it
back on the court so that he would look normal
to the grieving family. Um and I just found that
an astounding aspect and obviously important to the family. And
we don't know much about the donor other than he
(04:21):
died of a stroke. I know the family wants to
remain anonymous for now, and Joseph did send them a letter,
you know, thanking them for all of it and everything.
One of the other interesting things that I thought too,
was kind of the psychological effects of this whole thing.
That's why the doctors said they wanted to give him
the face transplant too, because a lot of times victims
can't recognize themselves if they've been disfigured something, but they
(04:43):
can recognize themselves a lot quicker, you know, if they
do the face transplant and things like that. So that
was the psychological effects of this was also very interesting. Yeah,
I found that fascinating as well, that even in an
m r I and a brain scan, you know, when
you look at a picture of yourself, if you're severely burned,
you don't see that as you but when you see
any other face he was able to very quickly adapt
(05:05):
to having this new face and seeing it as himself
and seeing his hands as his own hands as opposed
to something outside of himself. Well, I, like I said,
just an incredible story. Wish him the best of luck
and continued healing and and just getting back to normal
as best as he can. I know he's got as
you mentioned, he's very driven. He's got a lot of
goals still that he wants to achieve. So good luck
(05:27):
to him. Karen Weintraub, health reporter at USA Today, Thank
you very much for joining us. Thank you. This week
we also had two big Amazon stories. First, we learned
that Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos stepping down from
(05:48):
his post and instead he will be serving as executive chairman,
so he won't be going far. But another story with
possibly even bigger implications for Amazon, we learned that starting
February eight, workers at their Best Alabama warehouse will be
voting whether to unionize or not. If they vote to
do so, it will be the first Amazon warehouse in
the United States to have union representation, and this could
(06:10):
have a big impact on the company as other warehouses
could also push for the same and In the meantime,
Amazon is doing everything they can to discourage workers from
voting yes. For more on this unionization effort, will speak
to Jay Green, reporter at the Washington Post. There are
a group of workers at a warehouse at Amazon just
opened left March in Bestmer, Alabama, which is just outside
(06:30):
of Birmingham, and they want to organize a union. They
filed with the n l RB to form the union.
The nl RB has determined that there are five thousand,
eight hundred and five workers that would be considered part
of the bargaining unit, and so unless some legal actions
by Amazon prevail, those workers will vote or have the
(06:50):
opportunity to vote starting on Sunday. There's a seventy week
mail in period to vote, and they vote yes or
no if they want to be part of the union
or not. Amazon for it's part obvious, he says, the
workers there don't need a union. They point to the
wage that they start workers off. I think it's like
fifty cents an hour, which is above the federal minimum
wage and higher comparable to a lot of other places.
(07:12):
You can say. They give them healthcare, vision and dental benefits,
a retirement plan, so they're touting all these things as
a reason for not wanting to go for it with
a unionization. The union counters right, and they they say
it isn't really about money, although they wouldn't mind more
money too, But they talk about things like dignity and respect.
But you know, workers in Amazon's warehouses are measured on
(07:35):
specific performance metrics. So if you are someone who stows
items as they come into the warehouse, you have to
stow a certain number of items in a given time
period in an hour, and if you fall below that
performance metric, you can be marked up. There are other
things where you know, workers say the facility investmrates in Alabama,
it can get hot in the summer. Workers say they
(07:57):
have been you know, workers who've been overheated because of that.
There are other those sorts of complaints as well. And
then the other thing that some of the workers I've
talked about too is in the midst of this pandemic,
and at the beginning of the pandemic, Amazon gave workers
a bonus two dollar an hour bonus. Workers called it
hazard paye, although Amazon doesn't call it that. But at
(08:18):
the end of May, they Amazon elimited that, eliminated that
and workers would love to see that bonus come back, because,
as we all know, the pandemic continues to rage. Let's
continue on this just for a little bit more. You
mentioned that the warehouse has only been open for about
ten months. Was there anything that sparked this call for
unionization or was it just kind of people haven't been
(08:40):
happy since it started opening. I know the pandemic plays
a huge role in that, and there was a lot
of safety concerns, but I think Amazon put in almost
a billion dollars into coronavirus safety efforts. I think this
is across the entire company now, not necessarily just in
this one warehouse. But was there something else that might
have sparked this or is it Is it really just
the workers kind of unhappy there. It's interesting because it
(09:02):
was surprising that it turned up at a new warehouse,
and also in the conservative South, where unions don't always flourish,
so it is a little surprising. But the workers that
I talked with have said, you know, it's really about
the conditions that they have seen since they started, and
I do think a lot of it actually relates to
the pandemic. There are two things I think that are
going on one is really obvious one, which is people
(09:24):
are scared, right They're showing up to a job and
they see coworkers have the virus and they get scared
that they might get it too, and it it affects
not just their lives, of course, but their families lives
as well. But I think the other thing that's going
on is as the pandemic raged, more and more people
started ordering online and so you know, you'd get all
kinds of things from Amazon among others that you might
(09:47):
have typically driven to the store to get. And Amazon
has made a ton of money off of that, but
it's also put a lot of pressure on these workers
to produce and to sort of meet the expectations of
the customers wore ordering the stuff. The fear for Amazon
they just added four thousand workers during the pandemic. They
have one point one million workers worldwide, and in Europe
(10:08):
it's a lot of different unions are kind of enshrined
into the work culture there, so a lot of Amazon
workers over there are already unionized. And the big fear
for Amazon is that if one big warehouse like this
goes to unions, then it's going to spark these fights
across the country. Yeah, that's exactly right. And I think
that's why Amazon is particularly concerned about this, and you
(10:29):
see it in the methods they are engaging in to
try and discourage workers from joining this union. But I
talked with Rich Trump, goes the head of the a
f L c i OH for this piece, and they
are supporting this union drive which is being led by
the retail warehouse and Department store union. But the a
f L is getting behind it because they know the
(10:50):
consequences of this. They know that if they can convince
one Amazon warehouse to join the union, others will as well.
Let's talk a little bit about what going to happen
next and what's happening now to the mail in balloting
for these workers to say, you know, if they want
to be part of a union now begins on February eight,
and a lot of workers are reporting that, you know,
(11:11):
there's a lot of anti union messaging there at the workplace.
It follows them to the bathroom and these very limited
bathroom breaks that they say they get, you know, like
inside the stall, there's a little poster or something that says,
do you want to pay your union dues? Where is
that money going to go to and this kind of
gets into all this interesting part of it. You know,
Alabama is right to work states, so you don't really
(11:31):
have to pay union dues, but they're making that an issue.
You've spoken to a lot of people, they're from that plant,
and a lot of them do say they do support
the union. How how has all this been playing out?
So as you say, the vote, it starts on Sunday
or the ballots are mailed out to workers on Sunday,
and that the voting period lasts about seven weeks. And
(11:52):
it's kind of an interesting phenomena because of the pandemic.
The NLLB is allowing for mail in balloting, which is
something they typically might not have done, and so it
changes a little bit of the dynamics of the campaign.
But right now Amazon is working very hard to convince
the workers from that whereous not to vote for the union.
And you know, as you mentioned, I have something in
(12:13):
my article about Amazon putting up a flyer on the
inside of the bathroom stall, on the inside of many
bathroom stalls in their warehouse. They're also texting workers fairly regularly.
They're engaging in what is often a common practice during
UNI campaigns. And that is what are these mandatory meetings
for some workers to come into training rooms and they
(12:35):
get half an hour or longer session about why the
union is a terrible thing. Now, what's interesting is we'll
have to see what happens starting on February eight, because
Amazon then is required to end those captive audience meetings,
that's what they're called. They can engage in other types
of electioneering, but that has to end, and so there
(12:56):
will be this ongoing sort of churn of information shin
that comes out over the next seven weeks as both
Amazon and the union try to convince members to join
their their cause. Jay Green, reporter at the Washington Post,
thank you very much for joining us. Thank you so much, Oscar.
(13:22):
The last couple of weeks, we also saw the big
roller coaster on Wall Street as Reddit users banded together
to buy game Stop stock. But this is the story
that I wanted to hear. A twenty four year old
graduate student from m I T got on the game
Stop train and turned five hundred dollars into over two
hundred thousand dollars. He did it like many others getting
advice on the Wall Street bet subreddit, and felt like
he was part of something bigger. In the end, his
(13:44):
family and friends convinced him to sell before the stock dropped.
For more on this graduate students wild game Stop ride,
will speak to Gregory Zuckerman, special writer at the Wall
Street Journal. He's an easy guy to root for. He's
a grad stud it's twenty four years old, m I.
He's got a stipend of about thirty six thousand dollars
a year, so he's not like he's rolling in money.
(14:05):
And basically he had a little bit of cash, about
four thousand dollars or so that he decided to play with.
And he did that starting about a year ago back
in martin In the pandemic really began and he lost
a good chunk of fits trading the market, so he
was down about two thousand dollars. And then he stumbled
upon roll Street Bets, this suddenly popular subreddit on the
(14:29):
Reddit site, and they were talking about game stops. So
we got excited at any bought these options, which basically
are bullish trades bet on game stop and yeah, he
did really well. The article in to Row two kind
of talks about the roller coaster that he went on.
He got in through Wall Street bets, like a lot
of people did. He started feeling like he was becoming
(14:52):
part of something bigger, you know, taking on Wall Street
kind of thing. Then he started making some money in
his family and friends had You don't have an intervention
for him to say, hey, don't play around too much.
Cash out the money that you want that you have already.
So part of that roller coaster he started with four thousand,
went down to two thousand, up to fifteen thousand, up
to eighty thousand, and then he sold at a little
(15:13):
bit over two hundred thousand. Tell us a little bit
about that sense of being a part of something bigger,
because a lot of people were feeling that same way.
It's exactly right. That's what I found most fascinating. That
you're with a group, you're with a community, and I
think that's where a lot of people are attracted to
when it comes to this Subredditt Wall Street bets. It's
(15:33):
not just the money yet I love making the money.
They feel part of something large or you know, we
all want to be part of communities, and not everyone
goes to the church and the googa anymore. And we
looked for things, and some people look for politics, and
now others are drawn to trading, and as you suggest,
he sort of got into it early on. He was
skeptical on being he was more of an investment decision,
(15:55):
and he made his best decision. He bought five hundred
dollars only put five into the options. But before he
knew it, he was caught up. He couldn't do anything else,
couldn't think about anything else. He was playing tennis with
his friends and literally after every point in the match,
he was ripping out his phone and checking into the
car and price how much he was making, how much
he was losing. It was real, all encompassing, and you
(16:17):
know he was thinking about selling, but he'd go on
this fight this uh Wall Street bets and they were saying,
no, no no, let's going to us thousand's going to five thousands.
Don't tell, don't tell, And he got caught up in
in it. And I don't mean it sparaging. Say it
was called like but you could see how people get
caught up and it becomes a frenzy. And that's what
happened to him, and he almost see it jokingly calls
it a mini intervention. But he sort of had to
(16:38):
have his friends step in and say dude, sow, you're
up two hundred dollars. You don't know what's gonna happen here.
You need the money, sells now, and he did. That
was the mantra for a lot of people on Wall
Street bets. You know, hold, don't sell, We're gonna keep
writing this. We're gonna keep writing that. It didn't really
play out that way. He sold. When he sold, it
was right before the all time high. Thankfully, obviously before
(16:59):
it dropped. It was in like three D four hundred range.
I don't remember exactly what the all time high was.
I checked right before we did the story, and the
numbers changed constantly, so it could be different by the
time you know you hear this, but it was about
ninety three dollars. He picked the perfect time, and he
told his parents right after he did it. He didn't
want to worry them, he didn't want to stress him
(17:19):
out about what he was doing, so he told them
right after he got out, oh, by the way, are
you hearing him aout the game stop crazines? And they
were like no, they' anything like games Stops Sheriff. And
then he's like, yeah, I just made training his thing.
And his dad right away. I love the response. He's like, um,
were you insider training into his own sons? But the
mothers like he wasn't even like taken by it until
(17:42):
you heard a few days later some segment on NPR.
But um, as you suggest, he said he got bucky.
His mom was all impressed, his friends were pressed. He's like, no,
I got lucky here because because he got out at
the right time. And if it wasn't first friends started
leaning on him to get out, he probably got hold
on and he'd be down a lot. So a lot
of it's luck, and you feel bad for the people
that got in at the end. But he got out
(18:03):
at the right time. That's why I love this story. Really.
As you said at the beginning, he's an easy guy
to root for. He's a graduate student. The way he
was pretty frugal going through about his life. He recounted
a story him buying chicken for the whole week and
cooking it with rice and pasta so he didn't have
to spend too much on food costs. It's just this
is the kind of stories you want to hear when
something like this happens. And that's what it was. You know,
(18:25):
a lot of it was luck writing that roller coaster
and just kind of ending right at the right time.
So it's it's just a great story, I think. So
here's a guy. Yeah, he would cook up a storm
Sunday night every week and then eat the same exact
meal and he still does. I don't know he's going
to change his diet, but he eats the same exact
meal lunch and dinner every day and every night. All
(18:45):
just chicken size and some rice, some pasta, and once
in a while some frozen vegetables. So yes, he's not,
you know, rolling in money, and he was trying to
save money for school and such, and he isn't. He's
got root fort in and you can see what people
get it up and you feel like you're taking back
the power from Wall Street. And you know when you
press them on that all see And he realizes he's
(19:06):
got friends who work out Wall Street, realize that not
everyone's evil on Wall Street. But it feels good. Just
think you're the David and you're going up against Goliath.
So one reasons we wrote the story is it shows
there are a lot of reasons why people are making
these trades. Some are just trying to make a lot
of money, but other people feel as a larger cause.
Now should they be doing it or not? I don't know.
It's not for me to say, but I found his
(19:27):
story quite interesting. Gregory Zuckerman, special writer at The Wall
Street Journal, thank you very much for joining us. Oh
great to be here. Don't forget to join us on
social media at Daily Dive Pod on Twitter and Daily
(19:48):
Dive Podcast on Facebook. Leave us a comment, give us
a rating, and tell us the stories that you're interested in.
Follow us and I heard radio or subscribe wherever you
get your podcast him Oscar Rameras And this is the
Daily Dive weekend edition.
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