May 3, 2025 • 29 mins
Newt’s guest is Vincent Vernuccio, president and co-founder of the Institute for the American Worker. They discuss the significant labor policy developments and legislative efforts aimed at increasing transparency and accountability in both public and private sectors. Their conversation covers the introduction of the Start Applying Labor Transparency (SALT) Act, which seeks to amend the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 to ensure greater transparency in financial transactions between unions and labor consultants. Vernuccio also explains the implications of President Trump's executive action, Schedule F, which aims to make certain federal employees at-will to enhance accountability. They also discuss the challenges posed by public sector unions and the potential impact of Senator Josh Hawley's Faster Labor Contracts Act, which could impose arbitration on private sector union negotiations. Vernuccio emphasizes the need for modernizing union models to align with today's workforce demands for flexibility and merit-based advancement.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
On this episode of Nuts World.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
In twenty eighteen, Vincent Fernuccio and Jennifer Butler created Institute
for the American Worker to better inform policy makers and
stakeholders in Washington, d C. About current developments and labor policy.
The Institute for the American Worker worked with Congressman Burgess
Owens to introduce the Start Applying Labor Transparency, or SALT Act,
(00:29):
to amend the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of
nineteen fifty nine, requiring greater transparency and financial transactions between
unions and labor consultants, closing loopholes that have allowed backroom
deals to thrive. Here to discuss the SALT Act, I'm
really pleased to welcome my guest, Vincent Bernuccio. He is
the president and co founder of Institute for the American Worker.
(00:53):
He previously served in the US Department of Labor Transition
team for both Trump administrations and served in the Joy
gege W. Bush Administration's Department of Labor. Vincent, welcome and
(01:14):
thank you for joining me on Each World.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Mister speaker, Thank you so much for having me on.
It is an absolute honor and I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
How did you get interested in this whole topic.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Well, I graduated law school and I was looking for
a job. I actually we met when I was running
for Congress in Michigan. I was a sacrificial land against
John dingle.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
An active courage it.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Was, but you know, helped me my career. I got
on themigp and eventually it got me a appointment to
the Department of Labor under then Assistant Secretary for Administration
Management and Deputy Secretary and Acting Secretary Pat Pizzella. And
then I was off to the races. And that's what
got me into labor policy and been doing it ever
since the Bush administration.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
That's great.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Let's start with President Trump's recent executive action restoring accountability
to policy influencing positions within the federal workforce. Can you
walk us through what Schedule F is and why the
Trump administration sees it as essential for restoring accountability in
the federal workforce.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Absolutely, so this is going to be one of the
most impactful things I think the President does. I'll just
give you a little bit of history. There's kind of
been a ping pong on this. So in the first
Trump administration, he issued an executive order called Schedule F
President Biden got elected and put his hand on the Bible,
went to the Oval Office, and it was one of
the first things that he repealed. And then to President
(02:38):
Trump in the current administration, one of the first things
he did is reinstitute that the executive Order, and he's
actually moved it from Schedule F to this Career Policy Schedule.
And let me tell you what this does. This essentially
makes fifty thousand federal employees, or two percent of the
federal workforce, makes them at well employees just like most
of the private sector, just like states like Utah, Texas, Florida, Kentucky,
(03:03):
Georgia and others already have. And the reason this is
so important is because if you have career federal employees
that aren't doing their job, whether because they're either just
not good, they just don't want to, or they simply
just do not like the policies the president is putting forward,
this gives politicals the ability to say, well, you're not
(03:26):
doing your job, you should be let go. And you know,
I've seen this firsthand in multiple administrations that you can
see career federal bureaucrats actually throw sand in the gears
of policy. And this would go a long way to
make sure that that doesn't happen.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
When Lincoln became president, there were about fifteen hundred policy positions.
He eliminated twelve hundred of them because he knew that
with Southerners and with Democrats, he couldn't win a civil
war if they were the instrument of affecting things. So literally,
out of a total fifteen hundred and twelve hundred left.
(04:04):
And I always remind people that that giving the elected
official the ability to actually drive the bureaucracy is central,
because if you don't do that, the bureaucrats really are
running the place and the elected officials are just on
the surface. Does Schedule F still exist or has it
now got a new title.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
It's got a new title, and it makes sense. So
it was Schedule F under the first Trump administration. Now
it is this policy Career schedule. And the reason for
the change is, once again, these are still civil servants.
They're still governed by the Civil Service for Formact. The
only difference is that if they are in a what's
known as policy influencing position, that if they're throwing sands
(04:44):
in the gears of that policy and they're thwarting the
people's elected representative. It's President Trump, it could be any president.
This goes beyond administration. It also goes beyond policy. This
isn't just a labor policy. This is energy, this is education,
this is financial services. That those elected representatives could say, well,
(05:05):
you know what, you're not doing your job. We don't
have to go through this long, lengthy review process to
dismiss you. It's just you're not doing your job. You're
now an out well employee. You're throwing sand to the
gears of policy. You should be removed.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Well, obviously you're going to have some substantial opposition from
the American Federation of Government Employees in the National Treasure
Employees Union.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
What's their counter.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Are they in favor of not having elected officials be effective?
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Yes. What they are trying to do is essentially throw
sand in the gears of these type of reforms. What
they are pushing for is making it as difficult as
possible to remove federal employees whether or not they're doing
their job. You see them opposing President Trump on this
executive order soon to be rule. You see them trying
(05:54):
to throwart his other executive actions, such as, you know,
protecting national security. He issued another executive order recently that
said that, you know, you can't have collective bargaining and
multiple federal agencies that deal with national security, something that
the law very clearly gives him the right to do
and to determine which agencies those are. These unions they
(06:17):
like the status quo, they like the protections, and what
they don't like is accountability for those federal employees that
are not doing their job. And frankly, I think that's
a disservice to the good federal employees. And there are
a lot of good federal employees out there. I've worked
with good career federal employees that then have to pick
up the slack for the ones that aren't doing what
(06:39):
they're supposed to do.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
As a part of all this, you have been strongly
supporting Representing Burgess Owen's bill, the Start Applying Labor Transparency
Act or SOLD Act. Walk us through what would that
do and why is that important?
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Absolutely so. Now we're shifting over from federal public sector
unions too. Now we're talking about mostly private sector unions here.
And this is what Representative Owen's bill does. There's a
thing called salting. When unions come to organize, they can
have organizers that take jobs will lie to the employer
and say, well, I want to take this job, you know,
(07:16):
just to work for you think, you know, I just
want to be a barista at Starbucks, so give me
a job. What they're really doing is they're actually paid
by the union to take that job and then to
start organizing. And not only do they lie to the employer,
but they also lie to the employees. I'm just your
fellow coworker. Hey, have you heard about this union? Maybe
it's a good idea. We've actually seen quotes of workers
(07:38):
that say, well, you know, we thought this was kind
of schemey, I thought this person was my friend. Now
I find out that they're being paid to organize me.
What is this about. It actually gets so bad that
you had a paid union salt testify before Congress and
not put in their disclosure form that they were getting
paid by the union. And they testified, Oh, I'm just
(07:59):
a Starbucks barista, and then it later came about oh,
actually no, you're not. You're actually being paid to organize Starbucks.
That really called into question that person's testimony.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Isn't that also a felony? Oh?
Speaker 3 (08:13):
I know that this was undee Chairwoman Virginia Fox. I
know there were investigations going on to see what exactly happened,
especially when that union salt signed that truth and Testimony form.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Would this spill basically require that somebody who is being
salted has to make it public.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
That's it? So right now, if an employer goes out
and they hire a consultant to talk to their employees
and say, you know, we don't think a union's right
for us, that employer and the person they hire have
to fill out certain forms with the Department of Labor.
And you know, the first ones you do within a month.
So we're just saying, why don't we have parity here?
(08:53):
If the employer has to report hiring someone to talk
to employees about unionization, the unions, if they hire someone
to talk to employees about unionization, they should file the
exact same forms.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
All of this is built in a sense.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
When the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of nineteen
fifty nine, which was the first big effort to create
transparency in this area, why was it not adequate?
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Basically, you know, it gave discretion. I would argue that
the Department of Labor actually has the ability to say
that if you're talking to employees, whether you're on the
union side or whether you're on the employer side, you
should file these forms. However, that's not how it is
being interpreted. So what Representative Owen's bill does is it says, well,
since it's not being interpreted that way, let's be crystal
(09:59):
clear within the STAF that if you're talking to employees,
whether it's union or employer side, you should file these forms.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
The whole process of getting all this out in the
open also relates back to what's really kind of a
bizarre model in the government, where we the taxpayers, are
actually paying for the union members to organize the government.
See if people who are supposedly being paid to be
civil servants, but they're actually being paid to be union organizers.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
That's right. That's a process called official time. And it's
not just union organizers. It's actually doing all sorts of
work on the taxpayer dime for the union. It's being
a union official, in some cases, working full time for
the union. This is actually something that President Trump did
away with in his first term. You had union officials
working full times in some cases for years for the union,
(10:51):
but still getting their taxpayer salary. So once again President
Trump deserves a lot of credit with this. He's put
forth a policy to make sure that this is reported.
Was reported in his first term, President Biden simply did
not report it. Now President Trump is saying it has
to be reported again. But he has actually gone further,
and it's not just about how much the government is
(11:12):
paying union officials with taxpayer dollars instead of doing their
job to do union work. It's actually about how much
time federal employees, agency employees are doing just to negotiate
with the union, to handle grievances and all of these things.
Once again, to this administration's credit, the Office of Personnel
Management a couple weeks ago said not only should agencies
(11:35):
report official time, but they should also report how much
agency time is spent on collective bargaining and speaker if
you like, I can get into some of the just
kind of crazy things that we have seen unions negotiate
over in the federal workforce.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
I think for the average taxpayer that would be really
helpful because most of us, including me, I know in
general that it's much worse than we think it is,
but we don't really have specific examples.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
The first one is. I was on a panel under
the first Trump administration, the Federal Service Impasses panel that
did mediation and arbitration between the federal government and federal
unions when they came to an impass. So I saw
a lot of these cases firsthand. They're all public, and
we actually put a study out on our website detail
of all of this. It's all available at I the
number four AW dot org, IFAW dot org. But let
(12:24):
me give you a couple examples. So one you had
a union negotiating over being able to smoke on tobacco
free federal facilities. You had another one where they were
negotiating over the right mister speaker reminds you the right
to wear spandex in the office. And they had another
one where they were negotiating over the height of modesty
(12:47):
panels under cubicles. It was an office move and does
the cubicle go two inches or four inches above the
bottom of the floor. Now, they negotiated for years over
this two inches versus four inches. They could have probably
purchase go plated cubicles for the entire office. For the
amount of money that they spent in official time, in
staff time and travel and supplies, you name it. So
(13:10):
those are the things that they're bargaining over, and those
are the things that, thankfully will continue to come to
light with these transparency measures from the administration.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Turns out across the whole government to be a lot
more money than people think.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Well, official time alone in the first Trump administration was
well over one hundred million three was one hundred and
twenty something million dollars in official time, and that doesn't
count how much on the agency side was spent. So
we're going to see probably some very high numbers, and
that's year over year.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
A different front. Senator Josh Holly proposed the Faster Labor
Contracts Act, the Speed Up Union contract negotiations. I find
Holly interesting and complicated. What do you make of this bill?
Speaker 3 (13:55):
I think complicated is the right term. And unfortunately Senator
Howlly has this larger framework, and this is the first
bill from his larger framework, and it is pretty much
part and parcel borrowed from the Democrat Union wish List Bill,
the Protecting the Right to Organize Act or pro Act. Unfortunately,
the timing was a little unfortunate for Senator Hawley. So
(14:17):
what this bill does is it would allow federal bureaucrats
to impose an arbitration panel on two private parties. So
if a union organizes an employer and within a couple
of weeks, if they don't reach a collective bargaining agreement,
first they say would go to mediation. So that's where
both sides come together as essentially marriage counseling, try to
(14:39):
get to an agreement. If that doesn't work within a
very short amount of time, then they go to arbitration,
where these federal bureaucrats would impose this three person panel
that would actually write a contract for two private parties,
one of which maybe never even agreed to the process
in the first place. And I mean this everything at
(15:01):
a work site, ours, pay, working conditions, you name it.
So it's extremely troubling.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Two questions, guys.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
One, it strikes me that that literally gives the union
every reason not to agree.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
We've seen this in the public sector, not so much
in the private sector, but in the public sector where yeah,
you'll have one side and maybe it's the union, we'll
stall the negotiations and then they get it to the arbitrator,
and the arbitrator will just look at maybe another unionized
facility and go well, they're getting this, so that works
for them. This should work for this, whether city, town
or in the Haley bill, now private company over here.
(15:39):
But let me tell you kind of the unfortunate timing
of this. So those federal bureaucrats, they are at the FMCS,
the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, and right after this
bill was introduced, President Trump announced that he was ratcheting
back how much funding was going to fmcs. And actually,
at the same time, it was a little old, was
(16:00):
about a decade old, but there was re unearthed reports
of corruption and overspending and all these problems with fmcs.
So that was right after Senator Hawley introduced this bill
that basically gave all of this power to the FMCS.
So we'll see what happens with it. But I know
a lot of people are extraordinarily skeptical of having federal
(16:24):
bureaucrats dictate these panels that could then write entire contracts
for two private parties.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
It seems to me that private sector unions have been
steadily shrinking as a percent of the whole workforce, So
trying to design a coercive bargaining system, it is essentially
an effort to fit back to growing the unions in
the face of the fact that the American workers seem
to be leaving them.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
That's right. So this was the first year, and this
is public in private that union membership drop below double
digits nationwide. This is Baxsin's early nineteen hundreds. In the
private sector, it's below six percent. I believe it's about
five point nine percent right now. And it's not so
much unions. I mean, I think unions can do good.
I think unions can really help workers. The problem is
(17:32):
that they are in this antiquated, one size fits all
kind of industrial revolution collective bargaining model that does not
allow for flexibility, It does not allow for ingenuity, it
does not allow for individual workers to be rewarded. I
think today's modern workforce is looking at that model and saying, no,
that's not what I want. So instead of having this
(17:54):
framework that center Hawley is putting out, instead of having
all of these government mandates to think that if you
really want to grow union membership and have unions thrive
is have them adopt a new, flexible, individual focused professional
service business model as opposed to the compulsion they have today.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
In a sense, you'd move people towards more of a
everybody gets to be a professional, as in a law firm,
rather than the kind of classic indust show era mass unionization.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Yeah, it's making them professional service organizations that you can
join voluntarily. The employers aren't compelled to negotiate with them,
but they will because unions can provide top notch services.
But I think that's the way of the future, you know. Unfortunately,
even for workers now, a lot of unions not only
have a floor for pay, but they also have a ceiling.
(18:49):
So in a lot of unions and a lot of
collective bargaining agreements, the only way you get ahead is
unless you get another degree, is logging another year on
the job. Doesn't matter how hard you work, how productive
you are, how much money you make your boss, it's well,
you're under the CBA and the only way you're getting
a raise is by seniorti logging another year on the job.
So I think that is why a lot of workers
(19:10):
are looking at unions and saying, yeah, it's just not
for me.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
We're entering a different era.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
It seems to me when you look both at the
kind of bills like Halley for the private sector, and
then you look at what's happening with the Trump administration
reforms in the public sector. What do you think is
the impact of public opinion? How important is it that
the American people understand these things.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Well, it's interesting because you see poll after poll unions
do get high approval ratings. But the interesting thing is
that when you scratch the surface and this goes to
you that business model that a lot of workers just
aren't buying right now is that, yeah, unions are good,
we like unions. But then you scratch the surface and well,
would you want a union at your workplace? Would you
want to join a union? And that approval drops significantly.
(19:56):
Unions they do have that public perception that they have support,
but it's a lot of well it's good that they're
out there, but I just don't think it's right for me.
That's where I think that if you change that business
model of the unions, the paradigm a collective bargaining, not
what Senator Hawley is trying to do with his framework,
and certainly not what we're seeing out of the Democrats
(20:18):
with the Proact and all this force and compulsion and
making it harder for workers to work for themselves or
you know, attacking the franchise business model. All of this
in the proact, that's the problem. But workers just want
something different.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
I mean it does anyway that you have to put
all this in the context of both competition from around
the world and the scale of change that the emerging
artificial intelligence is going to imply, and that, if anything,
you're going to see more fluidity and more flexibility rather
than more rigidity and the way the labor market operates
(20:53):
over the next two or three generations. I mean, does
that sort of fit your sense of it?
Speaker 3 (20:58):
That's absolutely correct, and you know you do see what
does come to the flexibility and put AI aside for
a second. When it does come to flexibility, being able
to work for yourself, being able to achieve by your
merit or how hard you work. You see that that's
what workers are looking for. That's what modern and young
workers are looking for, not this one size fits all model,
(21:18):
not the compulsion of you have to do this or
you have to live by this rigid contract. That is
really where I think the future is. And I see
the future in independent contract. You know, I was an
independent contractor for a long time, and it can be
very lucrative and it also gave me a lot of flexibility,
you know, take on projects clients. I liked determine my
(21:40):
own schedule when I wanted to be with my family.
You see things like Representative Kylie has his Modern Worker
Empowerment Bill and his Modern Worker Security Bill, and they're
leaning into independent contracting, making it easier for workers to
work for themselves, to get benefits if they're working for themselves.
(22:00):
You saw that during the first Trump administration with their
independent contract rule in the Department of Labor. Unfortunately, you
see with the Proact in Congress, and what you saw
coming out of the Body administration is that they were
just going in the exact opposite direction and trying to
make everyone in an employee and you know, borrowing the
failed ideas from California of saying you can't work for yourself.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Don't you think that to some extent that whole model
of independent contractor may eventually be applied to the civil service.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Federal government has a lot of independent contractors now. You
do see that. You do see a lot of efforts
out there, you know, kind of right size government. You know,
there's ideas out there, like the Yellow Pages test if
you can find something in the yellow pages. You shouldn't
have a career sort of a servant doing it. It
should just be contracted out. Contracting is something that you know,
the federal government specifically does a lot of, and you
(22:55):
know you do hear a lot about that, and I
think there the efforts are to make contracting fair, you know,
to get the best and most economical contractors without a
lot of extra strings attached. And once again you saw
a lot of those strings, especially in the Union context
during the Biden administration.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
The whole process.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
It seems to me the long term trend is towards
more flexibility, more unique designs, more opportunities because we now
have the technology that can handle the complexity.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
Not only do we have the technology that can handle
the complexity on that, but I think we have a
workforce that that's what they want. They want that flexibility,
they want that ability to earn and achieve on their
own without being put into some one size fits all
contract That essentially is a business model that is several
generations too old and really has not adapted with the times.
(23:51):
But unfortunately, we're seeing a lot of the bills that
look to favor that Model's simply just doubling down on
that failed business model of the past that has not
kept up with the economy and the modern workforce.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Yeah, as you look out over the next three to
five years, what do you see as the major projects
that you will be undertaking.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
For I for a w Obviously we want to support
the administration. They have this rule making out right now,
going back to that policy career schedule. So we have
a portion of our website, I the number four aw
dot org that goes into detail on that rule. We
have it on a regulation watch portion of O website,
and we actually have a link there where people can
(24:32):
go and comment and say, yes, this is a good idea.
You know, the people's elected representatives should have a civil
service that is not throwing sand in the gears of
the policies that they were enacted to create. We see
good labor bills that are coming out of Congress, like
those two Kylie bills we were talking about before, the
Modern Worker Empowerment Act and the Modern Worker Security Act.
(24:53):
We see Representative Bob Ander, who's a freshman who I
worked with very closely when he was in the Missouri
state legislator. He introduced a bill called the Worker Enfranchisement Act,
And this bill would say that if unions want to
monopoly to represent everyone once again in a private sector workplace,
that they should get a majority of everyone. And it
actually calls for the same quorum that the National Labor
(25:15):
Relations Board that will do these elections does and says that,
you know, you should have two thirds of the employees voting,
and if a majority of those two thirds, so really
you're roughly saying, if you know, thirty three percent plus
one of workers vote for the union, that's how they
get in. But you shouldn't have these elections where single
digits of percentages of employees vote to bring a union in.
(25:37):
So those are just some of the bills. You know,
we're very excited on. The Employee Rights Act was introduced
last Congress. That was kind of all the good ideas
that a lot of the Republicans had, or most of
the good ideas a lot of Republicans had. So hopefully
that will reintroduce this Congress, and that you know, there's
a whole bunch of other good ideas out there, both
coming from Congress and coming from the administration.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
You know, you mentioned in passing the new effort to
basically outlaw independent working. Can you talk to us for
a second about the whole political structure of California as
it relates to compulsory unionization.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Well, unions, as you can imagine, are extremely powerful in California,
and I think that's a reason why there's some of
the issues out there. So if we're talking about their
attacks on independent contracting, and you know what put that
in context of, you know, some of the federal work
that we do is they passed what was known as
AB five several years ago, and imediately after AB five
(26:32):
was enacted, they realized we went too far. We did
this thing, it was called the ABC test. It made
independent contracting nearly impossible, and wanted to make everyone into
an employee. Well, they realized that went too far, and
they actually passed another bill and it was actually the
same author of the original AB five passed another bill
to create all these exemptions from AB five. And then
(26:55):
after they did that, voters said, well, it still goes
too far, and then they on when the ballot, passed
more exemptions and ratcheted back AB five. But now that
ABC test without those exemptions, that is exactly what's in
Congress's protecting the right to organize act so without the exemptions,
and when even California said you went too far, now
(27:17):
Congress is pushing the exact same thing. So it is
extremely troubling. And on our website we also have stories
from California and AB five And I can think of
one woman that actually had to leave the state because
she wanted the flexibility. She did online teaching and she
wanted to take care of her infant children and she
(27:37):
couldn't do that if she was an employee. And when
AB five passed, she realized, well, my business is drying up,
so she actually moved out of state to make sure
that she could keep helping to support her family and
also have the flexibility to spend time with her kids.
We have a lot of those stories on the website
and it really is telling.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Well till Marco, Well, look, I want to thank you
both for the leadership you're providing for joining us today.
Our listeners can find out more about what you do
at the Institute for the American Worker by visiting your
website at IFOAW dot org. And I really appreciate Vincent
you're taking time to.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Be with us.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
Hey, thank you for having me on.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Thank you to my guest, Vincent Nuccio. You can learn
more about the Institute for the American Worker on our
show page at newtsworld dot com. Newsworld is produced by
Ganglish Sweet sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producers Guarnsey Sloan.
Our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the show
was created by Steve Penley. Special thanks to the team
(28:40):
at gingwishweet sixty. If you've been enjoying Newtsworld, I hope
you'll go to Apple Podcasts and both rate us with
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learn what it's all about.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Right now, listeners of.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
News World can sign up for my three free weekly
columns at gingwishree sixty dot com slash newsletter.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
I'm newt Gingga, which this is news World.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
Hm
On this episode of Nuts World.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
In twenty eighteen, Vincent Fernuccio and Jennifer Butler created Institute
for the American Worker to better inform policy makers and
stakeholders in Washington, d C. About current developments and labor policy.
The Institute for the American Worker worked with Congressman Burgess
Owens to introduce the Start Applying Labor Transparency, or SALT Act,
(00:29):
to amend the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of
nineteen fifty nine, requiring greater transparency and financial transactions between
unions and labor consultants, closing loopholes that have allowed backroom
deals to thrive. Here to discuss the SALT Act, I'm
really pleased to welcome my guest, Vincent Bernuccio. He is
the president and co founder of Institute for the American Worker.
(00:53):
He previously served in the US Department of Labor Transition
team for both Trump administrations and served in the Joy
gege W. Bush Administration's Department of Labor. Vincent, welcome and
(01:14):
thank you for joining me on Each World.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Mister speaker, Thank you so much for having me on.
It is an absolute honor and I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
How did you get interested in this whole topic.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Well, I graduated law school and I was looking for
a job. I actually we met when I was running
for Congress in Michigan. I was a sacrificial land against
John dingle.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
An active courage it.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Was, but you know, helped me my career. I got
on themigp and eventually it got me a appointment to
the Department of Labor under then Assistant Secretary for Administration
Management and Deputy Secretary and Acting Secretary Pat Pizzella. And
then I was off to the races. And that's what
got me into labor policy and been doing it ever
since the Bush administration.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
That's great.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Let's start with President Trump's recent executive action restoring accountability
to policy influencing positions within the federal workforce. Can you
walk us through what Schedule F is and why the
Trump administration sees it as essential for restoring accountability in
the federal workforce.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Absolutely, so this is going to be one of the
most impactful things I think the President does. I'll just
give you a little bit of history. There's kind of
been a ping pong on this. So in the first
Trump administration, he issued an executive order called Schedule F
President Biden got elected and put his hand on the Bible,
went to the Oval Office, and it was one of
the first things that he repealed. And then to President
(02:38):
Trump in the current administration, one of the first things
he did is reinstitute that the executive Order, and he's
actually moved it from Schedule F to this Career Policy Schedule.
And let me tell you what this does. This essentially
makes fifty thousand federal employees, or two percent of the
federal workforce, makes them at well employees just like most
of the private sector, just like states like Utah, Texas, Florida, Kentucky,
(03:03):
Georgia and others already have. And the reason this is
so important is because if you have career federal employees
that aren't doing their job, whether because they're either just
not good, they just don't want to, or they simply
just do not like the policies the president is putting forward,
this gives politicals the ability to say, well, you're not
(03:26):
doing your job, you should be let go. And you know,
I've seen this firsthand in multiple administrations that you can
see career federal bureaucrats actually throw sand in the gears
of policy. And this would go a long way to
make sure that that doesn't happen.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
When Lincoln became president, there were about fifteen hundred policy positions.
He eliminated twelve hundred of them because he knew that
with Southerners and with Democrats, he couldn't win a civil
war if they were the instrument of affecting things. So literally,
out of a total fifteen hundred and twelve hundred left.
(04:04):
And I always remind people that that giving the elected
official the ability to actually drive the bureaucracy is central,
because if you don't do that, the bureaucrats really are
running the place and the elected officials are just on
the surface. Does Schedule F still exist or has it
now got a new title.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
It's got a new title, and it makes sense. So
it was Schedule F under the first Trump administration. Now
it is this policy Career schedule. And the reason for
the change is, once again, these are still civil servants.
They're still governed by the Civil Service for Formact. The
only difference is that if they are in a what's
known as policy influencing position, that if they're throwing sands
(04:44):
in the gears of that policy and they're thwarting the
people's elected representative. It's President Trump, it could be any president.
This goes beyond administration. It also goes beyond policy. This
isn't just a labor policy. This is energy, this is education,
this is financial services. That those elected representatives could say, well,
(05:05):
you know what, you're not doing your job. We don't
have to go through this long, lengthy review process to
dismiss you. It's just you're not doing your job. You're
now an out well employee. You're throwing sand to the
gears of policy. You should be removed.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Well, obviously you're going to have some substantial opposition from
the American Federation of Government Employees in the National Treasure
Employees Union.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
What's their counter.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Are they in favor of not having elected officials be effective?
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Yes. What they are trying to do is essentially throw
sand in the gears of these type of reforms. What
they are pushing for is making it as difficult as
possible to remove federal employees whether or not they're doing
their job. You see them opposing President Trump on this
executive order soon to be rule. You see them trying
(05:54):
to throwart his other executive actions, such as, you know,
protecting national security. He issued another executive order recently that
said that, you know, you can't have collective bargaining and
multiple federal agencies that deal with national security, something that
the law very clearly gives him the right to do
and to determine which agencies those are. These unions they
(06:17):
like the status quo, they like the protections, and what
they don't like is accountability for those federal employees that
are not doing their job. And frankly, I think that's
a disservice to the good federal employees. And there are
a lot of good federal employees out there. I've worked
with good career federal employees that then have to pick
up the slack for the ones that aren't doing what
(06:39):
they're supposed to do.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
As a part of all this, you have been strongly
supporting Representing Burgess Owen's bill, the Start Applying Labor Transparency
Act or SOLD Act. Walk us through what would that
do and why is that important?
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Absolutely so. Now we're shifting over from federal public sector
unions too. Now we're talking about mostly private sector unions here.
And this is what Representative Owen's bill does. There's a
thing called salting. When unions come to organize, they can
have organizers that take jobs will lie to the employer
and say, well, I want to take this job, you know,
(07:16):
just to work for you think, you know, I just
want to be a barista at Starbucks, so give me
a job. What they're really doing is they're actually paid
by the union to take that job and then to
start organizing. And not only do they lie to the employer,
but they also lie to the employees. I'm just your
fellow coworker. Hey, have you heard about this union? Maybe
it's a good idea. We've actually seen quotes of workers
(07:38):
that say, well, you know, we thought this was kind
of schemey, I thought this person was my friend. Now
I find out that they're being paid to organize me.
What is this about. It actually gets so bad that
you had a paid union salt testify before Congress and
not put in their disclosure form that they were getting
paid by the union. And they testified, Oh, I'm just
(07:59):
a Starbucks barista, and then it later came about oh,
actually no, you're not. You're actually being paid to organize Starbucks.
That really called into question that person's testimony.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Isn't that also a felony? Oh?
Speaker 3 (08:13):
I know that this was undee Chairwoman Virginia Fox. I
know there were investigations going on to see what exactly happened,
especially when that union salt signed that truth and Testimony form.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Would this spill basically require that somebody who is being
salted has to make it public.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
That's it? So right now, if an employer goes out
and they hire a consultant to talk to their employees
and say, you know, we don't think a union's right
for us, that employer and the person they hire have
to fill out certain forms with the Department of Labor.
And you know, the first ones you do within a month.
So we're just saying, why don't we have parity here?
(08:53):
If the employer has to report hiring someone to talk
to employees about unionization, the unions, if they hire someone
to talk to employees about unionization, they should file the
exact same forms.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
All of this is built in a sense.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
When the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of nineteen
fifty nine, which was the first big effort to create
transparency in this area, why was it not adequate?
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Basically, you know, it gave discretion. I would argue that
the Department of Labor actually has the ability to say
that if you're talking to employees, whether you're on the
union side or whether you're on the employer side, you
should file these forms. However, that's not how it is
being interpreted. So what Representative Owen's bill does is it says, well,
since it's not being interpreted that way, let's be crystal
(09:59):
clear within the STAF that if you're talking to employees,
whether it's union or employer side, you should file these forms.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
The whole process of getting all this out in the
open also relates back to what's really kind of a
bizarre model in the government, where we the taxpayers, are
actually paying for the union members to organize the government.
See if people who are supposedly being paid to be
civil servants, but they're actually being paid to be union organizers.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
That's right. That's a process called official time. And it's
not just union organizers. It's actually doing all sorts of
work on the taxpayer dime for the union. It's being
a union official, in some cases, working full time for
the union. This is actually something that President Trump did
away with in his first term. You had union officials
working full times in some cases for years for the union,
(10:51):
but still getting their taxpayer salary. So once again President
Trump deserves a lot of credit with this. He's put
forth a policy to make sure that this is reported.
Was reported in his first term, President Biden simply did
not report it. Now President Trump is saying it has
to be reported again. But he has actually gone further,
and it's not just about how much the government is
(11:12):
paying union officials with taxpayer dollars instead of doing their
job to do union work. It's actually about how much
time federal employees, agency employees are doing just to negotiate
with the union, to handle grievances and all of these things.
Once again, to this administration's credit, the Office of Personnel
Management a couple weeks ago said not only should agencies
(11:35):
report official time, but they should also report how much
agency time is spent on collective bargaining and speaker if
you like, I can get into some of the just
kind of crazy things that we have seen unions negotiate
over in the federal workforce.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
I think for the average taxpayer that would be really
helpful because most of us, including me, I know in
general that it's much worse than we think it is,
but we don't really have specific examples.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
The first one is. I was on a panel under
the first Trump administration, the Federal Service Impasses panel that
did mediation and arbitration between the federal government and federal
unions when they came to an impass. So I saw
a lot of these cases firsthand. They're all public, and
we actually put a study out on our website detail
of all of this. It's all available at I the
number four AW dot org, IFAW dot org. But let
(12:24):
me give you a couple examples. So one you had
a union negotiating over being able to smoke on tobacco
free federal facilities. You had another one where they were
negotiating over the right mister speaker reminds you the right
to wear spandex in the office. And they had another
one where they were negotiating over the height of modesty
(12:47):
panels under cubicles. It was an office move and does
the cubicle go two inches or four inches above the
bottom of the floor. Now, they negotiated for years over
this two inches versus four inches. They could have probably
purchase go plated cubicles for the entire office. For the
amount of money that they spent in official time, in
staff time and travel and supplies, you name it. So
(13:10):
those are the things that they're bargaining over, and those
are the things that, thankfully will continue to come to
light with these transparency measures from the administration.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Turns out across the whole government to be a lot
more money than people think.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Well, official time alone in the first Trump administration was
well over one hundred million three was one hundred and
twenty something million dollars in official time, and that doesn't
count how much on the agency side was spent. So
we're going to see probably some very high numbers, and
that's year over year.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
A different front. Senator Josh Holly proposed the Faster Labor
Contracts Act, the Speed Up Union contract negotiations. I find
Holly interesting and complicated. What do you make of this bill?
Speaker 3 (13:55):
I think complicated is the right term. And unfortunately Senator
Howlly has this larger framework, and this is the first
bill from his larger framework, and it is pretty much
part and parcel borrowed from the Democrat Union wish List Bill,
the Protecting the Right to Organize Act or pro Act. Unfortunately,
the timing was a little unfortunate for Senator Hawley. So
(14:17):
what this bill does is it would allow federal bureaucrats
to impose an arbitration panel on two private parties. So
if a union organizes an employer and within a couple
of weeks, if they don't reach a collective bargaining agreement,
first they say would go to mediation. So that's where
both sides come together as essentially marriage counseling, try to
(14:39):
get to an agreement. If that doesn't work within a
very short amount of time, then they go to arbitration,
where these federal bureaucrats would impose this three person panel
that would actually write a contract for two private parties,
one of which maybe never even agreed to the process
in the first place. And I mean this everything at
(15:01):
a work site, ours, pay, working conditions, you name it.
So it's extremely troubling.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Two questions, guys.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
One, it strikes me that that literally gives the union
every reason not to agree.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
We've seen this in the public sector, not so much
in the private sector, but in the public sector where yeah,
you'll have one side and maybe it's the union, we'll
stall the negotiations and then they get it to the arbitrator,
and the arbitrator will just look at maybe another unionized
facility and go well, they're getting this, so that works
for them. This should work for this, whether city, town
or in the Haley bill, now private company over here.
(15:39):
But let me tell you kind of the unfortunate timing
of this. So those federal bureaucrats, they are at the FMCS,
the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, and right after this
bill was introduced, President Trump announced that he was ratcheting
back how much funding was going to fmcs. And actually,
at the same time, it was a little old, was
(16:00):
about a decade old, but there was re unearthed reports
of corruption and overspending and all these problems with fmcs.
So that was right after Senator Hawley introduced this bill
that basically gave all of this power to the FMCS.
So we'll see what happens with it. But I know
a lot of people are extraordinarily skeptical of having federal
(16:24):
bureaucrats dictate these panels that could then write entire contracts
for two private parties.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
It seems to me that private sector unions have been
steadily shrinking as a percent of the whole workforce, So
trying to design a coercive bargaining system, it is essentially
an effort to fit back to growing the unions in
the face of the fact that the American workers seem
to be leaving them.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
That's right. So this was the first year, and this
is public in private that union membership drop below double
digits nationwide. This is Baxsin's early nineteen hundreds. In the
private sector, it's below six percent. I believe it's about
five point nine percent right now. And it's not so
much unions. I mean, I think unions can do good.
I think unions can really help workers. The problem is
(17:32):
that they are in this antiquated, one size fits all
kind of industrial revolution collective bargaining model that does not
allow for flexibility, It does not allow for ingenuity, it
does not allow for individual workers to be rewarded. I
think today's modern workforce is looking at that model and saying, no,
that's not what I want. So instead of having this
(17:54):
framework that center Hawley is putting out, instead of having
all of these government mandates to think that if you
really want to grow union membership and have unions thrive
is have them adopt a new, flexible, individual focused professional
service business model as opposed to the compulsion they have today.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
In a sense, you'd move people towards more of a
everybody gets to be a professional, as in a law firm,
rather than the kind of classic indust show era mass unionization.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Yeah, it's making them professional service organizations that you can
join voluntarily. The employers aren't compelled to negotiate with them,
but they will because unions can provide top notch services.
But I think that's the way of the future, you know. Unfortunately,
even for workers now, a lot of unions not only
have a floor for pay, but they also have a ceiling.
(18:49):
So in a lot of unions and a lot of
collective bargaining agreements, the only way you get ahead is
unless you get another degree, is logging another year on
the job. Doesn't matter how hard you work, how productive
you are, how much money you make your boss, it's well,
you're under the CBA and the only way you're getting
a raise is by seniorti logging another year on the job.
So I think that is why a lot of workers
(19:10):
are looking at unions and saying, yeah, it's just not
for me.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
We're entering a different era.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
It seems to me when you look both at the
kind of bills like Halley for the private sector, and
then you look at what's happening with the Trump administration
reforms in the public sector. What do you think is
the impact of public opinion? How important is it that
the American people understand these things.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Well, it's interesting because you see poll after poll unions
do get high approval ratings. But the interesting thing is
that when you scratch the surface and this goes to
you that business model that a lot of workers just
aren't buying right now is that, yeah, unions are good,
we like unions. But then you scratch the surface and well,
would you want a union at your workplace? Would you
want to join a union? And that approval drops significantly.
(19:56):
Unions they do have that public perception that they have support,
but it's a lot of well it's good that they're
out there, but I just don't think it's right for me.
That's where I think that if you change that business
model of the unions, the paradigm a collective bargaining, not
what Senator Hawley is trying to do with his framework,
and certainly not what we're seeing out of the Democrats
(20:18):
with the Proact and all this force and compulsion and
making it harder for workers to work for themselves or
you know, attacking the franchise business model. All of this
in the proact, that's the problem. But workers just want
something different.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
I mean it does anyway that you have to put
all this in the context of both competition from around
the world and the scale of change that the emerging
artificial intelligence is going to imply, and that, if anything,
you're going to see more fluidity and more flexibility rather
than more rigidity and the way the labor market operates
(20:53):
over the next two or three generations. I mean, does
that sort of fit your sense of it?
Speaker 3 (20:58):
That's absolutely correct, and you know you do see what
does come to the flexibility and put AI aside for
a second. When it does come to flexibility, being able
to work for yourself, being able to achieve by your
merit or how hard you work. You see that that's
what workers are looking for. That's what modern and young
workers are looking for, not this one size fits all model,
(21:18):
not the compulsion of you have to do this or
you have to live by this rigid contract. That is
really where I think the future is. And I see
the future in independent contract. You know, I was an
independent contractor for a long time, and it can be
very lucrative and it also gave me a lot of flexibility,
you know, take on projects clients. I liked determine my
(21:40):
own schedule when I wanted to be with my family.
You see things like Representative Kylie has his Modern Worker
Empowerment Bill and his Modern Worker Security Bill, and they're
leaning into independent contracting, making it easier for workers to
work for themselves, to get benefits if they're working for themselves.
(22:00):
You saw that during the first Trump administration with their
independent contract rule in the Department of Labor. Unfortunately, you
see with the Proact in Congress, and what you saw
coming out of the Body administration is that they were
just going in the exact opposite direction and trying to
make everyone in an employee and you know, borrowing the
failed ideas from California of saying you can't work for yourself.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Don't you think that to some extent that whole model
of independent contractor may eventually be applied to the civil service.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Federal government has a lot of independent contractors now. You
do see that. You do see a lot of efforts
out there, you know, kind of right size government. You know,
there's ideas out there, like the Yellow Pages test if
you can find something in the yellow pages. You shouldn't
have a career sort of a servant doing it. It
should just be contracted out. Contracting is something that you know,
the federal government specifically does a lot of, and you
(22:55):
know you do hear a lot about that, and I
think there the efforts are to make contracting fair, you know,
to get the best and most economical contractors without a
lot of extra strings attached. And once again you saw
a lot of those strings, especially in the Union context
during the Biden administration.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
The whole process.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
It seems to me the long term trend is towards
more flexibility, more unique designs, more opportunities because we now
have the technology that can handle the complexity.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
Not only do we have the technology that can handle
the complexity on that, but I think we have a
workforce that that's what they want. They want that flexibility,
they want that ability to earn and achieve on their
own without being put into some one size fits all
contract That essentially is a business model that is several
generations too old and really has not adapted with the times.
(23:51):
But unfortunately, we're seeing a lot of the bills that
look to favor that Model's simply just doubling down on
that failed business model of the past that has not
kept up with the economy and the modern workforce.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Yeah, as you look out over the next three to
five years, what do you see as the major projects
that you will be undertaking.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
For I for a w Obviously we want to support
the administration. They have this rule making out right now,
going back to that policy career schedule. So we have
a portion of our website, I the number four aw
dot org that goes into detail on that rule. We
have it on a regulation watch portion of O website,
and we actually have a link there where people can
(24:32):
go and comment and say, yes, this is a good idea.
You know, the people's elected representatives should have a civil
service that is not throwing sand in the gears of
the policies that they were enacted to create. We see
good labor bills that are coming out of Congress, like
those two Kylie bills we were talking about before, the
Modern Worker Empowerment Act and the Modern Worker Security Act.
(24:53):
We see Representative Bob Ander, who's a freshman who I
worked with very closely when he was in the Missouri
state legislator. He introduced a bill called the Worker Enfranchisement Act,
And this bill would say that if unions want to
monopoly to represent everyone once again in a private sector workplace,
that they should get a majority of everyone. And it
actually calls for the same quorum that the National Labor
(25:15):
Relations Board that will do these elections does and says that,
you know, you should have two thirds of the employees voting,
and if a majority of those two thirds, so really
you're roughly saying, if you know, thirty three percent plus
one of workers vote for the union, that's how they
get in. But you shouldn't have these elections where single
digits of percentages of employees vote to bring a union in.
(25:37):
So those are just some of the bills. You know,
we're very excited on. The Employee Rights Act was introduced
last Congress. That was kind of all the good ideas
that a lot of the Republicans had, or most of
the good ideas a lot of Republicans had. So hopefully
that will reintroduce this Congress, and that you know, there's
a whole bunch of other good ideas out there, both
coming from Congress and coming from the administration.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
You know, you mentioned in passing the new effort to
basically outlaw independent working. Can you talk to us for
a second about the whole political structure of California as
it relates to compulsory unionization.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Well, unions, as you can imagine, are extremely powerful in California,
and I think that's a reason why there's some of
the issues out there. So if we're talking about their
attacks on independent contracting, and you know what put that
in context of, you know, some of the federal work
that we do is they passed what was known as
AB five several years ago, and imediately after AB five
(26:32):
was enacted, they realized we went too far. We did
this thing, it was called the ABC test. It made
independent contracting nearly impossible, and wanted to make everyone into
an employee. Well, they realized that went too far, and
they actually passed another bill and it was actually the
same author of the original AB five passed another bill
to create all these exemptions from AB five. And then
(26:55):
after they did that, voters said, well, it still goes
too far, and then they on when the ballot, passed
more exemptions and ratcheted back AB five. But now that
ABC test without those exemptions, that is exactly what's in
Congress's protecting the right to organize act so without the exemptions,
and when even California said you went too far, now
(27:17):
Congress is pushing the exact same thing. So it is
extremely troubling. And on our website we also have stories
from California and AB five And I can think of
one woman that actually had to leave the state because
she wanted the flexibility. She did online teaching and she
wanted to take care of her infant children and she
(27:37):
couldn't do that if she was an employee. And when
AB five passed, she realized, well, my business is drying up,
so she actually moved out of state to make sure
that she could keep helping to support her family and
also have the flexibility to spend time with her kids.
We have a lot of those stories on the website
and it really is telling.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Well till Marco, Well, look, I want to thank you
both for the leadership you're providing for joining us today.
Our listeners can find out more about what you do
at the Institute for the American Worker by visiting your
website at IFOAW dot org. And I really appreciate Vincent
you're taking time to.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Be with us.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
Hey, thank you for having me on.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Thank you to my guest, Vincent Nuccio. You can learn
more about the Institute for the American Worker on our
show page at newtsworld dot com. Newsworld is produced by
Ganglish Sweet sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producers Guarnsey Sloan.
Our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the show
was created by Steve Penley. Special thanks to the team
(28:40):
at gingwishweet sixty. If you've been enjoying Newtsworld, I hope
you'll go to Apple Podcasts and both rate us with
five stars and give us a review so others can
learn what it's all about.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Right now, listeners of.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
News World can sign up for my three free weekly
columns at gingwishree sixty dot com slash newsletter.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
I'm newt Gingga, which this is news World.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
Hm
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Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!