Unpacking Alabama Union Busting with Kim Kelly

Today we talk about the coal miners strike in Alabama, a little bit of Amazon union-busting, and unions in general.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Worst Year Ever, a production of I Heart
Radio Together Everything, So don't don't hello, and welcome back

(00:22):
to the Worst Year Ever. It truly does suck. I'm
Katie Stole It, does you know? I'm Robert Evans Katie. Yeah?
Who else is here? Who else is usus? Cody? There
is that Hello? It's beautiful. It's beautiful. So, guys, I

(00:44):
came across something on the Internet this morning that made
me angry. Um. Really, it is political as much as
it is just a thing I saw that made me
angry on the internet. Do you want to talk about
a thing that made me angry? Yes, we talked about
the subject of this episode. It's great. So it is
someone on Twitter sharing an Instagram post, which is something
people do when they've come across something on Instagram that

(01:06):
made them angry, and they want to make other people
angry because that is one of the healthy things we
do in our society. And I'm feeding into that loop,
um by talking about it here now, by talking about
it here and now because things are good in the world. Um.
So there's this this lady who was posting on uh
fucking Instagram about jobs for your kids or ways your

(01:28):
kids can make money by hustling during the summer, and
her idea, it was like a picture of her like
a kiddie pool with her like like eight year old daughter,
and it was like, idea, charged ten kids forty dollars
a week to spend two hours a day at your house.
You know, that's four dollars a week for your kid.
And she repeatedly used the hashtag kid preneur, which is

(01:50):
her attempt to make like kid entrepreneur. But like, does
it wrong, Like that's not the way you would do that,
like kid entrepreneur even like child, I don't know, you
wouldn't do it that way. Kid preneur is just nonsense. Um.
It just makes me want to commit a series of crimes. Um. Yeah,
so that made me very angry, and I want to

(02:11):
know that you guys are angry. I was made angry
by someone. But so your specific problem is with the term,
the phrase my it's all of it. Actually, it's the
idea that like children should always be seeking a hustle. Yeah,
to hang out two hours a day for a week. Yeah,

(02:32):
she wants her kid to do this. She wants your
kid to be to be trying to find a way
to make money by getting kids to pay to hang
out during the summer, because kids should be commodifying everything
from an early agent and children a territory work less
than ten. The kids aren't paying for the kiddie pool,

(02:55):
the parents are. Let's be real, right, And so you
want the kid to run this insurance night liability night racket.
I think it's it's fair to call it a bracket. Yeah, yeah,
an illegal daycare to run an illegal daycare business. Yeah
you need. You can go buy your own katie pool

(03:16):
for twenty bucks. That's my I don't think kids should
be encouraged to be entrepreneurs. But also, yes, we're overlooking.
They shouldn't be talking about money until they the young
indoctrination into the the club of capitalism. Yeah, I mean
it's because one of those things like obviously, especially if

(03:37):
you're poor, you can't stop your kids from knowing about
and caring about money. Most of my early memories are
of like extreme economic anxiety. Um, but the idea that
you would be teaching your kid to modify aspects of
like to commodify friendship, Like it's one thing to be
like as a kid, you're gonna have to like, hey,
if you want these if you want to get like
toys and ship um, we're fucking broke. Um, so maybe

(03:58):
you could find like that's why I had to like
molan and stuff in order to have like some spending money. Whatever.
That's just life, you know. Okay, Well let's be lead stands.
Aren't bringing in enough money that's not going to bring
in the butt like the idea of like the that
you do as a child in your in a child's life,
and like, oh you know what you should do make

(04:19):
some money out of that, Like, well, no, just be
a kid. Money on the table. If you're not charging
your friends to be your friends, that's what I find unsettling,
Like especially since this is clearly if you're if you're
using the hashtag kid preneurre um, your kids don't have
economic anxiety, I will be I am certain about that.
So you're you're you're just making them shitty people actually um,

(04:43):
or at least attempting to obviously like this kid's young,
my hope I have the best of hope for them.
So anyway, that was the thing that made me angry.
There was also a thing that made me blissful this week.
And then I want to share that too to try
to make things better. On the website, which I had
not heard of before, trashburg dot com, there is an
credible article titled Partisanship is Tearing Wicky Feet Apart, and

(05:04):
it's an analysis of the debates and Wiki feet about
whether or not like Hillary Clinton and members of the
Trump administration have sexy feet and like the principled stand
a lot of Wiki feet feet people saying like, I'm
a hate tomy Lauren, but this isn't about her politics.
This is about rating feet, how much I want to
ejaculate while looking at her feet, and I'm going to

(05:25):
be like, I have I have integrity. And so there's
like these conservatives being like, look, I don't like Hillary Clinton,
but I'm going to honestly rate her feet because that's
what this side is about. I can't imagine she's very
funny I I have. I have no interest in discussing
that talking about this community. Look, that's for the people

(05:47):
at wiki feet to decide, and I'm glad that they
can put partisanship by the way I'm certain you do. Kids.
My dad was very disturbed when he realized he probably
gets pet it cures a week because she's so fucking rich. Yeah,
I mean they all have all of the money. Um,
it's amazing the articles by Ashley Feinberg, and it's it's

(06:09):
very fun um and and was a bright spot getting
up this morning after getting angry at the hash which
so much for sharing this online journey. I think that
anyway really went with introduction dear old Hill's feet mm hmm,

(06:29):
not impressed. Who's feet the dear old Hillary Clinton? Oh,
Hillary Clinton's feet. Look, I'm not going to comment on
anybody's feet. That's for the that's for the professionals. Remember,
rating not good. It's better than it should be. Though,
let me tell you these feet are fucked. I want

(06:50):
to know if I got Mama's bunny and they seem
to never have seen a picture of my feet feed
or higher rated than Hillary Clinton's feet. Yeah, but there's
like five ratings. No, I don't how many there. Art
doesn't matter. I don't need you guys to shower me
with Wiki feet ratings. The dub your number one in
my heart? Thank you, thank you. Okay, but now I'm

(07:12):
taking a hard pivot. If I was really number one
in your heart, you'd go give me a good rating.
I'm doing it right now. Let's talk about this week's show.
I would really quickly. I have to read this Hillary
Clinton review. I was expecting her feet to look much worse,
but honestly, your feet doesn't look that bad. I am
not a fan of her politics, but if I was

(07:34):
stuck in ben Ghazi and the only way out was
to massage your feet, Wait, this is how we bridge
the partisan That's that's We've had a lot of conversations
about what it means to have integrity as a journalist.
That post has everything about it, and that's what it

(07:55):
means people. That's what I mean. That's the way yours.
But you ride a look with a gimlet. I a clear,
unsparing view of reality. And I I applaud the hero
at wiki feed who wrote that comment stry for objectivism
acknowledged that subjectivism exists, Hugo Jackson. Great job, Hugot. Journalists need.

(08:20):
Let's let's shut down Columbia Journalism School and just have
kids who want to be journalists. We read wiki feed.
That's going to teach them all they need to know childrenists.
All right, Um, Probert, what are we talking about today
on the show. We're talking about the increasingly violent and
wildly undercovered battle for unionization, particularly within a couple of

(08:44):
different two different stories in Alabama of the Amazon workers
and of a minor strike. And we're bringing on a
friend of the pod, Kim Kelly, because she has spent
a lot of time down there talking to members of
both kind of striking groups and she had a lot
of nuanced information and people need to know more about it. Yeah,
this is a great interview. Thanks Kim for joining us,

(09:07):
and I hope you guys like it. Cody is holding
up a block of ice to his face because his
uh A c is broken. Cody, why don't you you
should put that underneath your shirt or something like? Cool
down that core? Right? You want to get the ice
block right in the taint. The taint is what holds
all your heat. Um, shove it up your butt. There's

(09:29):
a reason. Yeah, if you can get inside, that's really
gonna work best. I mean again, you guys, Yes, what
introduce our guest. Welcome Ken Kelly to the worst year ever. Kim,
how are you doing today? I'm good. I'm excited to
talk to you about all the things I've been obsessing
over for the past several months. Yeah. So, as we

(09:52):
were saying before we started, when we were explaining the
show to you, we we try to cover the big
stories and sometimes the stories that we think didn't get
enough attention. Uh. And we're talking about a story that
is both today we're talking about unionization with Amazon and
the ongoing minor strike, um, both of which are big
stories and also stories that didn't get as much attention
as they deserved, particularly from us. So uh and you

(10:16):
have been um diving face first into both of these
tales and swimming into the deep end doing I don't know,
impressive swimming things. So my my analogy is going to
break apart at this point, but your coverage has been incredible. UM.
So it's one if you could start by kind of
giving us an overview of that, right, Okay, So yeah,

(10:37):
those are two Those are two different stories, but they're
all happening in the same area and around they kind
of overlapped two, which is how so the way that
I even found out about the minor strike and the
reason that I kind of got sucked into it is
because I happened to be there, happened to be there
in Alabama in um well, Okay, so Birmingham is where

(10:58):
the union hall is paced for rm D issue with
the know that was behind the Amazon union drive. So
I've been staying in Birmingham, but Bessemer is where the
warehouse or Amazon was, and now the coal minor strike
is happening in Brookwood, and these are all just like
further and further out into places where there's not any
cellphone service and there's lots of trees, so it's like
just like where I grew up. So I felt right
at home. But I happen to be down there to

(11:21):
hang out with some Amazon workers m in April, and
I had heard that there's this coal minor strike happening
like forty five minutes outside town. I was like, Oh,
what's going on with that? And we just went out there,
brought some Crispy Koreans out to the picket line one
day and started talking to folks about what was happening.
And I was like, Yo, this is a huge deal.
There's eleven hundred people on strike right now in this

(11:42):
rural community right outside of Birmingham. Is actually between Birmingham
and Tuscaloosa, through like the two big cities in the area,
and there, you know, I just kind of got hooked
because I started talking to people and form relationships, and
you know, I grew up with a bunch of rednecks,
so there was a lot of sort of a common
ground could find with some of the folks there. But um, yeah,

(12:04):
it's turned into I guess, a personal crusade in a
way to get people to pay attention because it is
such a big deal, and because I was there covering
Amazon and I got so much attention and they're so
close but so far. Yeah, I would love to Yes,
you're right. I have heard about the Amazon unionization efforts.
Of course, that got a lot of attention, but this isn't.

(12:27):
The Coast minor strike is not something that UM has
been on my radar, not really have heard it mentioned
over the last week. So I would love uh too.
Perhaps we can start there UM and giving us a
little bit of a background as to what's happening. Right. So,
there are currently eleven hundred unionized coal miners on strike

(12:47):
at Worrying at Cole and Brookwood, Alabama. They're members of
the u m w A United Mine Workers of America.
They've been out since April one, and they're on unfair
labor practices strike, which basically means that the company that
there union is alleging that the company is not operating
in good faith. They have been bargaining in good faith right.
They've been working on a new contract. Their contract that
they signed sixteen is up now. And that contract really

(13:11):
really sucked. They knew it sucked. They were not happy
about it. But the reason I signed it was because
Warrior Matt Cole came in and kind of scooped up
the company. Following a bankruptcy that the prior owners, Walter
Energy tifteen, they went belly up and they laid off
like over a thousand people. This new company, which is
backed by a bunch of venture capital funds and has

(13:33):
some offices in New York, which is funny. They they
came in there like, okay, we'll bring you guys back,
and here's the contract you're gonna sign. We're gonna slash
your pay by six bucks an hour. We're gonna funk
with your overtime. We're gonna take away all your vacation days.
We're gonna keep you from seeing your families. We're gonna
keep you under their twelve hours a day, six days
a week, and you're gonna like it, because what else

(13:54):
are you gonna do? And now, I mean, nobody's were
happy about that. But then they figured, Okay, we're gonna
help this company get on its feet. It's gonna build
itself up. And then the profits that they see that's
gonna translate into a better deal for us down the line.
And now that time, you know, time's up. And they
realized that the company has no intention of sharing that

(14:15):
wealth with them, or cutting them a break, or even
offering a decent deal. And so after months install negotiations,
the union called to strike April one. On April nine,
the membership voted down attentative agreement that the company and
the union had had put together. They tried to negotiate
and get something a little better, it still wasn't good enough.

(14:36):
So the miners are like, fun that we're staying out.
It's been it's coming up on four months now. They've
been out there, they've been picketing twenty four hours a day.
They've been dealing with just the most is like a
mix of horrible dystopianship and then also really old school
nasty whole boss ship. They've got. They're being surveilled by drones.

(14:57):
The company hired a bunch of armed security to keep
an eye on the um. It's been messing with them
in the court since finally injunctions alleging violence on the
picket lines to make to UH enforce a cap on
the amount of people that are allowed out there. You
can only have about ten people on those lines at once,
and these are now we think a picket line is
like a bunch of people walk around with signs and

(15:17):
like have yelling and you know, having a great time.
But that's not what it's like out here. There's twelve
entrances to these minds, and some of them are out
on these quiet back roads where there's no cell phone
service and lots of terrible things can happen. Terrible things
have already been happening. There have been in the past
week and a half. There have been three different vehicular

(15:38):
attacks on the picket lines. Multiple miners have been sent
to the hospital, and they have they they're pretty sure
they have proved that those cars, well biggest trucks are
being driven by company men, by scabs and by bosses.
And this is such a small, close knit community that
these folks know exactly who's working in those minds is

(15:59):
it's not exactly you know, it's targeting. Yeah, it's not
a giant labor pool, right, Like, they know who these
people are, They've grown up with some of these people.
So all this is unfolding, All this is happening. The
community has rallied around them to do as much as
they can to help keep their kids fed and their
bills pay. There is a really robust uh M auxiliary
auxiliary effort going that has a strike pantry and is

(16:22):
doing fundraising and getting donations in. There has been support
from the national labor movement, both rank and file members
are donating and that We've had some national leaders coming
down to the rallies to pump people up. But there
really hasn't been a ton of media coverage around it,
which I'm kind of singlehandedly trying to force that to change.

(16:46):
A good job, thank you. I'm trying, man like, and
I think a lot of the reason for that is
this isn't it's not as much of an easy, feel
good story as Amazon was. Because with the Amazon Union
campaign was a predominant black workforce working in this horrible
like futuristic gig economy esque sort of work environment going

(17:09):
up against the richest guy in the world. Everyone knows Amazon.
Most people hate Amazon. It was a very clear cut
case of David and goliaths, good versus evil, horrible rich
man trying to crush these hard working folks are being
abused and they're trying to do something about it, and
you know, it got a ton of coverage. But here
we have a lot of similarities. There's still rich people
treating poor and working class people like garbage, but the

(17:32):
demographics are different, and like the political cultural implications are different.
A lot of these guys are well, most of them
are guys. Most of them are white guys, and a
lot of them are conservative, rural Trump guys who are
living out in rural Alabama. But they're also die hard
for their union. So there's a little bit of a
complication in that narrative, right because that's not something that
you necessarily see in the same breath, because unions are

(17:54):
supposed to be like Comi Pinko ship or whatever this country.
So they're kind of between a at a hard place
because they've been abandoned by Republican politicians and the state government.
Albam is a right to work state. They don't like
unions there at least people in power don't like them,
so we're not going to see the congressional delegations and
like the Bernie tweets that the Amazon workers got. And

(18:16):
we're also not getting a lot of mainstream media coverage
because there's less of a hook and coal miners and
coal mining isn't the most sympathetic industry. Right we're doing, We're,
you know, in the midst of a climate crisis. Renewable
energy and green energy are kind of the those are
the energy solutions people want to talk about. Coal miners
and these extractive industries. People tend to look at them

(18:36):
as either things of the past or things that we
need to turn into things in the past, without reckoning
with the fact that, okay, yeah, but there's still about
forty four thousand people working in coal mines in this country,
and a lot of them have families, and they deserve
to make a decent wage too, especially given the incredibly
dangerous nature of this work. When I was down there,

(18:57):
I met a young man named Dalton who was twenty
two years old. He always ever wanted to do is
be a coal miner. A couple of weeks into him
working at warriam at Cole. He was underground and he
was crushed between two pieces of heavy machinery and now
Dalton is in a wheelchair and he's not going to
walk again, and what's going to happen to Dalton? You know,

(19:20):
Like these are the kind of personal stories that stick
out to me. Is like both the reporter or whatever
and also just a human you know, like even if
you don't necessarily like what someone's job is, like, don't
they still deserve to be treated fairly and be able
to pay their bills? You know, That's what it comes
down to. And that's why I feel like I've been
giving you this sort of shakespeerience a little quick but yeah,

(19:44):
that's that's what's happening in Broken, Alabama. So one of
the things I'm curious out because there's been such um
I've seen what seems to be like the start of, uh,

(20:06):
some really compelling reporting on some of the ship Amazon's
done r e. Like putting up their own dropbox or
like it seems like that it's one of those things
where people are still trying to figure out Like there's
obviously a lot of like theories that have spread about
what they were doing, but I don't think we have
like a comprehensive list of exactly all of the behavior

(20:27):
shady behaviors they may have engaged in. But like because
I haven't had time to vet everything I'm hearing about,
like ship they were doing with the drop boxes and
the vote. Yeah, yeah, I'm just wondering, like what what
we what we know at this point, what we suspect,
and like kind of what the avenues of investigation are
to try to figure out the exact dimensions of it, right,
Like I know, you know, so for anybody tuning in,

(20:50):
like Robert's referring to this incredibly robust union busting campaign
Amazon ran against the workers at this cestimal warehouse. And
they again, they they really innovate it in a way
because they're Amazon, right, they love to innovate, So they
really took advantage. No, they are very rich and pretty smart,
and you really only having even one of those in

(21:11):
your favor, you're probably gonna be able to get around
the US government. So the things when I was down there,
I spent a lot of time down there. Actually that's
how I ended up in Alabama, the first place I
was covering this Amazon campaign. I was probably there for
well over a month total over a couple of trips.
But so Amazon was They're kind of pulling out every
trick in the book. There's very standard union busty things

(21:34):
that basically any kind of shitty boss will pole, whether
it's you know, posting up anti union flyers or pulling
aside workers to talk to them about the facts, or
you know, holding these captive audience meetings which Amazon man.
People really upset about Amazon doing that because this is
a workplace in which you have basically no time to yourself.

(21:54):
You are tracked by an algorithm. Every second of your
day is accounted for, and you're told, you know, we
can't give you an extra time to go to the bathroom,
we can't give you extra time for lunch, like sorry,
if you if you're more than a minute late, you
are going to get docked, like sorry, figure it out.
But Amazon is running these captive audience meetings wherein they
would pull in workers and have them a classroom setting

(22:15):
and just have them be lectured by anti union consultants
for hours. And this happened to thousands of people, like
it was ridiculous. It's like it was just very much
showing like our time matters, yours doesn't and you know
that's legal to Yeah, so that that's my question because
that sure seems like union busty behavior. Um, but definitely

(22:40):
ex Oh yeah, that's that's a classic case. But that's
legal under our current labor laws because their garbage. So
you can do that, it's you shouldn't be able to
do that. Or like Amazon in their case, they have
an app, a z app that workers used to track
their activities during the day and find out wh they're scheduling,
and that means the Amazon has access to their workers.

(23:01):
Seven so creepy. It's so creepy. I'm sorry, I track
an app tracking you, tracking your steps, your movement, your productivity.
It's so fucked up that it really is. That's becoming
a more and more frequent thing though within that space,
like there's a story that dropped recently that Walmart was
going to start giving out free I think that we're

(23:23):
Samsung phones to a bunch of their workers. And of
course the reason that we're doing it is because there's
an app for them that will track all of their
ship like they don't. There's no end to the degree
they want to do that. Um, it's and with Amazon,
there's two I wanted to say, they just came to mind.
There's these two examples of the ways that Amazon flexes
its power and influence with the government that I think

(23:45):
we're really interesting and really stuck out about this campaign,
local government and federal government. So something that actually it
was my scoop, but I think the version report on it,
but I found out that and we confirmed later that
this was this was accurate. It that um the that
Amazon had convinced the county to change the traffic lights

(24:06):
in front of their facility. Yeah, okay, so, and the
reason they did that was because union organizers were not
allowed on the property. So there was this little little
concrete block at this intersection where organizes with stand with
signs and try to talk to folks and hand out
literature as they're coming and going. And they really they
noticed pretty soon after they showed up that the traffic

(24:27):
patterns were changing, and then they sped up the traffic
lights so that the greens would come much quicker, so
people wouldn't have time to talk to folks. I know,
I know one organizer who he showed me photos he
almost got hit by a car because there was such
a drawing change that was something that they could just do.
You could just do that. And in addition to that,
the mailbox that Robert mentioned earlier, that is kind of

(24:51):
the biggest thing that is probably going to lead to
a rerun election is gonna lead for the l r
B two rule and the union's favor because Amazon set
up this mailbox in front of their facility and there
were there in the midst of a mail in election,
which means it not wasn't in person. People were gonna
they're set their ballots and they mailed them in and

(25:11):
that's how it worked as a secret ballot as a
pandemic made sense. But they set up this mailbox in
front of their facility with security cameras on it, of course,
and and Current vocally encouraged and checked in on workers
to see, oh, did you drop off your butt to
drop your ballot off? Did you drop your ballot off
to put in the box yet? And the thing is
that they had asked the uh, the MLRB, hey can

(25:34):
we do this nationally relations board? And m LRB was like, no,
you can't do that, and what did Amazon do? They
did that? And there's all these like there's all the
no one's still there's still a lot of questions about
like how they're able to get away with that was
like the usps in on it, did they like what
kind of flexus did they pull? Um? It was kind

(25:56):
of wild. Wait, we went to the Best Sumber post
office and tried to talk to the postmaster, but then
he called the cops on us. So it's still kind
of a question mark. And nobody knew throughout the course
of that, no one knew who had the keys to
the mailbox where the ballots for the union election were
being placed. So it's it's just really shady. The whole
thing is real shady, and the mailbox is one of

(26:16):
the biggest pieces of evidence in the ongoing um that
what's the word the union file charges against uh here,
ongoing hearings. That's the battle hearings. Yeah, ongoing hearings. So
that's you know, after the loss, Gott announced it kind
of made sense because of how much time and effort

(26:38):
and resources Amazon poured into trying to scare the ship
other employees and say, oh, we might have to shut
down the warehouse, you might lose your benefits, Like are
you sure you want to both the union in But
it sounds like there's they're gonna get another chance, Like
it sounds very likely the thing you will want to
rerun an election in the next year or so, if
not sooner, So we'll see. I'm of course stuck on

(27:02):
the changing of the crosswalk. Is that creepy, unhinged blant.
It's just like we can do whatever we went. Oh,
they also have they they have AMA so they have
local police that monitor the parking lot, monitor the warehouse.

(27:23):
But they're in official bessemer that they're like best member
police cars. They're not like Amazon police. Their local police
that are just pulling there making like an extra thirty
bucks an hour on overtime picking this up moonlighting. Yeah,
and of course that's caused issues too, because like there's
cops between you and your workplace and they're right there.

(27:43):
And I talked to a young man who was arrested
and taking the jail because he was upset his ID
card wasn't working. So we got thrown in jail because
the cops are right there. You know, it's reaction. You know,
we all expect cops to react pro free. It lead
to the circumstances and situation. Its tracks um. Going back

(28:06):
to the coal miners story. A couple of things are
just popping up in terms of I'm just gonna go
to There have been multiple incidents where people have driven
through the crowd of protesters, Um, I and a lot
of them and a lot of them. Can we talk

(28:27):
a bit more about that. Have there been injuries? Is
there going to be any course of action taken? Or
is this another thing that's going to be swept under
the rug? Was a manager, right, oh man? One of
the people. Yeah, one goes a bus and then there's
some scabs. So the thing is the company is flying
drones to surveil the pick of lines. So the unions like,

(28:48):
well okay, and they have their own drones. So actually
one of the union drones captured footage of a truck
driving directly into the into the lines, which is it's
really awful to see. I mean, like it's very violent. Obviously, Yeah,
it's it's horror. I mean I was in Charlotte'sville. So
having that pop up while covering this story is just
an extra twist of the knife. You know the fact

(29:08):
that I was paying attention, right, But the thing is, like,
there's video of this out there, there's photos. I'm in
a bunch of I've gotten close with a bunch of
the miner's wives, so I'm in a bunch of really
lit group chats, and I get set all this stuff.
Actually spoke to the wife of one of the guys
that got hurt the other day. You had to go
to the hospital with torn meniscus, I think, which sounds gnarly.

(29:30):
He was hit by the truck barreled into them and
they jumped out of the way, but it hit a
burnt like a real heavy burn barrel. They used to
have fires out there because the mosquitoes, because they there
all night, so a burn battle barrel just slammed into him.
And to go to the hospital. And I know that
they've been filing police reports. I know that the union
is preparing they you know, they they're collecting evidence and

(29:52):
they're going to try and do some stuff. But something
that stuck out to me, which of course will not
be a surprise, is the fact that multiple people were
there have told me, you know, the cops are always around,
but they didn't really seem to care, you know, like
we called them, we asked him for help, We pointed
out the like in one case, like oh, we we
point out he went that away, you know, real, go
get him. Coppers in the company locked around in circles

(30:16):
scratching their head. Okay, but like they didn't they didn't bother.
Like there's the thing is that some and this this
is hearsay, but a couple of folks on there told
me that apparently at first the local police, like from
the town, we're patrolling the picket lines. But apparently the
company got upset that they're being too nice to the

(30:38):
strikers and called in a favor and had the governor
send him state troopers who would be meaner. I I
don't know how I confirmed that, but it is. I
mean it makes sense. Yeah, yeah, I mean when and
whether or not state troopers are meaner than local depends
on your location. But that, um that come. I mean
that there's also like a long history of that. Right,

(31:00):
if you go back to the Blair Mountain, the local cops, uh,
we're like the like local cops were broadly supportive of
a lot of the strike efforts going on, whereas you
would bring in like National Guard or something to actually
crack down on ship. Right, cops have always been strike breakers,
but in these in these smaller communities like and this
is this is I can't says not like this is

(31:20):
a this is a small town. This is a small
everyone knows each other, so like the local cops is
probably like your friend Jerry's uncle. Like it's there's not
just connect but calling in outsiders that's who don't care
about who don't care and they're just there to make
overtime and make their company happy. Like and the company
also hired its own private arm security that are always

(31:42):
around for sure. That's fun. Yeah, which I think is
more the the future of these kind of these kind
of crackdowns, especially as because like, um, I don't know,
it's easier to get ship like t r O s
against police, but I don't like. One of the things
that's kind of unsettling to me. And I guess this
ties into what happened in Minneapolis recently is the fact

(32:05):
that the car ramming doesn't make the news anymore. Um,
it doesn't even really make the national news when somebody
kills a protester, you know, or with a car. It
hasn't happened to a striker yet, but it could. And
I see all the speculation online. I know this is
again particularly about Minneapolis, who just had a protester killed
in a car ramming. That it's like, you know, a

(32:26):
manufacturing of consent sort of thing. And I think maybe
even the darker possibility is just because we had it
happened once in Charlottesville, it's no longer news to people.
They just don't like, well, yeah, this is just a
thing that happens. People get rammed with cars when they're
trying to express basic rights, And why would I care
about that it happened. It's it's the mass shooting effect

(32:46):
right where it's like, oh there was another shooting. Well
it didn't happen near me. I don't know anyone involved,
Like I got to get back to my ship. Um.
There's Yeah, there's been such a push from circles of
like they're locking traffic, we should run them over. Like
it's not it's not not just like ignoring it. It's like, yeah,

(33:07):
pursuing it and promoting it. And it's saying like yeah,
like they're they're in the they're in the way. That's
that's what they asked, right, And there's all this legislation
that's been introduced that makes it fine to do that,
Like that's the that's something that I think has gotten
lost to Like there's a but like if everyone was
upset for five minutes we heard about it, that we
forgot because the hellscape we inhabit. But there's all these

(33:30):
laws on the books and multiple states where like, yeah,
you can do that, or there is either they've been
passed or they're trying to pass them, And like this
is getting people to pay attention to the South in
a place like rural Alabama is hard enough without just
like the fact that if this had happened in New
York City or l A or even Chicago and there

(33:50):
was a huge strike and multiple people have been hit
by cars and there was drone foot is showing it
and it was all over Twitter, like people would pay attention.
But if they're not paying attention to this happening in Alabama,
what else is going on that we're missing? You know,
if it doesn't make it to Twitter, if if like
a nosy journalist doesn't you know, catch interest in it,

(34:11):
like even happened? If eleven people go on strike and
no one's there to hear it didn't even happen? Yeah,
well together everything, don't you just mentioned something and having

(34:33):
to clarify from what I was reading. Um also not
that it matters. People should be paid a living wage
and have basic human rights and and and you know,
reasonable hours and demands, etcetera. But this isn't even They're
being paid way below what local other local mining companies

(34:58):
are paid, correct, Like standard for the area is much higher.
Like there's literally no leg to stand on. You've got
an investment capital hedge fund fucker's uh that swooped in
to put money cash into this business will then pay
the appropriate rate. I yeah, sorry, you can go clarify

(35:19):
now that that is accurate. There are three coal mines
in the area. One I came remember one in the names.
One's Oak Grove, and there's Warrior Met and where we met,
Like they are paid the lowest, to the point where
one of the highest wages at Warrior Met for a
typical worker is the same as the starting wage at
one of the other companies. And you hear about a

(35:40):
lot of people that work at wor Met leaving to
work at the other minds because they make more money.
But you know, there's only so many jobs. There's really
so many options. I mean the fact that these guys
I was talking to about the ys the other day
and she's telling me how there's people that they're just
making twenty two bucks an hour, which, yeah, it's higher
than fifteen or the minimum wage. But these of people

(36:00):
that are working two thousand feet underground, twelve hours a day,
six days a week in the one of the deepest
minds in North America, which is also full of methane
gas and had an exposure. Yeah, yeah, it's really you know,
coal mining is not an easy job, even if you
have a reasonably safe mind, like black lung is on

(36:20):
the rise, you know, it's it's sort of this whole
spread out community and profession that's sort of been forgotten
by most people, and that makes it so much easier
for bosses and people in the powerful employing classes to
exploit them and to beat them up and treat them
like trash, because if no one else cares about coal miners,

(36:41):
you know, no one's going to stand out for and
be like, well, yeah, their job is not We're prefraid
they didn't have to do it, but since they do,
maybe we could send up for them too. You know.
It is interesting. I was like, how you mentioned at
the beginning of a lot of these these people are
Trump supporters, you know, coming from different background than I

(37:02):
would assume all of us here talking about this today. Yeah,
I mean it's not it's one of the Yeah, it's
one of those things where it's like I think, you know,
mainstream media, particularly right after, tended to over emphasize the
poor working class support that Trump gets, but like, especially
if you're looking at fucking I totally get being like, well,

(37:24):
the fucking Democrats aren't doing anything to make life easier there,
to help me, like organizeing like yeah, like like why
not try something different? Like those are again not the
core of his base or the both of his base,
but they're the people where I'm like, yeah, I mean,
fun vote for anything different because he wasn't also wasn't
a Republican. It's like Democrats are helping Republicans aren't helping

(37:45):
this guy might he's yeah, he doesn't represent the establishment
that does not pay attention. Um mean but right, And
he talked a lot about Cole like I spoke, there's
a guy a full beautiful clean coal yeah, which and
it's so funny and that it actually isn't. It's just depressing,

(38:05):
is that all of these Republican politicians who loved trotting
out coal miners as props during election years and talking
about coal and shooting down clean energy legislation. None of
them are coming out, tell me tubervillain tweeting about these
guys are sending piece to the picket lines, you know,
like they don't give a ship. I remember talking to
one of the miners, this really lovely guy. I had

(38:25):
a great conversation in the moment you just volunteered, like, yeah,
I was happy that Trump got in and no, no,
not everybody agrees, but that's how I feel. And when
he came in, the coal prices went up, and the
boss has made a ton of money. And I asked him,
you know, well did you guys see any of that money?
He's like, well, well no, ma'am. Like, well, perhaps that's
a conversation for another day. So I guess I am curious.

(38:47):
It was kind of building to it is like, do
you see any shifting and ideology or not ideology that's
even too strong, But um, a frustration with people in general.
Are not just Democrats. Do you see any shifting or aware? Honest,
I guess that Republicans are also failing them. I think
people are surprised that. I think the Incnation getting from

(39:09):
a lot of people is that they're kind of surprised
that no one has showed up to talk to them.
And I think they're really surprised and upset at the
lack of media coverage. But to them, the media coverage
that they want maybe necessarily isn't the Nation or this
kind of podcast, like where's Fox News? Honestly fuck him
to hell him back? But where's Tucer Carlson? If there there,
if there wasn't a union aspect to this, this would

(39:30):
be catnip to his base. A bunch of like blue collar, gritty,
hard working American white people standing up against the the elites,
like they love that ship. But the fact that they're
union and they're proudly union, that Fox with the narrative
that complicates it and that makes them radioactive for that
strange conservative ghoul, like you can't be out here saying

(39:51):
that unions are good. That's an interesting tension I've seen
down there because like this is not Uh, they're probably
not that many people that voted for Biden in that whole,
in that area, and if they were, they probably won't
tell you about it because it's probably too much of
a headache, but even it was interesting being among union
leadership and with like in the union hall and being
in a place that I'm used to thinking of. It's

(40:13):
kind of a baseline progressive baseline, like they'll probably even
nominally support whatever garbage Democrats around, but that's not really
the case because why would they, you know, the the
political landscape just and this is just going off my
conversation's interactions with people. It seems like tons of people
are conservative, but they're not you know, worried about the
trade deficit or whatever. They don't care about what politicians

(40:36):
are doing. They care about, you know, their values of
a lot of people are very religious, very Christian. A
lot of people have guns, a lot of people care
about the Bible. There's a lot of things in that
realm of conservative thought that appealed to that the area
because like, that's what you're up in. There's you're not
gonna come across my jails. Like that's just that's how
it is. But I don't think they're really I mean,

(40:57):
one of my wives does send me Sean Hannity videos,
But besides that, I don't know how much those weird
culture war stuff is man. It seems like a really
good opportunity for Democrats to do the opposite right now
and Biden in general specifically to come in and make
this an issue and talk about it, bring light, you
know what I mean. I don't know. Maybe they might

(41:20):
not want to talk to them, but if somebody came
in and was saying this is a problem and we
need to protect our workers in blah blah blah, I
don't know. I don't know. There is an opportunity they
think for politicians to if you craft the message and
convey in a way that makes sense and doesn't come
off fake or as like liberal slogan earing like there's
because there is so much potential, like when you're speaking

(41:43):
with people, like they made a lot of people there
might like hate socialism or whatever, but they're hating socialism
in the middle of their strike as part of their
labor union, when they're going to the rallies and picking
up their strike checks and their free groceries. But they
hate socialism like it's a bring and there's there is
an opportunity, I think, but the problem is that it's

(42:06):
all and the reason like right, Tucker Carlson isn't going
to dive into this. Fox News isn't going to dive
into this is because, um, the right has built all
of its present strength on culture warship. That's why they're
never going to say anything about these miners being mysteried.
But they're going to scream about critical race theory till
the end of the day because that's what works for them.
You because they were doing it. Yeah, you get if

(42:31):
people are angry, and they're angry about these cultural issues
that they've been convinced exist, then all you need to
do is continue to push that sore spot in their
body that makes the anger come because they don't care
if there are people, a lot of folks will not
think about their interests as much as think about voting
against the thing that makes them angry. That's how the
GOP works, and that's intermittently how the Democrats work. Um,

(42:55):
because they do it too. They're less good at it,
they do it less comprehensively. But I think you know,
the reality is that there is an opportunity in the
United States to pull a lot of people away from
voting for these far rights and in some cases quasi
fascist politicians and policies. If you were to focus on
dealing with their needs. And if you were to focus

(43:17):
on the grievances they have that are legitimate. Um, but
it would require a political organization that did not function
the way it is increasingly profitable to function. Because part
of the reason why both the Democrats and the Republicans
spend so much time pushing these anger button issues rather
than policy issues is because the anger button issues bring

(43:39):
in the donations, and more importantly, they go viral on
the fucking news, which is what brings in the donations
and what gets people agitated and what keeps a politician
in the news as opposed to actually trying to help
people's material conditions, which is hard and boring. Um. Yeah, anyway,

(44:00):
that's true. I mean, this is a golden opportunity for well,
there's an organization and politician at someone who wants to
people to listen to them, to show up and be like, look,
let's leave, let's maybe not talk about the Democrat Republican
stuff whatever, Let's talk about what do you need, what
are you fighting for, what would help you, what would
help your children? Because almost I think of the people
that work in that minor parents, you know, right now,

(44:22):
the auxiliary is collecting donations for school supplies for back
to school, they're planning, they're already making plans for a
Christmas toy drive because they're worried they're going to be
out there that long. Like yeah, like they're they're in
it for the long haul. They're really determined, but they're
really not getting any help from outside the movement. And
it's a big labor movement, but there's only so much

(44:44):
you can do. It's the kind of thing where, yeah,
if there was a critical, credible political organization who is
able to go to these people and be like, hey, look,
I'm not going to compromise on trans right, so I'm
not going to compromise on climate change, but I'm gonna
find a way to put an extra twenty grand into
your pocket this year so that you and your kids
struggle less. Um. I think that would uh, even if

(45:07):
it was just someone willing to actually commit to that fight.
I think that's the kind of that's the kind of
you know, political I don't know, leadership, whatever fucking term
you want to use, that's necessary to pull this country
back from the brink, is coming to people and saying like,
not this thing that you hear increasingly to on like
really frustrating chunks of the left where it's like, well,

(45:27):
we need to sit down and talk with the fascists,
and it's like, no, no, no no, that's not what you
need to do. You need to go sit down with
these people who are not fascists. They may like Tucker
Carlson because he pushes their anger button, but at the
end of the day, the fact that they're willing to
organize and unionize and strike means that they have some
things in common with you, and you can sit them
down and say this is what I'm not willing to
compromise on, this is what I'm willing to help you with. Um.

(45:49):
And the thing that is a continual lesson in political history,
in the history of insurgencies, and the history of conflicts,
both military and not is if you help people's material conditions,
they tend to be down with you, and they don't
tend to care about much else. Um anyway, Well, because
it's so hard to survive in this country as a

(46:11):
normal working class person that like a lot of people
don't necessarily have time to worry about a lot of
this ship and then but in their downtime, maybe they
watch the news to keep up with what's going on.
That's when they get all the anger button pushing stuff filtered.
In most of the time, they're just trying to survive.
And if you make it easier for people to survive,
they're gonna be a lot more willing to listen to

(46:32):
you if they're not starving and exhausted and terrified. Yeah, exactly.
And on the I keep thinking back to um. I
keep thinking back to Transorates in particular, because I've been
having some conversations with people that will be along the
lines of like, well, you know, because we've had we've
had episodes in this show where we've talked about the
need to talk to people on the other side, and
I think it gets misinterpreted sometimes it's like, oh, so

(46:54):
we need to compromise with these people who want to
put us in prisoner, who pushing all these bills, And
it's like, no, no, no no, that's not what's going on.
And I don't know if it was you was it
you were talking to me about whales, kim um Like
the part of the part of the UK uh yeah.
The place so there was her face is that is

(47:14):
that there is a shot among the older population in Wales,
there's a shocking amount of support for the LGBT community
because because of the minor STI there's a minor strike
like forty something years ago, and these people were getting
cracked down on by the local government and by the
people in the surrounding areas, and they were starving and
didn't We're going to have to give up their strike

(47:36):
because they didn't have enough fucking funds to feed themselves.
And you can't strike forever if you can't feed your family.
And the local gay community put together donations and brought
them like kept them going, and they were able to
continue their strike, and as a result, people from that
generation we're like, well, you know, whatever I felt about
it before, these are the people who kept me fed. Um. Yeah,

(47:59):
there's a movie about it called Pride. It'll make you cry,
all right, yeah, okay, so yeah, check out fucking Pride.
That's that's what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about
compromising with people who want to do regressive things. I'm
talking about meeting people where they are and helping them
so that you can actually build a better world and
also make make make them less shitty about the things

(48:22):
that maybe they haven't thought about enough because again they're
trying to survive in a mining town whatever, Like yeah,
connecting on that human level, like not allowing any egregious
bullshit to slide, but being like, look like I think
of myself, Like I came down here there, and I'm
like this pierced uf tattooed Yankee anarchists. I look like this,
Well we just can't see me, but I look ridiculous.

(48:44):
And I show up and I clear very Kim Kelly,
look to you. I stick out a little bit, you know,
and I showed up and at first like what is
this creature appearing here? But being it's so silly and
so simple, but being nice to people, listening to them
and showing respect goes a long way. Like even if
you stick out a little bit, and even if they

(49:06):
say some stuff where you're like okay, like things that
aren't egregious, but you're like, well, I don't know about
all that, Like maybe you don't need to push them
that far right then, but you can bring it up later.
Like it's such a it's so basic, but treating people
who are different from you like people really seems to work.
You know. It's that we're all humans and we all

(49:28):
have a humanity that we can appeal to. Again, that
is not letting the bullshit or the egregious stuff slide.
It's coming at it's coming at and meeting people where
they are right now. That's the thing, not like a
liberal kumbaya. You have to I listen, I hear you like, no,
just shut up and be like, oh, so what's your deal?
What's your life? Like? Oh, that reminds me, And then

(49:49):
you start to find the common ground. Then you start
to find the things that we can agree on. Oh,
like you need you deserve a living wage. How do
we go about fixing that, planting those sort of seeds?
Like you were saying that guy you talked to like,
well did you get any of that money? Right? Well,
what does that mean? Yeah? I was just gonna say.

(50:12):
If you're listening and you're interested in supporting these folks,
there are a couple different ways to donate. They have
a strike fund, which is, you know what is paid
out every two weeks to the workers right now, they
get about six fifty bucks every two weeks, which is,
you know, it goes a little farther in Brooklyn than
it does in Brooklyn, but still doesn't go that far.
And there's also donation links from the auxiliary and they're

(50:33):
the ones who have organized the strike pantry. They're the
ones who are going to Costco every week and buying
up you know, macaroni and cheese and canned goods and
making up grocery bags for the families and the kids.
So if you want to support materially, those are ways
you can do it. Awesome less community aid Um. Thank
you again so much for your time, and tell our
listeners where they can find you online and follow your work. Okay,

(50:55):
I am unfortunately very on Twitter and the grim Kim
because I was a heavy metal reporter before I did
any of this stuff, and I have a petron I
contribute to all sorts of places, and yeah, just just
follow me on Twitter. I'm sorry, but that's the best
way to find No apologies, that's perfectly acceptable. That's what
we all do. It's embarrassing, but so is there. No,

(51:19):
we all have problems with Twitter. We're all miserable one
but it brought us together, so it's got to be
worse actly. Thank you again, Kin Well, we'll talk to
you soon. Thank you so much. You guys are great. Thanks.
Ah well, that was a great episode. Um I would
I would go so far to say journalism that reaches

(51:42):
the rarefied levels of the Wicki feat guys very close,
very close. Um, well that's gonna do it for us
here at the worst year ever. Um and uh go um,
I don't know, support those fun fund I was going

(52:03):
to say, stalk Jeff Bezos with a drone, but yeah,
that's less illegal. Um, you got to get a drone
that can fly straight to space and be honest about
his feet. Yeah, let us know, give that's what we
need to know the people. I don't think. Let me
see if Jeff Bezos has a Wicki feet page. We're
gonna do some live journalism here, journalism I mean the words.

(52:26):
Oh my god, yeah there is. There's Wicky feet men.
First off, there's Wicki feet Men, which is very progressive,
very proud, and yes, Jeff Bezos has a Wicki feet page.
He has two and a half stars. Oh my god,
I am all about this ship because right underneath the

(52:47):
I have to say, not nearly as many pictures of
Jeff bezoss naked feet, well mostly just him wearing sandals.
A couple of naked feet pictures. I said, mostly when
he's on vacations. Not as many as you'd expect. But
underneath that is people who liked Jeff Bezos feet also
liked George Clooney, John Harry All, Jo Marinho, and Louis Figo.

(53:09):
So there we go, There we go. People have none
of you, None of them have good judgment. Side not
lightly armed by this wiki fee page because the ad
directly under Hillary Clinton is do you trust Dr Fauci
with a picture of Fauci and Kamala Harris. Let's see
if Dr Fauci's feed are on wiki feet. God, we
could do this all day. I'm not seeing results one second.

(53:33):
I'm gonna I'm gonna try just a broader Google. He
has to be on here. It depends the first result
on my Google. The first result for Dr Fauci Wiki
feet is Amber Slaven's feet. I don't even know Whomer Slaven.
Is this nonsense you have? This is the first time

(53:54):
I've been disappointed by foot fetishists on the internet. Alright, guys,
you have your marching orders for the next week. I
need to know where the Fauci foot photos are the
Fauci release and check us out online. At worst, your

(54:15):
pod on Instagram and Twitter, etcetera. Well not etcetera. Um,
but yeah, that's that's your homework for this week. Okay bye.
You can also find my book at a t r
book dot com. It's a novel, it's fun. You can
find the audio version of it at After the Revolution
wherever you find podcasts, so you can check that out

(54:38):
and track down Dr Fauci's feet picks both of those things. Also,
it's very soon. Use the Wicki Feet dating app that
they're developing right here, right here, developing it. Know what
I'm having any two hour episode just about Wiki feet.

(55:02):
Let's do it. Let's commit right now. I can't think
of a single reason why. All right, well until then, guys,
everything so dumb, everything's so dull. Start again. I tried.

(55:25):
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