SYSK Selects: How Labor Unions Work

Yes, it's true: Unions have a shady mob-related past and were originally championed by anarchists. Born from medieval trade guilds, these organizations also helped grow the American economy, and not only protected but established workers' rights.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
M Hey everyone, Since it's political season, I thought for
this Saturday Select, we'd go back in time to May
twelve and learned a little bit about labor unions. That's
abound to be a hot topic in debates and as
we ramp up to the primary season or through the
primary season into the dreaded November date. But give it

(00:20):
a listen. Educate yourselves on how labor unions work. Right now,
welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark. With me is always is Charles W.

(00:41):
Chuff Bryant, which makes this stuff you should know. Heck no,
we won't go. That's different. Heck no, we won't record.
That's more along the lines of what we're talking about
better pay for podcasters. Yeah. As a matter of fact,
we could get together like Adam Curry and um Joe

(01:02):
Rogan and maybe even IRA and form like some sort
of local He would be our Jimmy Hoffa, Ira would
be Is that a threat? No? Are you threaten? No?
He would be our Jimmy. He would make things happen.
James P. Hoffa, the one that the current team's Church

(01:22):
president either one. I'm not saying get rid of him
burying a giant stadium, from saying IRA would make it happen.
He would break legs if need be. There's a leg
breaking goon um. So for those of you who have
already seen the title of this you are you are
you understand the banter? I guess if you have no

(01:44):
idea what we're talking about, I'll bet you guessed by
now that we're talking about labor unions. Tom. It's a
good one man that we had this request a lot
last year from Scanni's when the whole Wisconsin Scott Walker things.
I know, and we're just now getting to it because
the Scott Walker thing is like my intro. Well, let's
hear it. So do you remember last year in Wisconsin? Yes,

(02:08):
there was this big hubbub that was going on. A
lot of people were wondering if this is going to
be like the beginning of the Arab Spring in the
United States, this is going to be the flash point
for it. Because Governor Scott Walker was accused of trying
to deunionize the public sector employees State Employees UM through

(02:31):
a little bit of legislation that he was trying to introduce.
That is very true, and it caused quite a stirt,
like thousands of protesters. Yeah, there was some serious protests
going on. UM. And at the heart of this whole
thing was some legislation where he was trying to get
the public sector employees unions UM to get their union

(02:51):
members e g. The public or i e. The public
sector employees. I E means that is e g is
for example. But I realize that UH to basically pay
in half of their pensions, UM to give up some
other concessions like UM, if they were going to get
a raise, it had to be through public referendum. Yeah,

(03:13):
anything over the rate of inflation, I think yeah, UM.
But probably the biggest one was that they were stripped
of their ability to collectively bargain. Yeah, that was the
begining and it worked. It got pushed through, and now
if you are a state employee union member in Wisconsin,
you can't collectively bargain anymore, which means you are effectively

(03:37):
neutered as a union member. In a lot of ways,
that is one of the hallmarks of the unions. And
depending on where you come from, what you believe who
raised you, whether or not your grandpa was still alive
when you were old enough to understand what he was
talking about. UM that, I think that largely depends on

(03:59):
how you feel about unions. A lot of people think
they're a good thing. A lot of people think they're bad,
A lot of people think they're necessary, a lot of
people think they're evil. A lot of people think they're
necessary evil, And in fact, they're kind of America as
it stands as kind of split down the middle these days.
A pew pole that was taken during this whole hubbub

(04:20):
in Wisconsin, UM showed that forty of Americans had a
positive view of organized labor, which I found surprising. You
thought that was high, Yeah, I was. I was surprised
because the the decline of union has also been attended
by a change in perception towards them, you know, like

(04:40):
they're kind of bad or that they hamstring business is
another big one. UM. But they also found that fift
still believe unions are needed to improve working people's lives.
So necessary evil. I nailed it, you did, and Uh,
unsurprisingly a lot of times your feelings on unions are
drawn a political lines these days, of being like the

(05:05):
an organizing backbone for the Democratic party. Sure, but that's
not always true, Like very frequently unions throw their waiting
their support behind Republicans as well. At any rate, let's
get to the bottom of what all this is. Are
our unions good? We're probably going to avoid this kind
of qualitative descriptor and instead just kind of stick to

(05:29):
the facts and let the people decide. Power to the
people to decide whether unions are good or not. I
think that's a good move. Josh, thank you. Uh so
we got stats. We'll get to those later. Unions, Josh. Uh.
Industrial revolution is kind of where actually we can go
back further, which we will with what medieval times. Yeah,

(05:53):
the the trade guilds. Trade guilds sort of where the
beginnings seeds of the unions and uh, they originally sort
of came about though just too uh swap techniques and
recipes and uh. Then that sort of evolved a bit
into hey, why don't we get together and also share

(06:14):
aside from our knowledge, get together and maybe share expertise
on how to how to do things better and get
better wages maybe or fixed prices. That's one before they
figured out that that was um immoral and this is
medieval Europe a long time ago. Yeah. Uh. And the
trade guilds, Um, we're definitely the origin of unions. It's

(06:36):
just a bunch of workers getting together and figuring out
because it is essentially what a union is that they have,
um more strength than numbers exactly. Um. And it's also
an indication of workers understanding their value in the production process,
that what they're essentially doing in return for their salary

(06:58):
was producing a profit or business. Yeah, so you have
labor in business, right and um. That gives them a
certain sense of value, whereas uh and a lot of
situations workers feel like, you know, they're very grateful for
their job and they don't want to make any waves
or anything like that, and they're not fully aware of

(07:18):
their value. UM. And unions. One of the roles that
unions plays to point out to a worker, Hey, you're
doing something in return. This isn't some sort of welfare
situation that you're involved in. You're producing labor and that
has value and certain rights as well. Exactly. All right.
So flash forward a bit to the Industrial Revolution nineteenth century. Uh,

(07:41):
things moved away a little bit from agriculture, uh, and
agricultural jobs moved into the factories. As we all know
and kind of right off the bat, factories weren't a
good scene for fair wages and safe conditions and kids
working in factories and women in children not being paid
as much as men. Um. Triangle shirtwaist fire. That was

(08:06):
a big turning point. What was the triangle shirtwaist company fire?
Where the working conditions were really really dangerous? That it
was a clothing company, clothing manufacturer, I think in Chicago
or New York, I can't remember. Um, and it caught fire,
the factory did because there was all this fabric in
the air and it just ignited and the whole place

(08:27):
went up and all of these women had to jump
to their deaths. And UM, that kind of brought in, UM,
brought working conditions into the limelight and help their union.
Um sentiment. I guess a flash point, if you will,
exactly from your favorite Mr Cladwell the heath flash point,

(08:48):
tipping point, tipping point, good lord, get it together, Chuck, Okay,
I've got it together now, tipping point. I had to
take a little break. Uh. Uh. In the nineteenth century,
they would do things called striking. Yeah, they still do today,
but back then it was a more uh contentious and

(09:10):
violent affair. Than it is today, Like people died, bombs
went off, guns were shot. Yeah, there was, and it
was on both sides too, I mean, like the workers
were striking. The point was the whole was the same,
where we're not working anymore and you're not going to
make any money because we're not producing the product that

(09:31):
you need to go sell. Right. Um, But during these times,
like the National Guard would show up, or um, the
cops would show up, or maybe the Pinkerton Detective Agency
would show up and just start beating the tar out
of the striking workers in order to scare them back
into working. Workers also would um defend themselves. Uh, there

(09:54):
was this one. I can't remember what striker was. I
just read about it where like the workers managed to
like chase the cops off really because they were they
were shooting two pound hinges in these oversized sling shots
like at the cops. And I can't imagine getting hit
by a two pound hinge. Was a hinge factory, I
had to have been, yeah sure, but yeah, so the

(10:14):
strikes were very violent. People like you said, would die
and the cops like why couldn't the cotton ball factory
had been right? Uh, but not funny though, because people
did die. Uh, not making light of it, like at
the Haymarket riot for incidents, for incidents, that was a
big one, for instance, that was a turning point, a
flash point, if you will. It was early May. Um,

(10:37):
there was a nationwide strike saying we only want to
work eight hours a day. Um. And in Chicago's Haymarket
there was a violent protest. Um. Not a lot of
people were there because the weather, thank goodness. Because someone
threw a bomb into the crowd, yeah, went off and
shots were fired by the cops, maybe by the protesters

(10:57):
probably Aparently they were not just strike labors, but they
were anarchists there, and uh, you know this anarchist their trouble. Well. Um,
this is one of the places where in the public
imagination at least that anarchists and socialists became married to
labor like pro labor um. And it's always kind of

(11:19):
haunted labor unions, is that idea? But it was born
out of this era, if not this riot, I'm sure yeah. Uh.
In the end, eight people were charged and convicted. Um.
The labor leaders tried to get them out, saying this
is not fair. One of the people committed suicide by
placing a stick of dynamite in his mouth in prison.

(11:43):
And uh. In the end, in a few years later,
the governor of Illinois granted a full pardon to the
remaining three convicted, and that ended up leading to an
observance of May Day or Labor Day in other countries.
Right May first, USB Labor Day. Um. This whole affair, though,
you left out that four of the guys who were

(12:04):
convicted were hanged, and then one guy committed suicide, and
then three were but they were charged with like basically
agitating violence. Um. This was back when free speech wasn't
protected quite as much as it is now. Um. But
the they and they were pardoned and as a result,

(12:24):
this whole Mayday thing, this Labor Day thing came up
about in May one. But then within like five years,
Grover Cleveland was like, well, this is kind of a sordid,
like scary association with labor. Let's just celebrate labor, and
I'm going to move it to, um the first Saturday, now,
the first Monday Monday in September till Saturday be no good.
We wouldn't get off work exactly. Uh did he move

(12:48):
it to to disassociate from that interesting specifically, So that's
why you can't wear white after September. September exactly. That's
exactly the origin that stuff. Mm hm. Alright, So maybe

(13:27):
let's talk about some of the basics of a labor union, Josh. Um,
there's many different kinds, and like you said, it's all
about strengthened numbers to get together to form what's called
a bargaining unit UM with an elected leader to deal
with the employer, right, because I mean, think about it.
If you are if you have somebody who's advocating for

(13:48):
your success, for your rights, higher wages, better conditions, whatever
it might be, Um, you are removing yourself to a
certain extent from that negotiation. So it's a little less
sticky for you because you're not talking to your employer.
You're not saying, I really want some more money. Somebody

(14:08):
else is going These guys are making a bunch of
money for you, and you need to share it a
little better like an agent exactly right in a way,
And at the same time, you also have that element
of that bargaining unit being a collective bargaining unit, meaning
there's that strengthen numbers. So it's a bunch of people

(14:29):
becoming satisfied at the same time, and implied in there
is if you don't do this, then you're gonna lose
a bunch of people all at once, and you're gonna
have some trouble. Right And Uh, they do this uh
agreement in the form of the c b A or
collective bargaining agreement, and a fan of any professional sports
will understand what a c b A is and how

(14:51):
tinuous they can be. Uh. Once you have negotiated this agreement,
and everyone on the employer sizes, you know, we can
live with these terms. Everyone on the employee side said, yeah,
we can live with this. We both give a little bit.
They sign it, and uh it is set for a
certain period of time, and you cannot break the c
b A on either side without there being legal action

(15:15):
or grievance is filed, which usually means an arbitrator will
come in and say, you know, let me get involved. UM,
you I feel like just hit the nail on the head.
Though for an ideal union presence in business, everyone give
a little yeah, you know, you can't have UM too
much for on one side or the other. But I
think that that's kind of the history of UM. The

(15:38):
presence of unions in business in America, it's been If
you look over time, it's maybe even down. But if
you look at in any specific decade, it's more on
one side than the other of as far as who's
in the beneficial position or who's asking more, who's extracting more? Yeah, like, um,
Samuel Gompers, who who got together the American Federation of Labor,

(16:02):
I think yeah. When he was asked what the a
f L wanted his answer was more. Yeah. Yeah. But
at the same time, you have to say, well, business
isn't going to just say just give it away. Very
rarely do they. Um, the whole presence of unions is
to extract that. At least that was the original idea

(16:24):
of them. Yeah. You know. Uh. Unions, like any organization,
costs a little money to run. Um, so you have
to pay dues. It's a membership thing. Um. If I
was in the Screen Actors Guild, which I'm not, I
would pay dues to the Screen Actors Guild every year
to keep my membership current and then they would go

(16:44):
fight for me and they would have a staff that
gets paid out of that money. UM. I love in
here that this is dues vary, but many are around
fifty a month. What a deal? Yeah, I think it's
it's completely various depending on what union you're in. Sure,
I don't know that you can put a average number,
or maybe you can if you average it, well, if
you counted them all up. And I don't think that's

(17:05):
what they did here. Um, No, it was fifty dollars
a month UM act now. Uh. They're also supposed to
be democracies with elected officials, elected leaders who UM take
action based on referendums and votes and basically just using
UM voting to take the pulse of the union members

(17:27):
to see what they want to do. Ideally, that's how
it works. Yeah, I get the feeling it doesn't always
work that way throughout history. Yeah, especially once the mob
got involved, which we'll get to UM a lot of times.
You can be uh local union member, which is sort
of like being a fraternity member of a larger national charter. Uh.

(17:49):
And if you're a local union that means that you
maybe work in that same business sector, but you're employed
by a different company. But it's like, hey, I'm in
the in a key going back to film business stuff,
because they were lousy with unions still are like, Hey,
I'm I work in the art department. I'm a prop
sky so I'm a member of the local I can't
remember the number union here in Atlanta, but it's a

(18:12):
national charter, probably pushed out of l A. Not mistaken.
It's like, um, a chapter of a fraternity or a sorority. Yeah,
much is what I said. Yeah, did you say fraternity
or sorority? No you didn't. I said fraternity. You didn't.
You didn't add sorority? No? No, good point, sororities as well, chuck, Um,

(18:36):
what's the point of all this? I think we've kind
of touched on a little bit of it, like in
the especially in the strength and numbers thing, But there's
other benefits to being in a union, correct, Yeah? Um,
should we throw out some stats here? I think this
is high time for stats. Your wages, for one, your
median weekly income, it's going to be as a union member,

(18:57):
about nine d and forty dollars. Uh, it's gonna be
about seven and thirty dollars if you're non union. Um,
let me see here. You've got some about healthcare? Correct? Oh? Yeah,
so eight percent of union workers and this is from
the Department of labor. This isn't like from the A
F L C, I O or anything. UM eight percent

(19:20):
of UM union workers have health coverage, of non union
workers don't do UM. It's the same with dental plans.
Of the disparities even more of non union workers have
dental plans, where something like sixty six percent have a
dental plan. If you're a member of a union, UM

(19:41):
half of union jobs have vision coverage and only about
a quarter of non union jobs UH have it. Which
in reading this also I was kind of like, man,
we have pretty good benefits here discovery. Yeah, we do.
You know, Uh, if you're a minority, if you're a
woman at an American or Latino, you're gonna make more money.

(20:02):
Women are in about nine thousand more a year if
you're in a union, African Americans eight thousand more a year,
and Latinos close to twelve thousand more year if you're
a union member. So aside from UH, safe working conditions
and health insurance and things like that, which are great,
wages are really the big deal, right Wages benefits UM

(20:26):
pensions are another huge UM and they're also there to
UM protect workers from being unjustly fired. So like we're
not union, and we could somebody could come in here
and say, you know what, I didn't like the way
that you looked at your boss. I saw you scowling.

(20:48):
You're fired. You're fired, you're fired, you're fired. And we'd
be like, you can't do that, and they'd be like, oh,
yes we can, and that would be that right. Um.
There was like a big hubbub in Florida of out
some uh some workers that all wore orange, either depending
on who you ask, because they were all going happy
already together that night, or because they were um simulating

(21:11):
a prisoner garb to um protest the working conditions at
this law firm, which is really what they were doing.
And like twelve of them were fired. They were just
taking into a conference room and the guy was like,
you're all fired and that's that. And they're like, you
can't fire us for wearing an orange shirt, and actually, yes,
very much so. The since it's a work right to

(21:32):
work state or an at will work state right to work, um,
the the the the employer very much can fire you
for wearing something is seemingly arbitrary, is wearing orange If
you're a union member, that is not the case. The
union protects you from unjust dismissal, and basically you if

(21:53):
you feel like you've been fired for wearing orange, you
can go to your union rep and a big stink
comes about. That's another big one is protecting them. But
I also feel like here is a good point to
mention a lot of the criticisms of unions because that
same protection from unjust dismissal UM. Unions are frequently criticized

(22:15):
for that extending to workers who performed poorly. If like
it's part of that give I think with unions among
labor to say, okay, yes we're gonna protect you, but
you have to be productive, or you have to be
good at your job or whatever. Right, don't hide under
the the shield of the union just to go phone

(22:37):
in your your job every day and collect your paycheck
exactly and you know, flaunt that protection. That's not what
it's there for. UM. Another big criticism is that union,
just the presence of unions in any country harms economic
progress on the whole by hamstringing business and making it
less competitive among countries that don't have unions. UM. And

(23:02):
so for states that have state employee unions. A big
one is that UM state employee pensions can be a
drain on UM tight state economies. Uh. That's another big
one too. So there's criticisms of unions that are very legitimate. True,
But again I think it comes down to, like where
your political affiliation is. Well, yeah, I mean these days,

(23:26):
UH Republicans are more likely to not be in favor
of unions, and they have consistently been called the backbone
of the Democratic Party. That wasn't always the case though. UM.
The nineteen fifties H Republican President Dwight Eisenhower UM said
that unions have a secure place in our industrial life.
Only a handful of reactionaries harbor the ugly thought of

(23:49):
breaking unions and depriving working men and women of the
right to join the union of their choice. And also,
throughout history, unions have kind of dabbled out outside their
own labor negotiations and protection to fight for things like
UH medicare, social security, civil rights. Civil rights was a

(24:11):
big one, UM. I think Missouri Congressman Richard Bowling said quote,
we would have never passed the Civil Rights Act without labor.
They had the muscle the other civil rights groups did not.
So there, you know, you don't want to see anyone's
strong arm, but there is certainly something to be said
for strength and numbers, especially when it comes to something

(24:33):
like the Civil Rights Act. UM. The who was Eisenhower
who had that quote about union rights. UM. Eisenhower speaking
at a time that was just after the peak of
union membership in NIVE UM, thirty five of all non

(24:54):
agricultural workers, which is like everybody but farmers, UM, belonged
to unions. Now it's down to eleven point eight percent. Yeah,
and UM the public sector thirty seven percent. But where
they're really getting hurt is the private sector. Less than
seven percent of the private sector is unionized these days.

(25:15):
And there's a lot of people that, UH say, a
lot of the problems that we have in Washington, and
a lot of the financial troubles we've had in this
country have been to a certain degree UM because of
the non unionizing of like the rust belt in the
private sector. So UM to Sociologist Bruce Western and Jake

(25:38):
Rosenfeld actually wrote a paper that said that UM, the
decline of organized labor unions UM from the nineteen seventies
on can account for as much as a third of
the increase in Uh, income inequality in the US, which
has been significant, and they can attribute a third of

(25:59):
that increase just to the decline of labor. Well, and
I think it also coincided with the nineteen seventies. Uh.
Some say that big business really went hard at Washington
for the not for the first time, but in a
way that they've never had before, and that changed the
landscape of the distribution of wealth in this country. Yeah,

(26:21):
and that's a really interesting um point, Chuck, Like we
were raised after that period, but so that's just kind
of like our you know, we the Secret of My
success or, um, American Psycho, you know, all those great
movies about the eighties or set in the eighties, Like
that's just the way it was, like all these like

(26:42):
you just go after money and like you spend that
money on cocaine and pinstripe suits, you know, in Maserati's
or whatever. Um. And so we were kind of raised
with that sentiment. But there was a time prior to
the nineteen seventies where it was labor who was running
the charge. It was the unions and they were fully
in control, and business figured out how to regroup and

(27:05):
reassert itself, and that's the age that we're in now. UM.
So back to Eisenhower, though when he was talking, he
was kind of carrying on a tradition where the US
government figured out that, Okay, there is a um there's
a balance of power that has to be struck between
labor and business because business is part of this economic engine.

(27:29):
Labor helps fuel economic engine. But they really kind of
represent two different sectors of the the US, not just
econ economy, but the population, and we need to keep
them happy. We need to strike this balance. So the
federal government got involved, starting in with the National Labor
Relations Act, and they basically said, Okay, we can't have
strikes where you guys are shooting two pound hinges at cops,

(27:52):
and we can't have strikes where cops are like murdering, uh,
striking workers. Let's get to the heart of this matter
and figure out how to strike a happy balance between
what labor wants and what business wants and progressed from there.
And it was a really smart thing to do, but
they figured out that it was very much like Homer

(28:13):
trying to keep Pinchy lobster alive with the goldfish in
that freshwater tank, you know, adding salt, adding water. Um,
and it's been that was kind of the mark of
the twentieth century in an American economic history, was that
adding the salt and adding the water over time through legislation. Well,
in the nl r A was like you said, the

(28:34):
first one. And prior to that, they companies didn't even
have to recognize a union or negotiate with a union leader.
So this actually required by law that they not necessarily
that they give workers what they want, but they had
to at least negotiate in good faith and sit down
to the table with them. Yeah, which effectively said it
brought unions out of the dark and legalized them and

(28:56):
gave them a legal voice and legal recourse. That's right.
And to enforce that, they soon passed the National Labor
Relations Board to oversee, uh what was going on with
n l r A and UM. The article points out
here that they accomplished three things. UM. It allowed workers
to have elections to you know, like their own union leaders.

(29:19):
UM established laws protecting employees from discrimination based on union activity.
So like are you union, Well, we don't want to
hire you that kind of thing, or even worse, like
in the case of Ford Motor Company led forward Security
Wing led by Harry Bennett, a two thousand man strong
goons squad that used to like beat up workers, beat

(29:42):
up like organizers, beat up union reps um and do
it like on camera. They really were kind of above
the law in a lot of ways. But this was
definitely target that was targeted at guys like that for
the goons. UM and this kind of sneak spy but important, uh.
An important thing to note here is an l R

(30:03):
I also protected collective bargaining even if you're not in
a union, and the ability to bargain for better conditions
for all workers. So I mean it's it's the unions
was one of the main things. But it protected everybody,
but not everybody. There are a bunch of groups that
were left out of this. Agricultural workers UM, domestic service

(30:25):
workers UM, federal, state and local government employees, which obviously
yeah when when a different way UM, railroad and airline employees,
that one kind of became important. Like we talked about
in the air traffic control one UM under Reagan when
he fired all the air traffic controllers you know who

(30:46):
went on strike. Yeah, and that's important. UM. I guess
was that the Taft Hartley that ensured. Yeah. Taft Hartley
Act came along in nine seven, or the Labor Management
Relations Act, and one of the important things it did
was said, you know what, if there's any reich that's
gonna put the public health and danger, then we can
issue an eight day injunction that basically says you cannot strike.

(31:07):
And in the case of the I guess was did
that put the country in danger? Necessarily I put the
country's economy and danger. But at the same time, Reagan
didn't have file an injunction through the UM Relations Board.
He fired fired work. You're fired man, that guy? I know? Uh?

(31:29):
And what else did that? Oh? At outlawed secondary boycott's
the Taft Hartley Labor Act, which was a big deal
because the example they use here in this article is
really good. Like let's say you're a brewery and you're
striking against your employer. You might have a boycott against
the glass company that makes the beer bottles, just to
put the strong arm on the company from another direction.

(31:52):
And you can't do that. It's called the squeeze. Can't
do the squeeze. It's not legal. You can't as a union,
but consumers frequently do that kind of it's like UM
trying to get like Rush Limbaugh off there, boycotted a
lot of people, boycotted his UM advertisers until they said,
you know what, Okay, well we'll stop advertising with him.

(32:13):
And then all of a sudden, Russia Limbaugh has the
double squeeze on him. Same with the UM. I can't remember.
There was some special interest group, some pack that was
getting funding from like McDonald's, Wendy's, a bunch of people
and UM because of their alleged unfair and UM very

(32:36):
much pro business only practices. UM like all of these
companies is kind of abandoned them recently. Really Yeah, Alec
a l EC, I don't remember what it stands for,
Alec Baldwin, No, no, no, no, okay stuff mhm uh

(33:18):
the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of Josh, what's
that all about? Well, this was during a time when
UM the winds had really shifted towards not only the
unions having the uh, the labor UM business under their thumb,
they also had their union members under their thumb. The

(33:39):
MOB was involved the the democracy UM where the democratic
basis of unions had eroded, and UH, there was a
lot of shady stuff going on UM. This what I
thought was cool was rather than the federal government going, oh, well,
then we need to re reinvigorate the power given a

(34:00):
business under these union laws, instead they went and invested
more power in union members. That's right. Yeah, Like you
couldn't use union dues anymore to promote one candidate over
another in a union. For union, the elections were really
pretty heavily monitored from that point on. Uh, every single

(34:20):
union member has to be notified by mail at least
fifteen days before the election, like you can't sneak an
election by them, which probably used to happen in the
old days. Yep. UM. To to increase transparency in the
whole union thing, there was a lot of UM disclosure
and reporting requirements that were added, and not just for
the unions, but for also like employers, consultants. They want

(34:43):
to know where the money was going and basically they
wanted to see how the mob was involved as a
big one. Well, in speaking of money, UM, I don't
think we pointed out that a lot of times UM
unions will have a strike funds and some of the
money that you pay into it will actually pay you
when you go on strike to keep you from going hungry.

(35:03):
It's like Affleck. You know that Gilbert Godfrey didn't do
that anymore. I don't think I know. And I wonder
how ironic would it be if he had Affleck insurance
and that it kicked in once Affleck fired him. Interesting?
Why do you think he got fired because he wanted
too much money? No? No, he got fired for making

(35:24):
Twitter jokes about um, the Japanese tsunami, like the day
of Yeah, I thought it was a money issue. Yeah,
I'm worried about the sense of humor in this country
in the direction it's going, like there's stand up comedians
have always almost always been allowed to some they're exempted

(35:46):
from a lot of the standards that average joes are
held to, you know, like their stand up comedians that's
their job. Sometimes they make tasteless jokes and all that stuff. Yeah,
they'll go over the line and they'll just go people
go oh, and they'll go what too soon? And then
that right exactly, and then people will be like, yes,
it is um, but they there seems to be it
seems to be open season on comedians well because of

(36:09):
platforms that they've never had before, probably like Twitter, I
guess I guess all of a sudden, that's like your
official statement instead of a joke he made. Or yeah,
and the audience is much much wider and much more
um varied and diverse too. So yeah, I beg for
God read so piste off. I would imagine so because
I mean, you've got tell me there's like not ten

(36:29):
thou people lining up voice actors to go afract for
a huge page. I think he just made a pretty
good argument for yourself. That wasn't as good as g
But but I mean, and the problem is I realize
what's at risk is you know, cultural sensitivity, even individual
sensitivity towards people who are going to be offended or hurt,
but they're also there has to be a balance between that.

(36:52):
And I mean, the other thing that's at risk is
like our national sense of humor, which is really important.
It's one of the sees you could be like, well,
that's just a stupid joke. No, Like our ability to
take a joke is a very vital and important thing
about keeping us from like all, you know, killing ourselves
and stand One of the roles that stand up comedians provide,

(37:14):
or any kind of comedian provides, is to keep that
healthy and vital and going agreed. There's nothing more of
a turn off to me than when you see a
humorless celebrity, like when Ricky Gervais is doing a thing
in the Golden Clubs and you see like the people
out there that just are offended by this. I'm like,
come on, man, yeah, I don't know. I I think

(37:35):
for yourself, I can see Ricky Gervais being We'll make
him the sacrificial lamp leap over God for you alone.
You know, man, that was a sidebar, Yes, it was.
Are we talking about labor unions? I don't remember labor
unions today, Josh. You mentioned the a f l C.
I oh um. A lot of people might not know
that that is actually a collection to labor federation made

(37:58):
up a fifty four member union ten million strong. It's
a lot of people changed to win as sort of
a new one. Two thousand five it was formed, but
it isn't also a labor federation encompassing seven unions in
six million workers. Big time. Yeah, The a f l
that was founded by Samuel Gompers who I mentioned earlier,

(38:20):
and he got some cigar makers and some other industrial
laborers together to form that and then that was in
the late nineteenth century, and I can't remember exactly when,
but maybe in the forties of the fifties, he got
together with the C i OH to form the A
f L C i OH because he loves cigars. U
a W is a huge one. Auto Workers. Yeah, they

(38:41):
have something like, um one point four million members. Uh no,
I'm sorry. The Teamsters has one point four million members,
and they're the ones who are probably the most well
known by the average job thanks to one Jimmy Hoffa.
Do you know his story a little bit here there? Um.
The whole mob involvement I think with the UM, with

(39:04):
any union was they realized that there's a bunch of
guys um who are sitting on enormous piles of money,
and let's see how much of that we can steal
or get their hands on or used to build ourselves casinos.
And Jimmy Hoffa was in with these guys and he
just went missing right in. Yeah. I mean, I don't

(39:26):
think it's any secret would happened to him, but they
definitely don't know exactly what happened. And I thought the
whole point wasn't it was a secret. What happened to him. Well,
he was snuffed out. Oh I don't. I don't think
he you know, I just had a heart attack while
hiking in the wilderness and his body decomposed naturally. Well,
he was supposedly going. He was last seen waiting on

(39:47):
to Mafia Associates. It's kind of the giveaway too, But
his son, James P. Hoffa UM has really kind of
brought the family name back tremendously. He's the head of
the t Asters today, Yes he is. He's the president
of the Teamsters Union UM and is doing a lot
of work toward UM real legitimizing UM unions again in

(40:12):
this country, which is pretty cool. Well, anyone who's ever
been on a film set and has seen a two
hundred and seventy five pound man eating a doughnut sitting
in his truck, you can say I've met a teamster
and they they do great work, and they're basically there's
a I can't remember the number, but they're there. If

(40:33):
you're an industrial worker, you're basically eligible to be a
teamster and in just about any kind of industry. I'm
gonna get hate mail for that. Oh, you'll be fine.
There's like two guys that you described who listened to
this podcast, so you get two pieces of hate mail.
If I was a teamster, I would do nothing but
listen to this podcast because you're just sitting a raffle.

(40:55):
That's not true. Teamsters do great work. But on film
sets is sort of the old joke is that they'll
park the truck and then they sit in it until
they leave in the truck, you know, the um There
was another Simpsons reference just came up with the um,
the one where that film for Radioactive Man comes to
town and Homer tries to see who can out lazy

(41:16):
the teamsters. Good stuff. That is just a stereotype. Although yeah,
but stereotypes are there for a reason, right, has not funny?
Is not funny? What else? I don't have anything else?
You get anything else? Um? No, I guess I think

(41:36):
we covered pretty much everything. Yeah, it's a nice broad
overview if people can and like you said early on, Man,
you hit it on the head, my friend, whether or
not you are pro union or anti union largely depends
on your family's background. Yeah, it's a it's a very
tried and true uh thing through through families, through generations

(41:59):
that you know, people feel very strongly about it that
are involved in unions or like my actually my parents
are in the teachers union. Oh yeah, yeah, you're a
union kid. Huh yeah. But that that wasn't like factory
stuff like I never heard them besides complaining about not
making up money, which every teacher should complain about. Um.

(42:20):
And if you don't have any kind of passionate feelings
about it whatsoever, I would advise you to look into it. Yeah.
And if you do have passionate feelings about it, I
think a great exercise would be to explore how the
other side sees it and see if it changes your
mind one way or the other. Look at you. UM.
You can do that by reading this fascinating article that

(42:43):
we just based this podcast on, UM, how unions work.
You can type in the search bar at house touff
works dot com. You can also go into WAPO. There
was a pretty cool UM editorial as the Washington Post.
By the way, that's right, UM, the Wisconsin union fight
isn't about benefits, it's about labor's influence. From March six,
two eleven was a good article. That was a good

(43:04):
article too. And I already said search bar, which means
it's time for a listener mail. You know our buddy
Joe Garden was he's a scanni. He was really upset
last year. You can tell you you can see right
through his skin. He's so pale, he's translucent. Vote Joe Garden. Yeah,

(43:27):
big craftwork guy. Oh yeah, did he get tickets now?
He did? Ah, he promoted his own craft work. Um.
I believe it was a craftwork covers show and he
got different bands to come and play craft work and
he's a big deal for Joe was it was awesome.
He wore like white suit and introduced everyone. That is sweet.
When was that very recently? Did you see footage over?

(43:50):
Were you there? No? He was just he wouldn't shut
up about on Facebook and even admitted like guys, I
know you're tired of hearing about craftwork. That is significant
for Joe. Um. Yeah. There's also I guess kind of
in with the music sampling episode. There's I think a
DJ Food or a DJ Shadow I think DJ Food

(44:11):
um Craftwork cover mix. Yeah, there's like maybe three volumes
of it and it's like just mixing together all these
people who like sampled craft work for their songs. Yeah,
they just did a big thing at the some museum MoMA. Yeah, yeah,
oh my god, we you mean? And I tried very
hard to get those tickets. Did you try? Dude? It
was such into a cluster. I'm not into craftwork, and

(44:33):
this solidifies it. When I saw the reviews of it
and said they did like a twenty one minute of
auto bon and I was just like, somebody put a
gun to my head. Oh, you're just supposed to zone
out and forget where you are for a little bite
where it takes. I'm not a craft work guy, but
I know people are. People don't know. I'm not a
craft work guy either, like um, but I will say

(44:53):
that like that would have been just a momentous, just
a momentous thing to see MoMA into pretty much okay,
like the Tupac hologram. I'm sure seeing that it Coachella
is just amazing. Yeah, and a bit way more amazing
for some people than others even. All Right, So should
I read a listener mail? I guess I'm gonna call

(45:17):
this a good cause we like to promote these and
attach it to our Labor Union episode. How appropriate, Big
big fan, guys. I was just down at south By
Southwest where I caught your variety show and shook your
surprisingly supple hands. I also I know I also sat
on a panel called Harnessing the Power of the Benevolent Internet,

(45:38):
something you guys seem pretty skilled at yourselves, which is
why I thought you might be game to help students
across the country learn all sorts of stuff they should know,
in many cases, is stuff they need to know. I
work for a nonprofit website called donors Choose dot org,
where anyone with a dollar can give support to classrooms
in need. Teachers from all fifty states post request for

(46:00):
resources they feel their students need, and kind folks from
all over the world help bring those lessons to life.
It's cool. It sounds almost like a Kiva for teachers.
I need fifty tickets to craft working well. Since our
founding in two thousand, we've delivered over a hundred and
ten million dollars of resources directly to public school classrooms,
supporting more than six million students. Uh And if you

(46:23):
or my fellow listeners would like to help, you or
my fellow listeners, see have listeners fellow listeners. Okay, we
have listeners. That listener has fellow lists check out the
page I set up. He set up a page with
our name, and I was like, that's cool, you can
do that, but we're not, like, we can't officially like

(46:44):
sign on because then it has to go through corporate
and all that stuff. But oh, I already signed us
on officially, he did. I made T shirts and everything
they didn't, so you can go to donors choose dot
org slash stuff kids should know and UM, let me
know if you have any questions. And this is from

(47:04):
Zack and he said, by the way, we recently hired
a system admin a couple of months back. Drove me
crazy for a few weeks. Then I realized he sounds
exactly like Josh, and he said, I've enjoyed working with you. Josh.
Who is the other voice double for me? There's another
person that was some dude. Well, there's a writer that

(47:27):
writes about running. He wrote one thing about running Clark
and have been asked five times if it was me?
What's ironic? Started? Now? I actually you should write your
own article. Um, I can't remember. There was some other
voice person that did like Pike videos or something. I
don't man, I don't remember. Yeah, well, if okay, who

(47:47):
is that that was Zach donors choose dot org slash
kids stuff. Kids should know that donors choose dot org
slash stuff kids should know indeed. Nice. Uh, if you
have a great charitable organization you want to us to
let everybody know about Again, we're always happy to do that.
And if I sound like somebody, let me know because

(48:09):
it's driving me crazy. Who it is I've heard from
like a bunch of people, you sound just like this
or whatever? Yeah? Remember? Or I want to hear from
people who have um actively been on a worker strike,
or if you have been a scab as they called them,
and been a strike buster, or I want to hear
about that. If you've ever been beaten up by the cops,

(48:30):
we want to hear about that too. Yes. And anarchists,
any anarchists out there, We're always interested in hearing from anarchists.
I guess I got shipped down by the cops and
Athens one night. If you get beat up, there's difference. No,
but they like threw me against the wall and like
we're kicking my legs out from under me, and yeah,
it was weird, and then they had just left. Are

(48:53):
you sure there are cops and not just some eternity
boys dressed up as Appens police in a car. Me
and my three friends. Don't know what they thought we
were doing, but they they got out of there really quick.
I'll say that they must have thought you were somebody else,
Kevin Smith, or the reality of their situation hit them
and they realized that what they were doing was wrong. Maybe. Uh.

(49:14):
You can communicate with Chuck and I electronically via Twitter
at s y SK podcast that's our handle, UH, Facebook
dot com, slash Stuff you Should Know, or you can
send us an email to Stuff podcast at how stuff
Works dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production
of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for

(49:35):
my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.