May 12, 2022 • 48 mins
In this week's listener mail, the gang shares stories from Conspiracy Realists across the planet, each of whom weighs in with their own experiences regarding unions. Some love them, some hate them, some consider them a necessary evil -- and every story creates a new conversation.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We are joined as always with our super
producer Alexis code named dot Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you
are you, You are here, and that makes this the
stuff they don't want you to know. This is our
weekly listener Males segment fellow conspiracy realist, but it is
a little bit different in some ways. It's more like
(00:47):
an episode. Here's what happens. Every so often, Matt Nolan,
I will do an episode that genuinely sparks a ground
swell of responses, feedback, and it don'ts Sometimes eight mail,
firsthand experience and more. And so for this week's listener
mail segment, we wanted to focus on one conversation that
(01:08):
clearly hit home with a lot of our fellow listeners.
Here the Facts. A few weeks ago, we did a
two part series on controversy, facts, fiction myths surrounding both
unions and union busting and UH it gets into some
weird places. You can listen to it now. We talked
about the history of unions in the West, from their
(01:31):
roots and guild systems up to the present day. I
want to shout out ridiculous history. Uh, Noel, You and
I did an episode on some Pinkerton related stuff which
you should very much check out. There's a deep dive
right which episodes were those I don't recall, but it's
just such a common trope in in history, especially when
it comes to rich people trying to wield control over
(01:54):
the less fortunate with an iron fist. The Pinkerton's essentially
served as like a private police force who could do
everything from bust unions to intimidate essentially like mafioso type
activities like you know, uh, you better pay your what
do you call it protection fee or else would be
a shame of something happened to that nice little shotgun
(02:14):
shock of yours exactly. We did look at the union
busting the people who want to prevent unions from happening historically.
We also looked at some of the corruption and dark
side of unions. So we wanted to really take a
full picture look at this thing and give you everything
we could find when it comes to what can go
wrong right when you're either trying to form a union
(02:36):
or when you're trying to break up a union or
prevent one from forming. Yeah. Absolutely, because we already knew
going into this that we're unfortunately multiple cases of corruption
and conspiracy, both amid union busters and sometimes amid unions. Uh,
entirely unrelated. Want to extend particular thanks to our fellow
(02:56):
conspiracy realist in the world of TV and film production,
many of whom shared hilarious scary stories about teamsters, and
many many folks several reached out to be directly asking
to entirely be off the record. Uh so just give
it you all the acknowledgement as much as we can. Well,
I mean, it's a good time to talk about this
(03:18):
topic too, and to even follow up because in the news,
you know, there was a big win when a New
York branch of Amazon warehouse workers were able to unionize
or voted to establish a union, and now another branch
has voted to reject the union. Um but the lawyers
that are working for I believe the other party are
(03:40):
claiming all kinds of nefarious activities in terms of union
busting type stuff on the part of Amazon managers. And
we know that this is this kind of stuff is
not beyond them, just in terms of like what they
are willing to do to get things done, to get
the packages you know, where they're supposed to be on time,
come you know, inclement, whether life threatening situations or what
have you. Um So things like disciplinary action against you know,
(04:04):
folks that are supporting the union, all kinds of anti
union rhetoric in the workplace. And you know, again this
is just allegations, but I just wouldn't put it past them. Well,
it's interesting. We're gonna here today insight and first hand
experience from people who have been going through those processes,
people who have been a part of union for years,
some people who are trying to start some It's we're
gonna get lots of real insight, first hand stuff from you.
(04:27):
In fact, someone named you called in guys. Yes. Uh,
And there's something I want to add here that Uh,
many of many union busting activities are conspiratorial, but they're
not theoretical. I mean, they did happen, they are happening now.
In this exploration. You know, we took two episodes for it.
Because it wanted to be transparent and objective to the
(04:49):
best of our ability. We also knew there's much more
to both sides of this proverbial coin, so we asked
you for your opinions, for your insight, for your experiences,
and since you're the best audience and all the podcasting
you delivered. Here's where it gets crazy. We received tons
of voicemails, emails, other correspondence, and before we dive in,
(05:11):
I just gotta say I was profoundly impressed by the
level of discourse. The Like you said, Matt, the stories
we're about to share do not all agree, they do
not all reach the same conclusions, but every single person
or entity who wrote to us wrote in a unique, respectful,
very well thought out response, So thank you. You know,
(05:34):
some of these messages we had to edit for length,
but we did our best to keep the substance of
each one intact. Well I can we also to say
that you know we have firsthand experience with this, as
the I Heart Podcast Network recently unionized with the support
due to the efforts of many of our colleagues, UM
and I think we're all intensely proud of those folks
(05:54):
in the work they did, and kind of proud of
our company that there wasn't that kind of Amazon level
of push back and uh and negativity. And it was
a very even handed discussion that ultimately got both sides
on the same page. But just wait till you hear
what Text has to say about it. Oh, text, text
has some thoughts. Get into it. Yeah, we're not going
(06:18):
to get to everything today. But again, we we had
so many responses that we wanted to dedicate this weekly
listener mail segment just to this. Uh, let's start with
let's jump around here, jump around. I've never mind a
little bit, and I stay in my seat. Is it okay?
If I don't get out in my seat, you spiritually jump,
(06:38):
you know, metaphorically jump jump with your heart. That's what counts.
Can I get Oh yes, you can always always get down,
you know, usually I jump up to get down generally. Yeah. Yeah,
one time I missed the bush. Jeez. All right, So
Justine writes in to say, hi, guys, I was listening
(06:59):
to or union busting episodes and I thought I right in.
Since I work for a union. I currently represent classified
public school employees everyone but the teachers and administrators, and
I mostly negotiate contracts and handle employee grievances. There's so
much I can say about unions, but I'll try to
keep it brief. This is, by the way, this is
a positive as a pro union message. Uh. You ask
(07:23):
for one thing I wish everyone knew, and I have
two answers. One, if you have a union, get involved,
even if just going to our union meetings and making
your voice heard acounts. The union is what you make
of it. Two, if you don't have a union, you
can still affect real change for you and your co
workers if you're willing to put in the legwork. Even
non unionized workers have the right to protected concerted activity.
(07:45):
That means anytime two or more workers act collectively to
improve wages or working conditions, it still counts. There's a
ton of different things you could do and it works.
Just google protected concerted activity and collective actions for ideas.
That's it for me. Thinks for a great show. So
I thought that was kind of a safer place to start,
right someone who clearly works with a union and enjoys it.
(08:09):
Thank you Justine for writing in Oh Yeah, I love
Justine's concept of if you don't have a union maybe
if you don't even want to have a union or
plan on creating a union, but you still have workers
who are working together and want to see some kind
of change, you can still do something that makes a
ton of sense. I just wanna again shout out those uh,
(08:31):
those keywords that she said to Google protected, concerted activity
and collective actions. That's very cool, and so that is
that is obviously, as we said, that's a message from
someone who finds themselves very much in support of their union,
their workers organization, and they've had a great experience. What
if we go to someone who had a negative experience, Yeah,
(08:56):
let's hear from samurai. This is a pretty and handed
sort of two prong approach to thinking about unions, with
some good and some bad. It's probably the way we
should look at most things, um Samurai rights. In my
many years on this planet, I have had the chance
to work with three unions. Jemco slashed Lucky Foods Food
Services Union. They were both terrible, only there to support
(09:20):
themselves and their lobbyists, provided no discernible benefit to me
or any of the other members, and when we went
on strike, they provided next to no benefits to us.
I crossed the line and returned to working was fired
as soon as the strike was over. Yikes, that is
all the bad things that people say potentially can can
result from unionizing. But I guess it all depends on
(09:42):
the union and the organizing committee and uh and just
the how how much you trust the work that the
union has done. Can you guys dissolve some of my
ignorance when when Samurai says, crossed the line that means
the pickets, Yeah, broken the strike. Um, it's called being
a scab, right, yeah, And so we'll we'll actually run
(10:05):
into someone who encountered that later on in this episode.
And I think one reason we we all maybe collectively
aren't big fans of Uber is that the company allegedly,
I mean, you know, the proof was in the pudding.
It was something that could be observed acted as scabs
when New York Taxi Workers Alliance Union members UM, which
is an affiliate of the a f l c I
(10:26):
O that represents many immigrants, UM, we're striking, and then
Uber essentially looked at it as an opportunity to you know,
fill a demand and come in there and and you know,
essentially undermine those those efforts. So yeah, it's a big
deal to be a striker. But if you're striking and
your union is not doing anything for you, this Samurai
(10:48):
was basically like, well, screw this, I need the work.
I'm not actually working towards any benefits, so why should
I bother? Um If all this is for is for
you know, the lobbyists and for the interests of the union,
that's so I totally get that. Okay, back to Sam
c w A Communications Workers of America. Great union, though
a little top heavy and hard to get answers from
(11:08):
for complaints. Not great about raises, but not terrible either. Okay,
unnamed school district president employer c s e A. I
am not a teacher, but as I have mentioned to
you in the past, i am an I t Stochka.
This union is one of the best ones I've ever
worked for good benefits, and I've had three really good raises.
(11:29):
I do not mind paying about two a year and
dues because I have made that back several fold. My
main point is that if the union is there for
the people and works for them, then they are great.
C w A and c s A are both good
examples of that. Fs W was terrible. They were more
about getting the company what it wanted than the employees,
(11:49):
which makes sense because that's an experience that I've heard
relayed by many people, especially folks who have had multiple
cre years or multiple gigs that found them with multiple unions.
As we said in our two part episode, they're very
much not all created equally, right, Like you can say
(12:11):
the word sandwich, that could be literally thousands of different things.
Not my best analogy. It's good to hear about the
c s e A in particular, just because many of
us listening and talking right now have family members who
have been a part of a teachers union. Um you guys, Hey,
we got that message from TEXTS that told you about
(12:33):
a little kind of hinted at it earlier. You want
to hear somebody who is not cool with the unions, absolutely,
because we started with very pro union, We started with
somewhere in the middle, and like we said, we got
a lot of responses. So here's someone who found themselves
very much against unions, right, Matt. Right after a quick
message from our sponsors, we will hear from text. We'll
(12:56):
be right back and we've returned and everyone I present
to you text Ben, not no doc. It's your old
pal text. Let me tell you unions suck. They are
(13:20):
as you describe, little tiny thiefdoms. They are h o
as for employment. Okay, it gives little tiny people big
platforms and lots of money that will of the time
corrupt them. Absolutely, we need to do away with unions
(13:42):
permanently in our nation, but not for the reason you think.
The reason that we need to do away with unions
is the fact that they need to exist in the
first place. Think about it. When there were little children
losing their hands changing bobbins in the factories, unions were
(14:06):
the answer. No, they were not federal regulation that says, hey,
don't put children in dangerous situations and make them lose
their hands. So instead of Amazon creating a union so
that their employees don't have to pee in bottles, which
(14:29):
frankly is horrifying and I feel terrible for those employees
that have to go through that. But the fact is,
collected bargaining isn't the answer. Legislation that forces companies to
treat people as humans is the answer. That's it simple,
(14:49):
is that every time a union forms, whatever their platform is,
whatever the reason for existence is, probably needs to be
codified into law. To event that from happening across the board.
That's the failure. And so when we use unions as
a stop gap, we end up with corruption. We end
(15:12):
up with little people with big power and big money.
What could go wrong? Hey, gentlemen and ladies, have yourselves
a great weekend. Thanks for everything you do, such a
great show. That's somebody who's saying, you know, you don't
have to agree with the person. But again, what I'm
saying about the discourse here is you wrote in text,
(15:36):
and I remember what I was just as playing. I thought, oh,
text text, But this it wrote in clearly anti union,
UM with a different spin on it, and still wasn't
lambasting anyone, wasn't, you know, obviously a reasonable guy. This
is his conclusion. I don't know what do you guys think?
(15:57):
I mean, I do feel like the the need for
unions in the first place is the byproduct of a
corrupt system that's built around the money first mentality that
has been the legacy of this country and that continues
to be UM. It's the same thing that goes into
the fact that nobody can get reasonable health care unless
you make a lot of money. The foundation of this
(16:19):
country is is kind of based on enriching the super
rich um and it's kind of stomping on the little
guy at the expense of the little guy. So of
course the little guy is gonna want some protection from
this corrupt system that doesn't look after them. And because
it's a byproduct of a corrupt system, it sometimes becomes
corrupt itself. Well, I would also point out labor movements
(16:41):
are responsible for things like the weekend and even uh,
the eight hour work there's things that do exist. Those
workers protections that do exist did come about because of organization,
and that's you know, I'm not opinion here, I'm just
gonna say that's a fact. Uh, those are laws to
(17:01):
to our our callers point, those are the product of
labor movement, you know, That's what I'm saying. But but
not they're not something that the union itself guarantees that
it requires the union. Those are things changes that have
been pushed for that have been turned into law, which
is what Texas point is that that's what we need
(17:21):
to push for and not think we can solve all
this stuff via unions. But labor movements are made by unions.
Unions were doing labor movements, so like their long term
effect was those laws. I understand what you're saying, and
I agree with you functionally, but the union isn't required
(17:42):
to have a movement. You can have a movement with
or without a union. The union is a organization that
has its own by laws and is its own system.
I don't have to have it. Yeah, yeah, I understand.
I'm saying that the labor movements that created those laws
were in many cases you me empowered. Now they don't.
Maybe it's a maze puzzle puzzle maze situation. They do
(18:04):
always have to be the same thing. But I do
think that's a really interesting perspective that that text has.
The question. The question I would pose is how does
it get to the point where it is legislation? That's
the question, like, how can you do that? Look what
you did, text, Look what you've done. No, I just
(18:25):
wanted I would reiterate it's a great question, Ben, I
don't have the answer for you, but it's a it's
a great perspective that I don't see very often an
anti union pro federal regulation standpoint right, I mean often
those things. I don't know, it seems like they kind
of go together in the point you're making. Often the
unions are the things, or the labor movements are of
(18:48):
the things that get change and acted in Congress, because
in order to have a law, you've got to get
it through that messed up labyrantine thing um. But text,
I mean, I kind of agree with him in un
respects that if it was on the books officially for everyone,
you wouldn't need the labor union, right, But unfortunately we're
(19:09):
not in that maybe utopian set up right now. It
might be a question, yeah, where where does that if
come into play? How do you how do you have
something as strong as the labor movements of the past
that started, you know, the worker rights that are often
enjoyed today, at least in theory, How do you start
(19:30):
that without some kind of organizing. In the past, those
were union created. But but to your point, no, they
don't necessarily have to be, especially in the age of
social media. It could just be a bunch of people
who say we want a four day work week, and
if billions do and just stop showing up, you're gonna
fire everybody. The technology is not there yet. You nailed
(19:52):
something really important there then, and like, well, well, I
do think there are things that unions can achieve. The
individual rules that want to start a movement would take
them a lot longer to to get the support to achieve,
because unions have their own internal mechanisms and lobbyists, and
they're are part of the system at this point in
a way where they can you know, affect change in
(20:13):
some ways if they're good. Um, but the social media
angle does It's almost like, why do we need record
companies anymore? When individual artists can make a SoundCloud account
and get discovered and that's not easy to do, but
it does happen, and then you're not beholden to this
record company. So I just wonder if there is some
some point to be made that the unions in the
(20:35):
old school model are a little outdated, or maybe there's
like a union two point oh that hasn't really developed yet. Um.
I don't know the answer. I'm just asking a bunch
of questions. We need labor, Oh God, there's plenty of that.
All you have to do is look at HAFA. But
(20:57):
but yeah, Like the question is how how does a
group in acts systemic change? And it's a question that
people have quarreled with throughout the majority of written human history.
I mean, the United States itself was founded by a
group of people asking how do we affect systemic change?
But the systemic change they wanted, of course, primarily benefited them.
(21:21):
I know that makes people that rufflesome feathers sometimes, but
it is true. You know. Uh so text, I'm gona
needs you to send a voicemail in responding to that
statement alone. Please, Well, it's true systemic change, But this
is These are the kind of conversations that we were having,
and we were grateful for these. How about we go
to uh an email from someone who had experience as
(21:45):
a working union buster working with the union busting company.
To do this, I know, to do this, We're gonna
go to Chris and again, everybody in these conversations they're
being incredibly insightful and respectful or grateful for all of these.
Chris writes soon and says, Hi, guys, first off, love
the show, longtime listener, first time caller. I listened to
(22:05):
the union Busting part one episode yesterday. I used to
work for a PR firm that partnered with a law
firm called They were a management side union negotiating firm.
Their primary interests was working with management either stop a
union vote or make sure it went in their favor.
And you know what I'm saying, that's me adding that
not Chris. Uh. The PR firm I was with partnered
(22:27):
with them on what language to use in communicating with
the employees and how to deliver that messaging flyers, videos, websites,
et cetera. This is modern day union busting, says Chris,
and Uh, I'm gonna alide over some of this. I
want to highlight one part. These guys, including our team
(22:48):
he's referring to lawyers Uh that he worked with. These guys,
including our team, used any dirty tricks they could to
prevent a vote or make the employees think the union
was not going to be good for them. They used
overly can using language and math relating to fees and
raises and so on to keep them off ballance. I
used to say that one hundred years ago, our job
was done by guys wearing ten stars carrying axe handles.
(23:11):
Cough cough, Pinkerton's. Of course, they didn't tell me that
they did this kind of work before I accepted the job.
I was stuck there for a few years to support
my family. It's I could get away from all these
horrible people. So this guy did not have a good
experience with union invusity christened Um So, yeah, that's interesting
because I don't know about you guys, but I wasn't
(23:33):
particularly expecting someone who had worked in one of these
firms true write to us as well. Uh So, just
to give you a sense of of how many folks
are are reaching out here. People aren't just reaching out
with those opinions. We had a lot of folks relating
personal experience, and we have people not just from the
US but around the world. All right, well here's one
(23:54):
for kind of a more international perspective. Can admit my
own ignorance and not fully realizing unions were an international phenomenon.
Of course it makes sense. I just think of it
as an American thing because you know, of all the
corruption and horrible things that need to be dealt with.
But these problems are not unique to the United States
of America, though maybe they're a bit more prominent here.
(24:16):
Um in this one Humble Podcasters perspective. Uh So, here
we go from Peter. Peter says high Team. I'm writing
this with my tinfoil hat on in Brisbane, Australia, loving
the pod guys, keep up the great content in the
non biased way you present it onto business. I worked
from twenty nineteen for an m NC that manufactured fiberglass insulation.
(24:38):
The major manufacturing plant is in Melbourne and at the
time employee close to a hundred staff, many of them
belong to a major manufacturing union. This union was historically
very effective and winning excellent conditions and remuneration for its
members working on this site. For example, completely unskilled workers
were paid fifty dollars an hour, which is around double
what most factory workers arend in Australia. It's more than
(25:00):
what many skilled trades people are in the e B.
A enterprise bargaining agreement came up for renewal. I'm not
privy to the details of the negotiation, but I know
the GM of the time was ready for to get real.
As the business started to stockpile stock at locations around
the country. It appears that the workers did not like
(25:21):
what was offered, as approximately eighty eight of them walked
off the job in March. The strike lasted longer than expected,
I believe as a result, the business asked the sales,
marketing admin and non union warehouse staff if they would
relocate to Melbourne to run the manufacturing plant. I immediately agreed,
as I felt it was important to keep the company
(25:42):
going and therefore keep my job. We went in groups
to Melbourne and ran the plant. This involved driving through
the picket line of workers into the factory, which was
pretty cool to see their faces as we entered to
foil their plans. This went on for a couple of
months until they agreed to come back to work. The
upshot of their action was that a lot of smart
people got to work in the factory and realized that
(26:03):
there were many improvements, especially in the area of automation,
that could be made. After a month or so, of
the strikers were made redundant fancy talk for for fired.
Um just I didn't learn that term until actually the
British office. So I'm not trying to talk down to anybody.
Just some people might not know what being made redundant is.
(26:25):
For me, it was a stressful time as we had
to run my sales territory as well as doing a
twelve hour day of the factory hopefully a once in
a lifetime experience. But I'm glad I had it. Wow. Okay,
So I just want to make sure I fully understand
this guy's My understanding here is that the company and
the union were negotiating. Those negotiations weren't going well, so
(26:48):
the company made the decision to relocate to a different city,
and person who wrote in, Peter relocated with the with
the company to continue working like essentially as a scap. Well,
from what I understand, what's happening here is that there
was a lot of non manufacturing staff right the ADMIN
(27:09):
the marketing sales, and Peter was in sales. He had
a sales territory. And because the negotiations went sideways and
the strike occurred, the company asked people who would not
ordinarily be working at the plants to go work at
the plants because the union workers were striking while the
negotiations were going. Yes, and those union workers were being
(27:33):
paid more than normal. Okay, got it. And they're saying
that automation and what what peters calling skilled workers actually
stepped in and improved the factory. And so now we
have a story from someone who participated in breaking the line. Right,
So just again, it was fascinating to see how many
(27:54):
facets of experience we got here. Record of pause for
word from our spawn. Sure, and then maybe we jump
back to voicemail. Huh, let's do it all right, we're back,
and we're going to a message from you. Yes you, Yes,
(28:17):
it's it's good evening, gentlemen. And of course, code named Doc,
my name is you and I have been witness to
some of the union hijinks your episodes of late have described,
including a major retailer that I worked for that had
signs plastered all over for eight hundred numbers for managers
(28:40):
to call if any of the employees mentioned the union.
We of course would get off work on our overnight shift,
go out at seven o'clock in the morning for several
years and referred to this as the union meeting. Uh.
Doing this in front of the star role higher ups
in the company resulted in our direct supervisors being pulled
(29:00):
doing for an interrogation with the company union busters. It
was quite hilarious. Feel free to use my name and
voice on the air again. This is you. Thank you
for your time. Have a great day union. Uh. I
heard what you did there, so I mean that happens, right,
(29:20):
That happens so often, and you don't hear about a
lot of recourse taken or any options for recourse on
the parts of employees. You know, I UM, in another life,
very brief anecdote, I worked with a logistics company in
(29:40):
the United States and abroad, and stuff like unions in
Osha were a joke. Let me say it this way.
Osha was a joke that all the upper management found
unfailingly hilarious. And unions unionization was as you've depicted you
a fireable offense and it's not. You know, there's not
(30:01):
much you can do about it, depending on where you're
at in life, how much money you have to self
fund a legal battle, or the state you work at,
like so called right to work state. Well, yeah, it
is funny. You know, I've only worked in one place,
been really well to places, but mostly one place. UM.
And in our offices, we've always had all the ocean
(30:24):
signage that you have to have up, you know, required
by law. Yeah, yeah, and nobody looks at that. Nobody
pays attention to those things. Those are laws, those are
important things, and they're for you as an employee, as
a worker, but they're just kind of disregarded, at least
it in my experience. Often, yeah, often that seems to
be the case. And you know. I. I don't know
(30:45):
about you guys, but I don't have the visibility to
say that is the case in the majority of industries
or anything like that. But I know that I I
see that stuff, like you said, ignored. It's a it's
a dusty, laminated sign some where and nobody. Nobody really
looks at it these days unless they screwed up and
forgot their phone. Right, So people forget their phones, they'll
(31:09):
read anything, you know. Yeah, when you're making coffee ving something,
you're like, what am I gonna do for this three minutes? Uh? Okay?
Oh shaw? What's up? What I have the right to?
What is this? Man? Let's let's go to another message
from somebody. Thank you for writing in Oh you, oh
(31:31):
you you specifically you and milk Crate. Uh. Milk Crate
has written to us uh to talk a little bit
about this. Seems like maybe pro union, but milk Crate,
as will come to find, feels that they have run
into some sketchy things that go on on what they
(31:53):
call the laborer's side of the union. Matt, you ever
read an email yet? Do you want to do the
honors on this one? Do you know? Milk crea Yeah,
I mean, I'll read voicemail all day, but email I
don't know. All Right, here, here we go this from
Milk Create. They say, hey, guys, you can call me
the milk Crate if you want to know more about
(32:14):
me in the name. I can tell you the story later.
But I just finished listening to your Union Busters episodes,
and as an apprentice at my local, I b e W.
Do we know what that is? Guys? It's the International Uh,
it's the International Bureau of Elmo Winkers. Before they Tickle
Me Elmo, there was the wink Me Elmo and they
(32:36):
had a union and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Electrical Workers.
I think, okay, okay, okay, I don't know what that encompasses.
We're keeping all of this in please come okay if
we keep it, if we keep the part where you
(32:58):
said okay, okay, good and this all of this okay.
So we're going back to Milk Create, the International Brotherhood
of Electrical Workers. Yes, okay uh, and mill Create is
appreciative of the story being told. This is mil creed.
Although I am obviously pro union, there's some sketchy things
(33:19):
that go on on the laborer side, depending on which
local you're a part of as a union member, my
goal is not to screw over my employer, but to
build up their reputation as well as mine by doing
a good job so that we can both continue to profit. Unfortunately,
not everyone sees it that way, with some secretive groups
known as fleas f l e A s within the
(33:41):
union going so far as to sabotage jobs for the
quote sake of the brotherhood. What's that's right? That's good point, um.
Some locals have a tight knit personality akin to gangs,
(34:02):
where they go so far as to say that if
you don't drive a certain makeup vehicle, you'll get your
tires slashed and you'll be targeted by threats and actual
violence until you leave that job or that local or
get an approved vehicle. Other places, like Hawaiian New York
City are notoriously against having quote outsiders official union ib
(34:23):
W members traveling for work from other locals in their jurisdictions.
That makes sense, I guess in some weird way, but
not allowing ib W members from another state to come
in um, and they will blatantly discriminate against anyone not
from their home local. The majority of the ib W
isn't like this, but places and people like that do
(34:45):
exist and are a direct result of the nature of unionizing.
Oh interesting, Okay, now that's a statement, a direct result
of the nature of unionizing. Yeah, please finish. I've definitely
got some perspective on this. Sure. On a good note, though,
the ib W has been surprisingly pro women since its
conception in the late eighteen hundreds, same rate of pay
(35:05):
from the beginning, with equal rights and representation. As far
as voting in politics, most people I know have views
that differ from the political party that gives us money,
and we don't experience negative kickback for having our own
personal opinions or voices. With everything, there's a good and
a bad side, but unions are, in my humble opinion,
a good thing in a world where employers can't seem
(35:27):
to retain decent behavior towards their employees. That's a a
statement too, and absolutely accurate. Look. I used to work
in a in a theater um and there was a union,
you know, for for theater workers, stage hands or whatever,
and and a lot of the like older guys that
have been in it for a long time, not all
of them, but some of them just had this attitude
of just like doing the bare minimum all the time,
(35:49):
and just there was this kind of like malaise associated
with well, I'm protected, therefore I don't actually have to
try that hard. Um, maybe that was just my situation.
It sounds like this is a product of kind of
that same attitude. This is a more outward like violent
kind of discrimination. But there is certain kinds of like
(36:10):
chrony ism and sort of like you know, like you said,
this kind of gang like mentality where it's like, well,
I'm protected, therefore, you know, you can't mess with me.
Therefore I can kind of do whatever I want. I
feel if to me, well, yeah, I mean, I hear you.
But to me it reads more as someone or some
(36:30):
small groups saying don't take my or our work from us, right,
like stay out of my backyard because that's where I
work kind of thing. Yeah, there's that, but there's also
you know, there's also the basic idea from the Journeyman
of Old, which is saying, hey, if we all agree
we have to be paid a living wage for this
(36:52):
that you know, you could call it price fixing too,
But if we all agreed to do this, then they
can't exploit other people and so with this we are
drawing to a close. We know we didn't get to everyone,
fellow conspiracy realists, but it was very important to us
to thank everybody to share these perspectives and to let
you know that there's nothing wrong with your perspective or
(37:17):
you know your own personal experience. Knowing can invalidate that,
but it is meaningful, and perhaps we could argue even
imperative to listen to people that you don't agree with
with that. We we we just took some time off
air to figure out what we were going to end on,
and I think we the three of us unanimously voted
(37:38):
for voicemail. Yes, a voice message from one Remy. I
am a former employee of a couple of places that
are now and probably the user of resince nivation efforts.
Dive done some occasional knowledge awareness, class consciousness, troublemaking, et cetera.
(37:59):
In a place site works and you know, on its space,
getting the working class to work together seems like it
should be very easy. You know, we just explain how
our labor is valuable versus the desires of often a
major corporation. But for some reason, people keep siding with
(38:21):
the corporations. Especially when I talk to people that are
maybe even older generation Gen X or you know, Boomers,
that they seem to operate on this mode mentality, and
I mean literally a mod mentality. Their idea of a
union comes from Bob movies. But you know, when you
look at today, the corporate on media still does a
great job really of showing unions at the a way
(38:45):
that's easiest to create an anti union narrative. So one
thing I've noticed is that they tend to focus on
strikes or labor organizing from people like nurses and teachers,
because those groups are really easy to kind of scapegoat
and point at the people that they are not quote
like helping. Uh you know, teachers you can say out
(39:09):
there holding the kids education hostage. With nurses you can say,
there are patients that they aren't helping. Uh. So it's
really easy to kind of off the skate um the
actual flavor issues involved and just say, oh men, why
can't they just work and you know, take care of
these children and these sick people. So music a lot
less focusing, I think, um on labor movements and strikes
(39:32):
at people. It's like Starbucks and Amazon, because it's so
much more cut and dry. You know, it's it's a
lot easier to say, like this is about coffee or
getting your pappies delivered in two days. So yeah, and
then they all obviously like always play into I think
this idea that millennials or younger people uh gen z
(39:54):
don't want to work. Um, and that is part of
the demonization of labor movement, is that you know, I
had to suffer through this, you should too. But yeah,
this is something I've noticed that really kind of makes
an uphild battle sometimes for what to me, it feels
like there's an easy topic to get people on it too,
(40:15):
the pro labor side on and Remy went a little
bit longer than minutes solid ending though, said yeah, because
as long as if you I mean think about it,
if you want to enforce some kind of inequality, as
has been observed multiple times across multiple human civilizations, then
(40:36):
you just need to keep the majority of the people
at the bottom fighting each other. It doesn't matter what
they're fighting about, as long as they're fighting about something
and not looking at where your hands are going and
what they're putting in their pockets. It is such a
good point though, the way he highlights you know things
like Starbucks, which is a giant corporation making bookoos of
(40:57):
money off of something that is a luxury, you know,
for for the most part middle upper middle to wealthy people.
And Amazon, which is a company that obviously feeds countless
billions to like you know this one shiny headed ball
guy in his you know, upper management. Um all for
(41:17):
the luxury of getting are spoiled. American asses are packages
in a day and a half. Um. So it's easier
to highlight, especially when you see the gross mistreatment of
those employees in the insane hours and all of that
stuff with the Amazon specifically, so it's an easier thing
to wrap your head around. But um with like teachers unions,
(41:39):
the idea of demonizing a teacher for wanting to not
have to pay for supplies out of their own pocket,
which we know still happens to this day all the time.
UM to basically only be able to go into that
career if you have a spouse who is making more
money than you like it's like even like it's like
a passion thing, and oh but they they're so passionate,
(42:01):
they're so you know, I hate that argument. No, this
is very personally I see it as unethical and unclean.
I mean, I name one teacher at a public school
in the United States, not even counting the ones that
I'm related to her that I believe you're related to. Matt,
name one that hasn't had to come out of their
own funds for supplies, or that hasn't had to work
(42:24):
on weekends or week nights. Uh. To demonize those people
is unconscionable, you know what I mean? In my opinion,
same with the same with Like you're gonna demonize nurses
because they have to do so much of the work
that doctors do for so much less pay, not so
(42:49):
many I just it bugs me when you wait for
ages at a doctor's office for your appointment. You know,
the physicians assistant or the nurse comes in, does all
the stuff, They draw all the blood, do all the work,
and the doctor just kind of waltz is in, gives
you a cursory glance, and then signs off on getting
your meds refilled. Now, I'm not trying to demonize all doctors.
There are doctors and specialists that we absolutely need and
(43:12):
that that do a very specific thing. But the way
our system is set up is like those people are
like untouchable and they're getting paid the big bucks. I know,
they work under a lot of stressful circumstances. But the
ones that are actually they are doing the work, they
don't have that protection, you know, and and they are
treated more like lower level employees. They're the ones that
are actually doing the work. And Ben, I mean to
go back to your personal connection with the teacher situation.
(43:34):
I mean, how much more important a job is there
than a teacher to help make the next generation better
than the current one, or to like ensure that even
those who can't afford private school get a good education.
And if you don't have people that are willing to
just you know, do it for the passion or because
they can afford it, you're not gonna have good quality candidates.
(43:58):
Or it's just gonna be an uphill battle, a Sisiphian task,
because they're gonna be so piled on with students and
and extra things that they aren't getting paid for they
have to pay for themselves, and it's not going to
be efficient. I'm sorry, I just it's the well, there's
only one answer. It's the water treatment plant supervisor to
make sure everybody has water. No, I'm just I've got
(44:22):
you know, I I thought about this idea a lot
from a young age. It is something that gets to me,
and I do try to be careful not to inject
myself from my opinions in this show. But there's a
line from Trick Daddy's Thug Holiday I'm going somewhere with
this that introduces a brilliant question. He asked, how come
(44:43):
the judges are making more than the teachers. I'm paraphrasing,
but it's an excellent question. There there is a very
valid argument. You don't have to say the entire system
is broken, but there's a very valid argument that parts
of it need to be completely read. And uh to
do one last lazy car analogy. You know, a car
(45:04):
will still run without air conditioning, but they're gonna be
times you don't want to ride in that car anymore.
So there are very difficult questions that have to be asked,
and perhaps one of the best questions to ask when
you hear different stances, do you have to ask about
the source talked about this all the time. You have
to ask what possible motivation that source may have, You know,
(45:26):
like those There was a great send up in last
week tonight a while back regarding union busting activities, where
they had this excellent parody video. You know, it's those
workplace videos that you have to watch when you're an
employee getting on boarded. It's like occasionally you may hear
your co workers say things like the following, and then
(45:47):
some comes out and there's like a little Tim and
Eric thing of you know, collective organizing. But we solve
our problems one to one because here at Cold Glomco,
we're a family. You know, there's a reason that people
are spending so much time and so much money for
seeing their employees to watch those videos. That's what I
(46:08):
think we need to start asking, you know. And that's
what we ask in Unions Part one and Part two,
which are out now wherever you find your favorite shows. Uh.
With this, we want to thank so many of our
fellow conspiracy realists too many to name right now. Thank
you to everyone who went on air with us. Thank
you to all the people who continue to write in
(46:29):
Stay safe out there, and if you want to be
part of this weekly segment, we'd love to hear from you.
We tried easy to find online, that's right, you can
find us on Facebook. You can find us on What's
the other One YouTube? You can find us on Twitter.
We are at the handle Conspiracy Stuff on Instagram or
Conspiracy Stuff Show. Check that account out. Lots of new
things popping over there. Definitely not the Conspiracy Stuff Show
(46:53):
account of Yesteryear's right. If you want to be like
text and Remy and even you, why not call one
eight three three st d w y t K and
leave us a message, give yourself a cool nickname when
you call in. Let us know if we can use
your message and voice on the air, and uh, you've
got three minutes. Say anything you want. We're interested in
(47:15):
your opinions, your experience, especially your experience that is very
helpful for us, as we illustrated in this episode. I
believe if you've got more to say, if you've got
images or anything else you want to share with us links,
why not instead send us a good old fashioned email.
We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff they
(47:51):
don't want you to know is a production of I
Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit
the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your face vert shows
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We are joined as always with our super
producer Alexis code named dot Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you
are you, You are here, and that makes this the
stuff they don't want you to know. This is our
weekly listener Males segment fellow conspiracy realist, but it is
a little bit different in some ways. It's more like
(00:47):
an episode. Here's what happens. Every so often, Matt Nolan,
I will do an episode that genuinely sparks a ground
swell of responses, feedback, and it don'ts Sometimes eight mail,
firsthand experience and more. And so for this week's listener
mail segment, we wanted to focus on one conversation that
(01:08):
clearly hit home with a lot of our fellow listeners.
Here the Facts. A few weeks ago, we did a
two part series on controversy, facts, fiction myths surrounding both
unions and union busting and UH it gets into some
weird places. You can listen to it now. We talked
about the history of unions in the West, from their
(01:31):
roots and guild systems up to the present day. I
want to shout out ridiculous history. Uh, Noel, You and
I did an episode on some Pinkerton related stuff which
you should very much check out. There's a deep dive
right which episodes were those I don't recall, but it's
just such a common trope in in history, especially when
it comes to rich people trying to wield control over
(01:54):
the less fortunate with an iron fist. The Pinkerton's essentially
served as like a private police force who could do
everything from bust unions to intimidate essentially like mafioso type
activities like you know, uh, you better pay your what
do you call it protection fee or else would be
a shame of something happened to that nice little shotgun
(02:14):
shock of yours exactly. We did look at the union
busting the people who want to prevent unions from happening historically.
We also looked at some of the corruption and dark
side of unions. So we wanted to really take a
full picture look at this thing and give you everything
we could find when it comes to what can go
wrong right when you're either trying to form a union
(02:36):
or when you're trying to break up a union or
prevent one from forming. Yeah. Absolutely, because we already knew
going into this that we're unfortunately multiple cases of corruption
and conspiracy, both amid union busters and sometimes amid unions. Uh,
entirely unrelated. Want to extend particular thanks to our fellow
(02:56):
conspiracy realist in the world of TV and film production,
many of whom shared hilarious scary stories about teamsters, and
many many folks several reached out to be directly asking
to entirely be off the record. Uh so just give
it you all the acknowledgement as much as we can. Well,
I mean, it's a good time to talk about this
(03:18):
topic too, and to even follow up because in the news,
you know, there was a big win when a New
York branch of Amazon warehouse workers were able to unionize
or voted to establish a union, and now another branch
has voted to reject the union. Um but the lawyers
that are working for I believe the other party are
(03:40):
claiming all kinds of nefarious activities in terms of union
busting type stuff on the part of Amazon managers. And
we know that this is this kind of stuff is
not beyond them, just in terms of like what they
are willing to do to get things done, to get
the packages you know, where they're supposed to be on time,
come you know, inclement, whether life threatening situations or what
have you. Um So things like disciplinary action against you know,
(04:04):
folks that are supporting the union, all kinds of anti
union rhetoric in the workplace. And you know, again this
is just allegations, but I just wouldn't put it past them. Well,
it's interesting. We're gonna here today insight and first hand
experience from people who have been going through those processes,
people who have been a part of union for years,
some people who are trying to start some It's we're
gonna get lots of real insight, first hand stuff from you.
(04:27):
In fact, someone named you called in guys. Yes. Uh,
And there's something I want to add here that Uh,
many of many union busting activities are conspiratorial, but they're
not theoretical. I mean, they did happen, they are happening now.
In this exploration. You know, we took two episodes for it.
Because it wanted to be transparent and objective to the
(04:49):
best of our ability. We also knew there's much more
to both sides of this proverbial coin, so we asked
you for your opinions, for your insight, for your experiences,
and since you're the best audience and all the podcasting
you delivered. Here's where it gets crazy. We received tons
of voicemails, emails, other correspondence, and before we dive in,
(05:11):
I just gotta say I was profoundly impressed by the
level of discourse. The Like you said, Matt, the stories
we're about to share do not all agree, they do
not all reach the same conclusions, but every single person
or entity who wrote to us wrote in a unique, respectful,
very well thought out response, So thank you. You know,
(05:34):
some of these messages we had to edit for length,
but we did our best to keep the substance of
each one intact. Well I can we also to say
that you know we have firsthand experience with this, as
the I Heart Podcast Network recently unionized with the support
due to the efforts of many of our colleagues, UM
and I think we're all intensely proud of those folks
(05:54):
in the work they did, and kind of proud of
our company that there wasn't that kind of Amazon level
of push back and uh and negativity. And it was
a very even handed discussion that ultimately got both sides
on the same page. But just wait till you hear
what Text has to say about it. Oh, text, text
has some thoughts. Get into it. Yeah, we're not going
(06:18):
to get to everything today. But again, we we had
so many responses that we wanted to dedicate this weekly
listener mail segment just to this. Uh, let's start with
let's jump around here, jump around. I've never mind a
little bit, and I stay in my seat. Is it okay?
If I don't get out in my seat, you spiritually jump,
(06:38):
you know, metaphorically jump jump with your heart. That's what counts.
Can I get Oh yes, you can always always get down,
you know, usually I jump up to get down generally. Yeah. Yeah,
one time I missed the bush. Jeez. All right, So
Justine writes in to say, hi, guys, I was listening
(06:59):
to or union busting episodes and I thought I right in.
Since I work for a union. I currently represent classified
public school employees everyone but the teachers and administrators, and
I mostly negotiate contracts and handle employee grievances. There's so
much I can say about unions, but I'll try to
keep it brief. This is, by the way, this is
a positive as a pro union message. Uh. You ask
(07:23):
for one thing I wish everyone knew, and I have
two answers. One, if you have a union, get involved,
even if just going to our union meetings and making
your voice heard acounts. The union is what you make
of it. Two, if you don't have a union, you
can still affect real change for you and your co
workers if you're willing to put in the legwork. Even
non unionized workers have the right to protected concerted activity.
(07:45):
That means anytime two or more workers act collectively to
improve wages or working conditions, it still counts. There's a
ton of different things you could do and it works.
Just google protected concerted activity and collective actions for ideas.
That's it for me. Thinks for a great show. So
I thought that was kind of a safer place to start,
right someone who clearly works with a union and enjoys it.
(08:09):
Thank you Justine for writing in Oh Yeah, I love
Justine's concept of if you don't have a union maybe
if you don't even want to have a union or
plan on creating a union, but you still have workers
who are working together and want to see some kind
of change, you can still do something that makes a
ton of sense. I just wanna again shout out those uh,
(08:31):
those keywords that she said to Google protected, concerted activity
and collective actions. That's very cool, and so that is
that is obviously, as we said, that's a message from
someone who finds themselves very much in support of their union,
their workers organization, and they've had a great experience. What
if we go to someone who had a negative experience, Yeah,
(08:56):
let's hear from samurai. This is a pretty and handed
sort of two prong approach to thinking about unions, with
some good and some bad. It's probably the way we
should look at most things, um Samurai rights. In my
many years on this planet, I have had the chance
to work with three unions. Jemco slashed Lucky Foods Food
Services Union. They were both terrible, only there to support
(09:20):
themselves and their lobbyists, provided no discernible benefit to me
or any of the other members, and when we went
on strike, they provided next to no benefits to us.
I crossed the line and returned to working was fired
as soon as the strike was over. Yikes, that is
all the bad things that people say potentially can can
result from unionizing. But I guess it all depends on
(09:42):
the union and the organizing committee and uh and just
the how how much you trust the work that the
union has done. Can you guys dissolve some of my
ignorance when when Samurai says, crossed the line that means
the pickets, Yeah, broken the strike. Um, it's called being
a scab, right, yeah, And so we'll we'll actually run
(10:05):
into someone who encountered that later on in this episode.
And I think one reason we we all maybe collectively
aren't big fans of Uber is that the company allegedly,
I mean, you know, the proof was in the pudding.
It was something that could be observed acted as scabs
when New York Taxi Workers Alliance Union members UM, which
is an affiliate of the a f l c I
(10:26):
O that represents many immigrants, UM, we're striking, and then
Uber essentially looked at it as an opportunity to you know,
fill a demand and come in there and and you know,
essentially undermine those those efforts. So yeah, it's a big
deal to be a striker. But if you're striking and
your union is not doing anything for you, this Samurai
(10:48):
was basically like, well, screw this, I need the work.
I'm not actually working towards any benefits, so why should
I bother? Um If all this is for is for
you know, the lobbyists and for the interests of the union,
that's so I totally get that. Okay, back to Sam
c w A Communications Workers of America. Great union, though
a little top heavy and hard to get answers from
(11:08):
for complaints. Not great about raises, but not terrible either. Okay,
unnamed school district president employer c s e A. I
am not a teacher, but as I have mentioned to
you in the past, i am an I t Stochka.
This union is one of the best ones I've ever
worked for good benefits, and I've had three really good raises.
(11:29):
I do not mind paying about two a year and
dues because I have made that back several fold. My
main point is that if the union is there for
the people and works for them, then they are great.
C w A and c s A are both good
examples of that. Fs W was terrible. They were more
about getting the company what it wanted than the employees,
(11:49):
which makes sense because that's an experience that I've heard
relayed by many people, especially folks who have had multiple
cre years or multiple gigs that found them with multiple unions.
As we said in our two part episode, they're very
much not all created equally, right, Like you can say
(12:11):
the word sandwich, that could be literally thousands of different things.
Not my best analogy. It's good to hear about the
c s e A in particular, just because many of
us listening and talking right now have family members who
have been a part of a teachers union. Um you guys, Hey,
we got that message from TEXTS that told you about
(12:33):
a little kind of hinted at it earlier. You want
to hear somebody who is not cool with the unions, absolutely,
because we started with very pro union, We started with
somewhere in the middle, and like we said, we got
a lot of responses. So here's someone who found themselves
very much against unions, right, Matt. Right after a quick
message from our sponsors, we will hear from text. We'll
(12:56):
be right back and we've returned and everyone I present
to you text Ben, not no doc. It's your old
pal text. Let me tell you unions suck. They are
(13:20):
as you describe, little tiny thiefdoms. They are h o
as for employment. Okay, it gives little tiny people big
platforms and lots of money that will of the time
corrupt them. Absolutely, we need to do away with unions
(13:42):
permanently in our nation, but not for the reason you think.
The reason that we need to do away with unions
is the fact that they need to exist in the
first place. Think about it. When there were little children
losing their hands changing bobbins in the factories, unions were
(14:06):
the answer. No, they were not federal regulation that says, hey,
don't put children in dangerous situations and make them lose
their hands. So instead of Amazon creating a union so
that their employees don't have to pee in bottles, which
(14:29):
frankly is horrifying and I feel terrible for those employees
that have to go through that. But the fact is,
collected bargaining isn't the answer. Legislation that forces companies to
treat people as humans is the answer. That's it simple,
(14:49):
is that every time a union forms, whatever their platform is,
whatever the reason for existence is, probably needs to be
codified into law. To event that from happening across the board.
That's the failure. And so when we use unions as
a stop gap, we end up with corruption. We end
(15:12):
up with little people with big power and big money.
What could go wrong? Hey, gentlemen and ladies, have yourselves
a great weekend. Thanks for everything you do, such a
great show. That's somebody who's saying, you know, you don't
have to agree with the person. But again, what I'm
saying about the discourse here is you wrote in text,
(15:36):
and I remember what I was just as playing. I thought, oh,
text text, But this it wrote in clearly anti union,
UM with a different spin on it, and still wasn't
lambasting anyone, wasn't, you know, obviously a reasonable guy. This
is his conclusion. I don't know what do you guys think?
(15:57):
I mean, I do feel like the the need for
unions in the first place is the byproduct of a
corrupt system that's built around the money first mentality that
has been the legacy of this country and that continues
to be UM. It's the same thing that goes into
the fact that nobody can get reasonable health care unless
you make a lot of money. The foundation of this
(16:19):
country is is kind of based on enriching the super
rich um and it's kind of stomping on the little
guy at the expense of the little guy. So of
course the little guy is gonna want some protection from
this corrupt system that doesn't look after them. And because
it's a byproduct of a corrupt system, it sometimes becomes
corrupt itself. Well, I would also point out labor movements
(16:41):
are responsible for things like the weekend and even uh,
the eight hour work there's things that do exist. Those
workers protections that do exist did come about because of organization,
and that's you know, I'm not opinion here, I'm just
gonna say that's a fact. Uh, those are laws to
(17:01):
to our our callers point, those are the product of
labor movement, you know, That's what I'm saying. But but
not they're not something that the union itself guarantees that
it requires the union. Those are things changes that have
been pushed for that have been turned into law, which
is what Texas point is that that's what we need
(17:21):
to push for and not think we can solve all
this stuff via unions. But labor movements are made by unions.
Unions were doing labor movements, so like their long term
effect was those laws. I understand what you're saying, and
I agree with you functionally, but the union isn't required
(17:42):
to have a movement. You can have a movement with
or without a union. The union is a organization that
has its own by laws and is its own system.
I don't have to have it. Yeah, yeah, I understand.
I'm saying that the labor movements that created those laws
were in many cases you me empowered. Now they don't.
Maybe it's a maze puzzle puzzle maze situation. They do
(18:04):
always have to be the same thing. But I do
think that's a really interesting perspective that that text has.
The question. The question I would pose is how does
it get to the point where it is legislation? That's
the question, like, how can you do that? Look what
you did, text, Look what you've done. No, I just
(18:25):
wanted I would reiterate it's a great question, Ben, I
don't have the answer for you, but it's a it's
a great perspective that I don't see very often an
anti union pro federal regulation standpoint right, I mean often
those things. I don't know, it seems like they kind
of go together in the point you're making. Often the
unions are the things, or the labor movements are of
(18:48):
the things that get change and acted in Congress, because
in order to have a law, you've got to get
it through that messed up labyrantine thing um. But text,
I mean, I kind of agree with him in un
respects that if it was on the books officially for everyone,
you wouldn't need the labor union, right, But unfortunately we're
(19:09):
not in that maybe utopian set up right now. It
might be a question, yeah, where where does that if
come into play? How do you how do you have
something as strong as the labor movements of the past
that started, you know, the worker rights that are often
enjoyed today, at least in theory, How do you start
(19:30):
that without some kind of organizing. In the past, those
were union created. But but to your point, no, they
don't necessarily have to be, especially in the age of
social media. It could just be a bunch of people
who say we want a four day work week, and
if billions do and just stop showing up, you're gonna
fire everybody. The technology is not there yet. You nailed
(19:52):
something really important there then, and like, well, well, I
do think there are things that unions can achieve. The
individual rules that want to start a movement would take
them a lot longer to to get the support to achieve,
because unions have their own internal mechanisms and lobbyists, and
they're are part of the system at this point in
a way where they can you know, affect change in
(20:13):
some ways if they're good. Um, but the social media
angle does It's almost like, why do we need record
companies anymore? When individual artists can make a SoundCloud account
and get discovered and that's not easy to do, but
it does happen, and then you're not beholden to this
record company. So I just wonder if there is some
some point to be made that the unions in the
(20:35):
old school model are a little outdated, or maybe there's
like a union two point oh that hasn't really developed yet. Um.
I don't know the answer. I'm just asking a bunch
of questions. We need labor, Oh God, there's plenty of that.
All you have to do is look at HAFA. But
(20:57):
but yeah, Like the question is how how does a
group in acts systemic change? And it's a question that
people have quarreled with throughout the majority of written human history.
I mean, the United States itself was founded by a
group of people asking how do we affect systemic change?
But the systemic change they wanted, of course, primarily benefited them.
(21:21):
I know that makes people that rufflesome feathers sometimes, but
it is true. You know. Uh so text, I'm gona
needs you to send a voicemail in responding to that
statement alone. Please, Well, it's true systemic change, But this
is These are the kind of conversations that we were having,
and we were grateful for these. How about we go
to uh an email from someone who had experience as
(21:45):
a working union buster working with the union busting company.
To do this, I know, to do this, We're gonna
go to Chris and again, everybody in these conversations they're
being incredibly insightful and respectful or grateful for all of these.
Chris writes soon and says, Hi, guys, first off, love
the show, longtime listener, first time caller. I listened to
(22:05):
the union Busting part one episode yesterday. I used to
work for a PR firm that partnered with a law
firm called They were a management side union negotiating firm.
Their primary interests was working with management either stop a
union vote or make sure it went in their favor.
And you know what I'm saying, that's me adding that
not Chris. Uh. The PR firm I was with partnered
(22:27):
with them on what language to use in communicating with
the employees and how to deliver that messaging flyers, videos, websites,
et cetera. This is modern day union busting, says Chris,
and Uh, I'm gonna alide over some of this. I
want to highlight one part. These guys, including our team
(22:48):
he's referring to lawyers Uh that he worked with. These guys,
including our team, used any dirty tricks they could to
prevent a vote or make the employees think the union
was not going to be good for them. They used
overly can using language and math relating to fees and
raises and so on to keep them off ballance. I
used to say that one hundred years ago, our job
was done by guys wearing ten stars carrying axe handles.
(23:11):
Cough cough, Pinkerton's. Of course, they didn't tell me that
they did this kind of work before I accepted the job.
I was stuck there for a few years to support
my family. It's I could get away from all these
horrible people. So this guy did not have a good
experience with union invusity christened Um So, yeah, that's interesting
because I don't know about you guys, but I wasn't
(23:33):
particularly expecting someone who had worked in one of these
firms true write to us as well. Uh So, just
to give you a sense of of how many folks
are are reaching out here. People aren't just reaching out
with those opinions. We had a lot of folks relating
personal experience, and we have people not just from the
US but around the world. All right, well here's one
(23:54):
for kind of a more international perspective. Can admit my
own ignorance and not fully realizing unions were an international phenomenon.
Of course it makes sense. I just think of it
as an American thing because you know, of all the
corruption and horrible things that need to be dealt with.
But these problems are not unique to the United States
of America, though maybe they're a bit more prominent here.
(24:16):
Um in this one Humble Podcasters perspective. Uh So, here
we go from Peter. Peter says high Team. I'm writing
this with my tinfoil hat on in Brisbane, Australia, loving
the pod guys, keep up the great content in the
non biased way you present it onto business. I worked
from twenty nineteen for an m NC that manufactured fiberglass insulation.
(24:38):
The major manufacturing plant is in Melbourne and at the
time employee close to a hundred staff, many of them
belong to a major manufacturing union. This union was historically
very effective and winning excellent conditions and remuneration for its
members working on this site. For example, completely unskilled workers
were paid fifty dollars an hour, which is around double
what most factory workers arend in Australia. It's more than
(25:00):
what many skilled trades people are in the e B.
A enterprise bargaining agreement came up for renewal. I'm not
privy to the details of the negotiation, but I know
the GM of the time was ready for to get real.
As the business started to stockpile stock at locations around
the country. It appears that the workers did not like
(25:21):
what was offered, as approximately eighty eight of them walked
off the job in March. The strike lasted longer than expected,
I believe as a result, the business asked the sales,
marketing admin and non union warehouse staff if they would
relocate to Melbourne to run the manufacturing plant. I immediately agreed,
as I felt it was important to keep the company
(25:42):
going and therefore keep my job. We went in groups
to Melbourne and ran the plant. This involved driving through
the picket line of workers into the factory, which was
pretty cool to see their faces as we entered to
foil their plans. This went on for a couple of
months until they agreed to come back to work. The
upshot of their action was that a lot of smart
people got to work in the factory and realized that
(26:03):
there were many improvements, especially in the area of automation,
that could be made. After a month or so, of
the strikers were made redundant fancy talk for for fired.
Um just I didn't learn that term until actually the
British office. So I'm not trying to talk down to anybody.
Just some people might not know what being made redundant is.
(26:25):
For me, it was a stressful time as we had
to run my sales territory as well as doing a
twelve hour day of the factory hopefully a once in
a lifetime experience. But I'm glad I had it. Wow. Okay,
So I just want to make sure I fully understand
this guy's My understanding here is that the company and
the union were negotiating. Those negotiations weren't going well, so
(26:48):
the company made the decision to relocate to a different city,
and person who wrote in, Peter relocated with the with
the company to continue working like essentially as a scap. Well,
from what I understand, what's happening here is that there
was a lot of non manufacturing staff right the ADMIN
(27:09):
the marketing sales, and Peter was in sales. He had
a sales territory. And because the negotiations went sideways and
the strike occurred, the company asked people who would not
ordinarily be working at the plants to go work at
the plants because the union workers were striking while the
negotiations were going. Yes, and those union workers were being
(27:33):
paid more than normal. Okay, got it. And they're saying
that automation and what what peters calling skilled workers actually
stepped in and improved the factory. And so now we
have a story from someone who participated in breaking the line. Right,
So just again, it was fascinating to see how many
(27:54):
facets of experience we got here. Record of pause for
word from our spawn. Sure, and then maybe we jump
back to voicemail. Huh, let's do it all right, we're back,
and we're going to a message from you. Yes you, Yes,
(28:17):
it's it's good evening, gentlemen. And of course, code named Doc,
my name is you and I have been witness to
some of the union hijinks your episodes of late have described,
including a major retailer that I worked for that had
signs plastered all over for eight hundred numbers for managers
(28:40):
to call if any of the employees mentioned the union.
We of course would get off work on our overnight shift,
go out at seven o'clock in the morning for several
years and referred to this as the union meeting. Uh.
Doing this in front of the star role higher ups
in the company resulted in our direct supervisors being pulled
(29:00):
doing for an interrogation with the company union busters. It
was quite hilarious. Feel free to use my name and
voice on the air again. This is you. Thank you
for your time. Have a great day union. Uh. I
heard what you did there, so I mean that happens, right,
(29:20):
That happens so often, and you don't hear about a
lot of recourse taken or any options for recourse on
the parts of employees. You know, I UM, in another life,
very brief anecdote, I worked with a logistics company in
(29:40):
the United States and abroad, and stuff like unions in
Osha were a joke. Let me say it this way.
Osha was a joke that all the upper management found
unfailingly hilarious. And unions unionization was as you've depicted you
a fireable offense and it's not. You know, there's not
(30:01):
much you can do about it, depending on where you're
at in life, how much money you have to self
fund a legal battle, or the state you work at,
like so called right to work state. Well, yeah, it
is funny. You know, I've only worked in one place,
been really well to places, but mostly one place. UM.
And in our offices, we've always had all the ocean
(30:24):
signage that you have to have up, you know, required
by law. Yeah, yeah, and nobody looks at that. Nobody
pays attention to those things. Those are laws, those are
important things, and they're for you as an employee, as
a worker, but they're just kind of disregarded, at least
it in my experience. Often, yeah, often that seems to
be the case. And you know. I. I don't know
(30:45):
about you guys, but I don't have the visibility to
say that is the case in the majority of industries
or anything like that. But I know that I I
see that stuff, like you said, ignored. It's a it's
a dusty, laminated sign some where and nobody. Nobody really
looks at it these days unless they screwed up and
forgot their phone. Right, So people forget their phones, they'll
(31:09):
read anything, you know. Yeah, when you're making coffee ving something,
you're like, what am I gonna do for this three minutes? Uh? Okay?
Oh shaw? What's up? What I have the right to?
What is this? Man? Let's let's go to another message
from somebody. Thank you for writing in Oh you, oh
(31:31):
you you specifically you and milk Crate. Uh. Milk Crate
has written to us uh to talk a little bit
about this. Seems like maybe pro union, but milk Crate,
as will come to find, feels that they have run
into some sketchy things that go on on what they
(31:53):
call the laborer's side of the union. Matt, you ever
read an email yet? Do you want to do the
honors on this one? Do you know? Milk crea Yeah,
I mean, I'll read voicemail all day, but email I
don't know. All Right, here, here we go this from
Milk Create. They say, hey, guys, you can call me
the milk Crate if you want to know more about
(32:14):
me in the name. I can tell you the story later.
But I just finished listening to your Union Busters episodes,
and as an apprentice at my local, I b e W.
Do we know what that is? Guys? It's the International Uh,
it's the International Bureau of Elmo Winkers. Before they Tickle
Me Elmo, there was the wink Me Elmo and they
(32:36):
had a union and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Electrical Workers.
I think, okay, okay, okay, I don't know what that encompasses.
We're keeping all of this in please come okay if
we keep it, if we keep the part where you
(32:58):
said okay, okay, good and this all of this okay.
So we're going back to Milk Create, the International Brotherhood
of Electrical Workers. Yes, okay uh, and mill Create is
appreciative of the story being told. This is mil creed.
Although I am obviously pro union, there's some sketchy things
(33:19):
that go on on the laborer side, depending on which
local you're a part of as a union member, my
goal is not to screw over my employer, but to
build up their reputation as well as mine by doing
a good job so that we can both continue to profit. Unfortunately,
not everyone sees it that way, with some secretive groups
known as fleas f l e A s within the
(33:41):
union going so far as to sabotage jobs for the
quote sake of the brotherhood. What's that's right? That's good point, um.
Some locals have a tight knit personality akin to gangs,
(34:02):
where they go so far as to say that if
you don't drive a certain makeup vehicle, you'll get your
tires slashed and you'll be targeted by threats and actual
violence until you leave that job or that local or
get an approved vehicle. Other places, like Hawaiian New York
City are notoriously against having quote outsiders official union ib
(34:23):
W members traveling for work from other locals in their jurisdictions.
That makes sense, I guess in some weird way, but
not allowing ib W members from another state to come
in um, and they will blatantly discriminate against anyone not
from their home local. The majority of the ib W
isn't like this, but places and people like that do
(34:45):
exist and are a direct result of the nature of unionizing.
Oh interesting, Okay, now that's a statement, a direct result
of the nature of unionizing. Yeah, please finish. I've definitely
got some perspective on this. Sure. On a good note, though,
the ib W has been surprisingly pro women since its
conception in the late eighteen hundreds, same rate of pay
(35:05):
from the beginning, with equal rights and representation. As far
as voting in politics, most people I know have views
that differ from the political party that gives us money,
and we don't experience negative kickback for having our own
personal opinions or voices. With everything, there's a good and
a bad side, but unions are, in my humble opinion,
a good thing in a world where employers can't seem
(35:27):
to retain decent behavior towards their employees. That's a a
statement too, and absolutely accurate. Look. I used to work
in a in a theater um and there was a union,
you know, for for theater workers, stage hands or whatever,
and and a lot of the like older guys that
have been in it for a long time, not all
of them, but some of them just had this attitude
of just like doing the bare minimum all the time,
(35:49):
and just there was this kind of like malaise associated
with well, I'm protected, therefore I don't actually have to
try that hard. Um, maybe that was just my situation.
It sounds like this is a product of kind of
that same attitude. This is a more outward like violent
kind of discrimination. But there is certain kinds of like
(36:10):
chrony ism and sort of like you know, like you said,
this kind of gang like mentality where it's like, well,
I'm protected, therefore, you know, you can't mess with me.
Therefore I can kind of do whatever I want. I
feel if to me, well, yeah, I mean, I hear you.
But to me it reads more as someone or some
(36:30):
small groups saying don't take my or our work from us, right,
like stay out of my backyard because that's where I
work kind of thing. Yeah, there's that, but there's also
you know, there's also the basic idea from the Journeyman
of Old, which is saying, hey, if we all agree
we have to be paid a living wage for this
(36:52):
that you know, you could call it price fixing too,
But if we all agreed to do this, then they
can't exploit other people and so with this we are
drawing to a close. We know we didn't get to everyone,
fellow conspiracy realists, but it was very important to us
to thank everybody to share these perspectives and to let
you know that there's nothing wrong with your perspective or
(37:17):
you know your own personal experience. Knowing can invalidate that,
but it is meaningful, and perhaps we could argue even
imperative to listen to people that you don't agree with
with that. We we we just took some time off
air to figure out what we were going to end on,
and I think we the three of us unanimously voted
(37:38):
for voicemail. Yes, a voice message from one Remy. I
am a former employee of a couple of places that
are now and probably the user of resince nivation efforts.
Dive done some occasional knowledge awareness, class consciousness, troublemaking, et cetera.
(37:59):
In a place site works and you know, on its space,
getting the working class to work together seems like it
should be very easy. You know, we just explain how
our labor is valuable versus the desires of often a
major corporation. But for some reason, people keep siding with
(38:21):
the corporations. Especially when I talk to people that are
maybe even older generation Gen X or you know, Boomers,
that they seem to operate on this mode mentality, and
I mean literally a mod mentality. Their idea of a
union comes from Bob movies. But you know, when you
look at today, the corporate on media still does a
great job really of showing unions at the a way
(38:45):
that's easiest to create an anti union narrative. So one
thing I've noticed is that they tend to focus on
strikes or labor organizing from people like nurses and teachers,
because those groups are really easy to kind of scapegoat
and point at the people that they are not quote
like helping. Uh you know, teachers you can say out
(39:09):
there holding the kids education hostage. With nurses you can say,
there are patients that they aren't helping. Uh. So it's
really easy to kind of off the skate um the
actual flavor issues involved and just say, oh men, why
can't they just work and you know, take care of
these children and these sick people. So music a lot
less focusing, I think, um on labor movements and strikes
(39:32):
at people. It's like Starbucks and Amazon, because it's so
much more cut and dry. You know, it's it's a
lot easier to say, like this is about coffee or
getting your pappies delivered in two days. So yeah, and
then they all obviously like always play into I think
this idea that millennials or younger people uh gen z
(39:54):
don't want to work. Um, and that is part of
the demonization of labor movement, is that you know, I
had to suffer through this, you should too. But yeah,
this is something I've noticed that really kind of makes
an uphild battle sometimes for what to me, it feels
like there's an easy topic to get people on it too,
(40:15):
the pro labor side on and Remy went a little
bit longer than minutes solid ending though, said yeah, because
as long as if you I mean think about it,
if you want to enforce some kind of inequality, as
has been observed multiple times across multiple human civilizations, then
(40:36):
you just need to keep the majority of the people
at the bottom fighting each other. It doesn't matter what
they're fighting about, as long as they're fighting about something
and not looking at where your hands are going and
what they're putting in their pockets. It is such a
good point though, the way he highlights you know things
like Starbucks, which is a giant corporation making bookoos of
(40:57):
money off of something that is a luxury, you know,
for for the most part middle upper middle to wealthy people.
And Amazon, which is a company that obviously feeds countless
billions to like you know this one shiny headed ball
guy in his you know, upper management. Um all for
(41:17):
the luxury of getting are spoiled. American asses are packages
in a day and a half. Um. So it's easier
to highlight, especially when you see the gross mistreatment of
those employees in the insane hours and all of that
stuff with the Amazon specifically, so it's an easier thing
to wrap your head around. But um with like teachers unions,
(41:39):
the idea of demonizing a teacher for wanting to not
have to pay for supplies out of their own pocket,
which we know still happens to this day all the time.
UM to basically only be able to go into that
career if you have a spouse who is making more
money than you like it's like even like it's like
a passion thing, and oh but they they're so passionate,
(42:01):
they're so you know, I hate that argument. No, this
is very personally I see it as unethical and unclean.
I mean, I name one teacher at a public school
in the United States, not even counting the ones that
I'm related to her that I believe you're related to. Matt,
name one that hasn't had to come out of their
own funds for supplies, or that hasn't had to work
(42:24):
on weekends or week nights. Uh. To demonize those people
is unconscionable, you know what I mean? In my opinion,
same with the same with Like you're gonna demonize nurses
because they have to do so much of the work
that doctors do for so much less pay, not so
(42:49):
many I just it bugs me when you wait for
ages at a doctor's office for your appointment. You know,
the physicians assistant or the nurse comes in, does all
the stuff, They draw all the blood, do all the work,
and the doctor just kind of waltz is in, gives
you a cursory glance, and then signs off on getting
your meds refilled. Now, I'm not trying to demonize all doctors.
There are doctors and specialists that we absolutely need and
(43:12):
that that do a very specific thing. But the way
our system is set up is like those people are
like untouchable and they're getting paid the big bucks. I know,
they work under a lot of stressful circumstances. But the
ones that are actually they are doing the work, they
don't have that protection, you know, and and they are
treated more like lower level employees. They're the ones that
are actually doing the work. And Ben, I mean to
go back to your personal connection with the teacher situation.
(43:34):
I mean, how much more important a job is there
than a teacher to help make the next generation better
than the current one, or to like ensure that even
those who can't afford private school get a good education.
And if you don't have people that are willing to
just you know, do it for the passion or because
they can afford it, you're not gonna have good quality candidates.
(43:58):
Or it's just gonna be an uphill battle, a Sisiphian task,
because they're gonna be so piled on with students and
and extra things that they aren't getting paid for they
have to pay for themselves, and it's not going to
be efficient. I'm sorry, I just it's the well, there's
only one answer. It's the water treatment plant supervisor to
make sure everybody has water. No, I'm just I've got
(44:22):
you know, I I thought about this idea a lot
from a young age. It is something that gets to me,
and I do try to be careful not to inject
myself from my opinions in this show. But there's a
line from Trick Daddy's Thug Holiday I'm going somewhere with
this that introduces a brilliant question. He asked, how come
(44:43):
the judges are making more than the teachers. I'm paraphrasing,
but it's an excellent question. There there is a very
valid argument. You don't have to say the entire system
is broken, but there's a very valid argument that parts
of it need to be completely read. And uh to
do one last lazy car analogy. You know, a car
(45:04):
will still run without air conditioning, but they're gonna be
times you don't want to ride in that car anymore.
So there are very difficult questions that have to be asked,
and perhaps one of the best questions to ask when
you hear different stances, do you have to ask about
the source talked about this all the time. You have
to ask what possible motivation that source may have, You know,
(45:26):
like those There was a great send up in last
week tonight a while back regarding union busting activities, where
they had this excellent parody video. You know, it's those
workplace videos that you have to watch when you're an
employee getting on boarded. It's like occasionally you may hear
your co workers say things like the following, and then
(45:47):
some comes out and there's like a little Tim and
Eric thing of you know, collective organizing. But we solve
our problems one to one because here at Cold Glomco,
we're a family. You know, there's a reason that people
are spending so much time and so much money for
seeing their employees to watch those videos. That's what I
(46:08):
think we need to start asking, you know. And that's
what we ask in Unions Part one and Part two,
which are out now wherever you find your favorite shows. Uh.
With this, we want to thank so many of our
fellow conspiracy realists too many to name right now. Thank
you to everyone who went on air with us. Thank
you to all the people who continue to write in
(46:29):
Stay safe out there, and if you want to be
part of this weekly segment, we'd love to hear from you.
We tried easy to find online, that's right, you can
find us on Facebook. You can find us on What's
the other One YouTube? You can find us on Twitter.
We are at the handle Conspiracy Stuff on Instagram or
Conspiracy Stuff Show. Check that account out. Lots of new
things popping over there. Definitely not the Conspiracy Stuff Show
(46:53):
account of Yesteryear's right. If you want to be like
text and Remy and even you, why not call one
eight three three st d w y t K and
leave us a message, give yourself a cool nickname when
you call in. Let us know if we can use
your message and voice on the air, and uh, you've
got three minutes. Say anything you want. We're interested in
(47:15):
your opinions, your experience, especially your experience that is very
helpful for us, as we illustrated in this episode. I
believe if you've got more to say, if you've got
images or anything else you want to share with us links,
why not instead send us a good old fashioned email.
We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff they
(47:51):
don't want you to know is a production of I
Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit
the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
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Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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