Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
NBC News Radio. I'm Lisa Taylor.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
President Trump's Peace and Prosperity tour in the Middle East
is making a stop and Cutter. Today, the President announced
new deals between Cutter and Boeing and the Department of Defense.
Boeing will be selling billions of dollars worth of planes
to the country and the DoD will be selling top
tier drones. Trump also pledged his commitment for peace in
the Middle East. There are over one million illegal immigrants
living in the country despite having final orders of deportation.
(00:27):
Acting ICE Director todd lyons as they are prioritizing the
worst of the worst.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
However, during our investigations and when we are out in
the communities, should we encounter someone that has a final order,
ICE is going to uphold their sworn duty.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Earlier this week, the FEDS in Texas said they deported
more than five hundred people and arrested more than four
hundred suspected illegal immigrants as part of a week long
operation in the Houston area.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
Too.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
They say had homicide convictions and one was convicted of
sexual exploitation of a miner. Lisa Taylor, NBC News Radio.
Not sure how much you know about progress of Insurance.
You may know us for insuring your home and auto.
You may know a couple of our commercials, But what
you may not know is that since twenty thirteen, Progressive
has been honoring veterans with vehicle donations through the annual
Keys to Progress Veteran vehicle Giveaway program, giving back to
(01:13):
those who gave so much. Now, you probably didn't wake
up today saying I really wish I knew more about
Progressive Insurance, but this seemed like the type of thing
people wouldn't mind hearing about. Find out more about how
we're dedicated to our customers and communities at Progressive dot com,
Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates.
Speaker 5 (01:30):
One of the best ways to build a healthier local
economy is by shopping locally. Teamster Advantage is a shop
local program started by Teamster Local nineteen thirty two that
is brought together hundreds of locally owned businesses to provide
discounts for residents who make shopping locally their priority, everything
from restaurants like Corky's to fund times at SB Raceway,
(01:54):
and much much more. If you're not currently a Teamster
and you want access to these local business discounts, contact
Jennifer at nine oh nine eight eight nine A three
seven seven extension two twenty four give her a call.
That number again is nine oh nine eight eight nine
(02:14):
A three seven seven extension two twenty four to Hebot
Club's original pure powdy rcosuper T comes from the only
tree in the world that fungus does not grow on.
As a result, it naturally has anti fungal, anti infection,
anti viral, antibacterial, anti inflammation, and anti parasite properties. So
the TA is great for healthy people because it helps
(02:36):
build the immune system, and it can truly be miraculous
for someone fighting a potentially life threatening disease due to
an infection, diabetes, or cancer. The T is also organic
and naturally caffeine free. A one pound package of T
is forty nine ninety five, which includes shipping. To order,
please visit to ebot club dot com. Thbo is spelled
T like tom, ahee B like oh. Then continue with
(03:01):
the word T and then the word club. The complete
website is to hubot club dot com or call us
at eight one eight sixty one zero eight zero eight
eight Monday through Saturday, nine am to five pm, California, time.
That's eight one eight sixty one zero eight zero eight
eight to ebot club dot com.
Speaker 6 (03:19):
I always hear from our clients who hired another firm
that they wish they'd hire DNA Financial first. Don't have
regrets about your IRS tax case. Just hire the best
in the first place.
Speaker 7 (03:27):
One owed one hundred fifty thousand to the IRS and
it's spent thousands on another firm. We stopped the levees
and negotiated a payment plan and had their penalties forgiving.
Speaker 6 (03:35):
And while every case is different, we guarantee that we'll
find your perfect resolution and get it done right.
Speaker 7 (03:39):
For a free consultation, call us at eight six six
two zero one zero one five six. That's eight sixty
six two zero one zero one five six. Then you
can say DNA.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
Did right buy me?
Speaker 8 (03:49):
Meet Barkley. When Barkley smells gas, he leaves fast. When
Barkley here's hissing coming from a gas appliance.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
Fast.
Speaker 8 (04:00):
When Barkley sees dird or water shooting from the ground,
he leaves fast. Barkley then calls nine one one and
Southwest Gas from a safe location.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
Did that dog just grab a phone and dial nine
one one?
Speaker 8 (04:14):
Gas lines can be buried anywhere, so remember to call
nine one one and Southwest Gas.
Speaker 9 (04:20):
Welcome to The Worker Power Hour with Randy Corrigan, a
brand new show about labor and worker issues. The host
of the show is Randy Corrigan, Secretary Treasurer and Principal
Office and leader of Teamsters nineteen thirty two, one of
the largest public sector labor unions on the West Coast,
representing workers in government and non sworn law enforcement personnel.
(04:41):
Randy Corgan is a thirty year Teamster who first became
involved in the labor movement by volunteering his time as
an organizer with.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
A Teamsters union at the age of twenty one.
Speaker 9 (04:50):
Since then, he's held thousands organized, mobilize and achieve bargaining rights.
He accomplished this by spending countless hours with brave men
and women all over Southern Cali in their living rooms
on the picket line to bring workers towards victory. This
is the Worker Power Hour, and now here's the host
of the show, Randy Corgan.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
Randy Corgan here in The Worker Power Hour ACAA ten
fifty AM one to six point five FM and the
Team Stars Vocal nineteen thirty two Broadcast Network Aerin Live
from San Bernardino. Welcome back, another show. Had a great
show last week, had great guests on last week. We've
had a lot happen in the last week, including a
(05:47):
lot of excitement on the picket lines, right, Mark and Robert,
I don't know.
Speaker 10 (05:52):
What you're talking about. I saw some excitement, but I'm
not sure who did it.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
Can you talk about it? Robert was standing over you know,
this is Robert new to the organization, so he watching him. So, yeah,
you have a year.
Speaker 11 (06:06):
Yeah, yeah, and I've seen some crazy stuff, but we
can talk about that some other time.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
Well, I'm gonna pull you. I'm going to pull the
two of you into some of these conversations over the
next couple hours. We're going to have some fun with it.
Speaker 10 (06:20):
I saw a history lesson.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
Yeah, yeah, I gave a truck driver a history lesson.
Got him to understand that essentially every rule in trucking
that that benefits the driver was brought to brought to
them by the teamsters. He at the end, he did,
He absolutely did. But yeah, we've had a very exciting week.
I'll be reporting on that in a few minutes. And
(06:44):
I've also learned that my staff really likes it. If
I show up to a picket line at three in
the morning before a staff meeting, that I seem to
be in a really good mood. If I'm on a
picket line for three or four or five I guess
in that case, five hours before the before the staff
meeting started.
Speaker 10 (07:01):
Yeah, that's better than prozac for you. That's like it's therapy.
Speaker 4 (07:05):
I'm telling you. I have a great time on the
pick of line, and I thought it.
Speaker 11 (07:08):
Was gonna be the opposite. I thought you were going
to go to the staff meeting, Matt, but I was
shocked to learn that it was.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
It's no. You get to take out all your frustrations
on a pick of line. That's what I love about it,
Like all your energy gets released, and you know, you
get to you get to you get to educate people
on the process. You get to explain to police officers
that show up and try to violate your civil rights
and how they could leave you know, it's a civil matter.
(07:35):
I basically, you know, explained to them. I mean I
used more colorful words. We're on live radio here, so
I can't use those words. But after we educated them
on what to do, I told them you could leave now,
and they did. Everybody's kind of shocked. They're like, I
don't understand. You know who's the most shocked is always
the employer. The employer is like, we called the cops.
(07:57):
How come the cops are leaving and the cops aren't
helping us?
Speaker 10 (08:00):
Wait a minute, that's not what's supposed to happen.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
Right, Like, well, it's because there's there's the law, and
if you know the law while you're on the picket line,
and you know exactly how to utilize it, you're not
going to allow your rights to be violated. And that
is exactly what we've been doing. It's it's it's fun.
And as an inside joke, there's still a fifteen minute
ordinance that that they're.
Speaker 10 (08:25):
Still looking for it.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
They're still trying to find that fifteen minute ordinance that
we got away with for a bit. It's yeah, different rules, yeah, yeah, different.
It's over the city line, over the county line. No,
it's it's good. I'll get into some more of those
details earlier. But for those of you have not been
with me on a picket line, you have not been
able to, in my opinion, enjoy me having an incredible
(08:49):
amount of fun. Typically I I it's a space that
I feel like we can you know, workers are exercising
their rights, and there's nothing more powerful than that because
every rule that workers have in this country, every benefit,
every weekend, eight hour workday, healthcare, whatever it is, those
(09:13):
all those rights were won by workers doing exactly what
we're experiencing on a picket line. Workers with holding their
labor in one form or another to prove a point
is what drives it for everybody else to benefit. And
so millions of people every day benefit from workers that
have gone on strike, and those millions of people that
(09:33):
have never had to go on strike benefit from those
very things that those workers have went on strike for.
It's always fun to be in the space where workers
are exercising that and they see how powerful that they
can be, in this case with a forty four billion
dollar corporation that they're exercising their right and withholding their
(09:54):
labor from. And again I'll get into those specifics a
little later, but I just really wanted at the top
of wanted to share my enthusiasm, especially for the workers themselves,
these workers in Victorville, seeing what they're fighting for. You know,
this is an area up in Victorville. They don't pay
a lot of people a lot And the reason why
they say is because, oh, the area doesn't drive good wages.
(10:18):
It's like these corporations have got it backwards. These big
corporations that land in a city like Victorville, knowe you're
supposed to pay more because if you pay more, then
people can buy homes, buy cars, buy goods and services
and it becomes very cyclical in a positive way for
the local economy. Instead, what they do is they more like, oh, well,
(10:38):
we can pay less than we're paying in other areas
because the cost of living is low. Well, the cost
of living is low because you're driving down the cost
of living by not paying enough. And you know, it's
the cart before the WHRSE sort of scenario. And so
I'm just really proud of these workers at Curig Doctor Pepper,
which is the old seven up, and just proud of
(11:00):
what they're doing. It's awesome to see them sticking together.
And then their picket lines have been extended to the
city of Vernon, to city of Riverside, to the city
of Palm Springs, to the city of San Fernando and
the city of Ventura and the city of Orange, and
all of those workers at all those facilities that those
(11:20):
those picket lines were extended to have walked off the
job as well. And so the company has flown in
a whole bunch of scabs to try to operate. And
I'll get into some of those specifics in a bit.
I just at the top of the hour, just wanted
to set the tone as to where we are and
what we're doing and why we got a little bit
of a skip in our step. And you know, Robert,
(11:41):
I think that I think it's funny that you thought
I would be upset after spending five hours on a
picket line. Like it's the complete opposite. It's like for me,
that's like working out. It's like it's like going to
the gym, and and when you after you get out
of the gym, you're like, like, you want to great mood,
you want to conquer the world. You got all your
(12:02):
endorphins running picking lines of my gym.
Speaker 11 (12:05):
Yeah, because at the staff meeting you were very like complimentary,
and I you know, usually the staff meetings at a
little rough sometimes at least for me. And so even
though you're not picking on me individually, but it's like,
you know, a little rough, but yeah, and then I.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
Mark's looking at your cross side right now. He's never
seen me get rough with you in the staff meeting.
Speaker 11 (12:23):
And then I walk into the staff meeting at nine
am and I'm like, oh wow, like he's in a
good mood. O.
Speaker 10 (12:26):
Hey, Robert, tell me what rough is?
Speaker 11 (12:28):
Right? So anyways, yeah, it was.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
It was a good staff So anyway, a quick recap
from last week's show from May seventh and uh, actually sorry, yeah,
May seventh, right, yeah, because stay's the fourteenth.
Speaker 12 (12:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
Seeh I don't even have my dates stretch. I've been
on a picking line too much here recently, back to
back and forgetting about what day of the week it is.
Speaker 10 (12:52):
That's what happens. You got up at midnight.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
Exactly, very true. So we had we had James Martinez
on and we've got this new little segment of the
show where he's volunteering to do volunteering to do James
Bites back where he gets to go to these our
Tha partners and sample the food and maybe sample some
of the services they provide. And he did a really
good job last week of talking about the donuts that
(13:18):
he got from Donut Town and Doe and then he
went to what was that Mexican food place up in Victorville.
Lost Poilos Brothers, Yeah, Lost poils Brothers, and he gave up.
He did a really good job of describing the food
and describing what he liked. And I was surprised that
he wasn't comatos after how much he ate literally in
(13:39):
the one day. Yeah, diabetic. Yeah, like it's just man like,
more power to him. And and he's I think we're
onto something that's going to be fun. It's he and
he's enjoying it, and he's looking forward to next month.
Actually we have to Yeah, he's looking forward to the
next show. We're going to do it probably once a month,
and he's going to review a few places that he went.
(14:00):
And so we also were joined by Ryan Ward. He
was a public defender investigator from sam Bardino County and
also very proud teamster man. He did a really good
job talking about what that role is. And you know,
people sometimes they forget they think teamsters are just truck drivers,
and you know, really, actually truck drivers is one of
the smallest units we represent. We actually represent lots of
(14:21):
professionals throughout the United States. And he's an investigator, Public
defender investigator, and he really talked about some of the
intricacies of what he does and we really appreciate him
coming on the show and I hope we can hear
from him more in the future. And then we were
joined by our very own Mario Vasquez, who was on
(14:42):
the line to pick a line up there and we
had some workers they videoed in and we got to
see him live and hear from them live on the
pick and line, and they got to talk about what
they do and what they're doing out there and what
a great job they're doing. Hopefully and hopefully they're listening
again right now live and we're talking about you all again.
You guys, keep it up. You're doing a great job.
(15:03):
They're holding down the line at Doctor Pepper. Now you've
extended your strike to five more locations in southern California.
So it was great having them all on. This is
a reminder to download the KSEAA app in the Apple Store,
Google play Store, and if you want to reach our
radio show, please contact us at radio show at Teamsters
nineteen thirty two dot org. And so the next part
(15:25):
of our show is live shout outs. I'm going to
get into those and we have listening live from throughout
the area. Whether you're listening on the app, or you're
listening on the radio or AM or FM, or you
could be very well watching us here on the screen.
Many of you tell me that you actually watch the
(15:47):
show live on I think it's Rumble or Kick or
a few of them, and you can actually see. You
can video in and watch what we got, what we're
doing in here. Make sure we're not doing anything inappropriate
that would be allegedly on the picket line anyway. So
we have Andrew Marquez from West Valley Detention Center Medical.
(16:08):
We have Ryan Ward, he is listening in a live
We had him, Thanks for coming on the show. Last week.
We had a We had Kat Cato from Public Health.
Good to see that you were up on the line
actually a couple of days ago, by the way, thanks
for getting out their cat. Also Warren Pennington from Desert
Water Agency, Ruben Gallardo from Redlands Wastewater, Ron Garcia from
(16:29):
Sunline Transit. We also have Christina or Christine Montoya from
the City of Asparia. We have Sandy Cabrera, AARMC X Ray,
Charmaine Bamo from h VP. We also have Charmaine Cole
from Register of Voters. We have Lisa Vasquez from ARMC.
(16:50):
We have Anita Ruis from AARMC. Vanessa Batter from ARMC,
Eric Zang from ARMC Info Manager. We have the Westminster
PSD site listening in as a whole. Thanks for listening in, crew,
we really appreciate it. Eric Hatfield from L and M.
We also have Program Integrity Department and Risk Management Department
(17:14):
listening in. Tina Avolos, Morgan, Alejandro Ariando, Cassandra Bishop or
buy up. Maybe there's a typo there from Redlands TA
Redlands tat if I butcher your name, My apologies. Jonathan
Guteris and Karen Tinsley from ID. William Guzman Building Inspector,
(17:34):
City at Needles, Susan Lofton and Kirk Garrison as always
listening in from the Sheriff's Department. We're gonna get you
guys an award for listening to the most shows. It's
close between you and a couple others. William Guzman Building
inspect I'm sorry, Nadal Raffiti AARMC. Brandy Nichols from AARMC
HIM department today she is retiring from the county. Last day.
(17:56):
Congratulations Brandy, appreciate you listening and live, and why don't
we get you in on the show and you can
talk about your amazing career if you just retired. I
have and Cruz tad O one, Robert Herita and as
well as Lissandro Diaz, the City of Coachella members and
John Gamboa from SBCs. So there's our live shout outs.
(18:21):
If I missed you, I know, I got a couple
of text messages here from a couple I have. Oh
this is funny. Ryan frankin retiree from Arizona. He's just
sent me an ear so I am assuming he's listening
in life. That's good. I like that, Ryan, Good, good one.
I appreciate you listening all the way from Wickenberg, Arizona.
(18:42):
I'm assuming he's doing it via the app. Yeah, text me, Ryan,
I want to know you're doing it at the app.
Are you actually watching on the screen through the through
the website. I'll check back that in a minute. And
so our our fun facts this part of the show
where we go over some of our fun facts. We're
(19:02):
going to do a job member highlight, a member job highlight,
and two labor wins The first one is the City
of Pomona. This is interesting. You might not think that
these are teamsters, but your crime scene investigators are teamsters.
In the City of Pomona, we represent a variety of
employees from all types of different classifications, and one of
(19:22):
those in the non sworn is the crime scene investigators.
The crime scene investigators at the City of Pomona are
responsible for crime scene documentation, evidence collection like fingerprints, blood weapons,
trace materials, processing evidence, and much more. This is as
a matter of fact, someone on our staff used to
do this job, Sherry, for many years, and I think
(19:45):
she's a trainer in this She's an educator in this
space and trains dozens and dozens of people every single
year on how to do the job and very very
difficult job. Think about how hard it would be to
going into a crime scene and having to to piece
everything together and essentially try to remake what's going on.
(20:05):
It's got to be challenging mentally as well as emotionally,
and you know, grueling. You know, imagine a tough scene
where you got to be there twelve, sixteen, eighteen, twenty hours.
I've heard sometimes them being there, you know, as many
as you know, like twenty four hours straight having to
until you've collected everything and done everything. So we really
appreciate the work that you do there in the City
(20:26):
of Pomona and the crime scene investigators. We also represent
some of those individuals and some other cities will cover
them at a later date. Our labor wins the University
of Oregon Student Workers Union and University of Oregon they
reach a tentative agreement after a strike that lasted more
than a week, The University of Oregon Student Workers Union
and the university itself have announced that they have come
(20:49):
to a tentative agreement on a labor contract. Student workers
at the University of Oregon walked off the job the
morning of April twenty eighth after eleven months of failed
negotiations with the universities to see if they got a deal.
They got it done. Union groups. The next item is
a union groups needed one hundred and forty thousand utons.
(21:09):
That's how you call it utons? People of Utah.
Speaker 11 (21:12):
Yeah, Utons like Californians by Utahs.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
Like that's tough. That's like tough to say. Utons like
you feel you feel? I wonder if they call themselves utons.
Speaker 10 (21:22):
Is that a new utensil?
Speaker 4 (21:23):
Yeah, U Tongus's just call it the people from Utah
to support a referendum. In case this doesn't exist, maybe
they don't call themselves utons. They got more than a
quarter million signatures labor groups. As matter of fact, we're
going to have someone on the other side of the
show at the three o'clock hour. That was part of
making sure that this happened. And labor groups had thirty
(21:46):
days to get one hundred and forty thousand signatures to
put a referendum on the ballot, asking Utah voters if
they want to repeal a new law barring public employee
unions from negotiating contracts with their government employers. They ended
up with over two hundred and fifty thousand valid signatures,
making it the most successful signature gathering effort in the
state in their history of the state, according to a
(22:09):
Lieutenant Governor's office, racking up in more than one hundred
thousand more names than the previous record set in twenty eighteen.
And ironically that was set because of medical marijuana, and
so labor has beat medical marijuana as far as an
initiative is concerned. That makes me proud if we can
always beat out pot, marijuana, cannabis, whatever we want to
(22:35):
call it. So what I'm gonna do with news is
I'm actually going to kick news to the other side
of the break that we do on the bottom of
this and the bottom of this show, and I'm going
to bring in our Teamster Advantage partner. Our Teamster Advantage
program is one of at least my favorite program on
the organization because we have more than a thousand small
(22:57):
businesses connected to our network and it's our our contribution
to advertising Forum for free. We bring them on a
radio show, we have them as part of our app.
We send out push notifications as part of the Teams
to Advantage app. We remind all of our members to
try to vote or excuse me, to try to shop local,
stay connected to local businesses and instead of you know,
(23:18):
going to the big box stores or some big corporate
owned entity, make sure that you're participating with small business
because the small business owners and those that work for
the small businesses, they're you know, middle class people just
trying to raise their family, get their kids to sports
like everybody else's and you know, we got to really, really,
you know, spend time purposely advertising for them and helping
(23:42):
them and as part of our partnership with more than
twenty five Chambers of commerce throughout the Inland Empire, it's
part of us bringing an awareness that unions are good
for the local economy. Again, you know this is we
don't charge anybody for participating in the program, and our
members love it. Our members love to connect to these
small businesses and some of them do really well in it.
(24:04):
Some of them don't get a lot of hits on it,
but at the end of the day, they're not paying
for anything, so there's no loss to the small business.
And with that, I have Angel Rodriguez from lit Well
Signs in up in Victorville, right.
Speaker 13 (24:18):
Correct, Thank you guys for having me on first and foremost.
Speaker 4 (24:20):
Yeah, Angel, thanks for coming on. Why don't you tell
us about your small business and what you do. And
you're a brand new We just signed you up like
a week ago, right, you.
Speaker 13 (24:30):
Guys came by last week.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 13 (24:32):
So we're family owned business in Victorville, California, a little
over twelve years of experience in the high desert.
Speaker 4 (24:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 13 (24:40):
We do everything, wraps, everything, signs, interior, exterior. We'd like
to take your business and just personalize it from front
to back. So if Robert was coming and starting his
business and he said, hey, I have this idea and
I have a location, and I would go take a
walk with him and pitch our ideas or what we
think works. And we have designers who can create something
that hopefully brings his vision to life, and you know,
(25:03):
design it, manufacture it, pull the permits or anything in
the city if we need to, and then bring it
to life. Forty We do do a lot of work
in the high desert, so Cow, as far out as Vegas,
you know, Barstow all over California. As we continue to
expand we have, we changed the name so priory it
was seven to sixty. We changed a little well signs
(25:24):
as we expand. We look forward to working with you guys.
We're glad to be a part of the team stairs
and we do give a ten percent discount for stuff
like that. But yeah, just a little little rundown.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
So I imagine you do some pretty interesting things. I
know I had. I had a Cagor Raider repped, Okay,
so I know when I brought that into Yeah, yeah guy,
this was man, this is years ago. It's like twelve
thirteen years ago, I bought an old CagA Raider. Huh.
Actually I got an old Cagor Rader from somebody. They
was just sitting in their backyard, still worked. It looked horrible,
(25:56):
so I took it in. I had them with our
Union Service logan. I had them wrap it with the
Union Service logo, and I mean it just came out.
It took something that was old and ugly and just
made it look like a centerpiece in the room. Like
everybody's like, man, where'd you get that fridger. I'm like,
that's like twenty five years old. But I put a
(26:17):
fresh rap on it and it looks amazing.
Speaker 13 (26:19):
I don't think a lot of people understand how much
we can do. So if you walk into our office,
a lot of the walls are wrapped and you might
not even notice that, or desk or fridge or you know, helmets, boats, canams, RVs.
Pretty much anything we can we can wrap.
Speaker 4 (26:36):
So what's the craziest thing you've wrapped? Craziest? I mean,
for me, the craziest thing I wrapped was obviously.
Speaker 13 (26:46):
I think we did some large fridges that were pretty cool.
They came out pretty cool for a.
Speaker 4 (26:52):
It was a local company.
Speaker 13 (26:53):
I can't remember the name, but it was the first
time that we wrapped the fridge and it was huge.
It was a huge fridge custom design. But I think
that was the kind of most outlandish or different thing
that we've done. For me, the creative stuff is what's
the coolest. I think we had somebody come in I
think last month. That's uh, he's from Atlanta. He's a
huge Falcons fan. He has a big o twenty five
(27:14):
hundred truck that we custom through the Falcons logo on there.
Speaker 4 (27:18):
And when we see the truck in the Falcons wrap,
we're gonna know you exactly exactly.
Speaker 13 (27:22):
So like, the custom stuff is more what I like
or pride myself in. I mean we have a unique yeah, definitely,
And it's cool to see when somebody comes in with
an idea how we can create something with that and
bring it to life for them. And I think that's
that's a great experience.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
So, like, what does it cost to get like a
truck wrapped, you know, just like an average here.
Speaker 13 (27:44):
Yeah, so full wps kind of range anywhere from two
to four grand. Again, it depends on the condition of
the vehicle currently to make what material we use to wrap.
What kind of protection you want to have. There's kind
of variables that go into it. But in terms for
a full rap, you're looking anywhere from two to four
grand on your average vehicle. Bigger vehicles could be a
(28:05):
little bit more, Smaller vehicles a little bit less.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
Does what the graphics look like matter and the price
is it going to increase or is it really not
matter too much?
Speaker 13 (28:11):
Again, we enjoy doing those things, so we I kind
of prefer that we you don't. You just have a
name and you kind of just give us the creative
and you roll with yeah, and then we can just
show you something and say, hey, I like that, but
I want to throw this in there or that in there,
and then once we come to something that we both
agree on, we'll bring it to life for you.
Speaker 4 (28:30):
Any funny stories you got anything kind of crazy funny?
Speaker 12 (28:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 13 (28:35):
I think on some some of the like installs and
stuff can get a little crazy out there with the
wind there. I think we just did some We just
did some work for someone forward up there. It was
pretty cool.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
They got a.
Speaker 13 (28:44):
Commercial going and we wrap some of their vehicles. So
just I think us being in the community and seeing
people and just seeing the the work out there is
what's that's the coolest thing. I don't know if I
have anything too funny. It's more more serious, not serious.
Speaker 4 (28:59):
But you didn't have like a like a boyfriend, girlfriend
or husband and wife like getting a fight or something
and then and then maybe reconcile, and then somebody had
to put the husband or the wife face on the car,
you know what I mean, like, yeah, this is my
wife or this is my husband. I don't know.
Speaker 13 (29:19):
We see a lot of a lot of the pinks.
So a lot of the women are coming in for pinks,
and you could just always see the men's faces are
a little word because they might have to drive that
car or something.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
But yeah, it's just just a pink wrap by itself.
Speaker 13 (29:34):
Yeah, then straight up the bright pinks or fluorescent pinks.
There's so many different options, but you can always see
in the men's faces it's like, all right, you know,
we have.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
To do it. But then they do.
Speaker 13 (29:45):
The men do some cool things as well, like the
falcons one or just other.
Speaker 4 (29:48):
I'm sure the girlfriend or the wife doesn't want to
drive around the big old falcons, right, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 13 (29:53):
But the creativity is what's what's cool.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
We do a lot of.
Speaker 13 (29:56):
Work for Victorville, victor Valley Community College up there, wrap
some of their semis, so they're you know, twenty twenty
five feet semis that we get to wrap. So seeing
those out on the road or parked and displayed is
pretty cool to see as well.
Speaker 4 (30:09):
How long does a wrap work or how long does
it does it survive? Obviously in Victorville you're in the
sun for five months out of the year. That's blazing.
Speaker 13 (30:17):
Yeah, so that's a Again, it depends on how well
you take care of it, what material we're using. Generically
they say three to five years. If you're gonna park
it in the garage, you can get a little more
out of that. You can do a ceramic coat to
the rap, which helps extend the life of the rap,
but three to five years is typically what they say.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
Okay, well, and I love this ten percent. I mean imagine,
you know, you you do something that price big of
a price tag, that's a big pop for it. Yeah.
Our main thing, great discount.
Speaker 13 (30:43):
What I want to do is build a relationship with you.
So again, this might be your first business, it might
be your first go around. I care more about building
that relationship so that when you're second, third, fourth, business open,
where are the guys that you come to?
Speaker 4 (30:55):
Yeah, this guy thinking ahead, thinking ahead? Anything else you
want to cover before we take a quick break and
and go to our next part of the show. This
is your is where you get to check us out?
Or have you been telling everybody you're gonna be on
the radio.
Speaker 13 (31:08):
Yeah, I've been telling everybody we're gonna be on to
tune in and check it out again.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
I appreciate you guys coming by.
Speaker 13 (31:12):
If you guys want to check us out on Instagram,
it's at well signs l I T W E L
L S I G N S. You can see some
of our work on there. And then if you guys
have any questions or anything you know, obviously feel free
to reach out and we'd love to work with you.
Speaker 4 (31:26):
Well, I'm sure you've driven around. You drove around the building,
and you see we love our logo right at a
logo everywhere. Yeah, So any ideas you know, not necessarily
right now, but any ideas you can come up with.
You know, we we're always we have a bunch of
billboards in the area, electronic billboards. We we obviously have
the radio show. We're We're all about getting our brand out.
(31:47):
So if there's things you can think of to help
us along that you know, we could utilize you for,
we're definitely you know, we're in so, so you know,
feel free to get creative. That that logo you have
right behind you, the work of Power logo, we're really
pounding that and we see a lot of people really
enjoying that, so you know, feel free to definitely just
(32:08):
don't repeat that logo. We'll come hunch, We'll have a
pickot line at your facility. Definitely.
Speaker 13 (32:13):
Oh yeah, we appreciate it, and yeah, I appreciate you
guys having me.
Speaker 11 (32:16):
Also, where's the name come from? Littwell, because like the
first so.
Speaker 13 (32:20):
We actually started in the High Desert. It was called
seven sixty wraps and signed seven to six. That is
the area code for the High Desert. As we've expanded
and kind of outgrown that and aren't reaching other places
outside the state or even farther in the state, we
just wanted to get a feel for something that everybody
can relate to. So if we're getting somebody from Texas
who needs something, he's not gonna know yeah what is right?
Speaker 4 (32:40):
So it's cool.
Speaker 13 (32:41):
It worked for us for a while. But this is
just our way of growing and expanding and getting out.
Speaker 11 (32:45):
There from like you know, I was like, oh a bro,
that's lit.
Speaker 13 (32:48):
Yeah, it's similar to that. Yeah, trying to keep it
trending but still corporate at the same time. The slogan
is illuminating signs, one idea at a time.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
Yeah, So there you go. Cool. Well, this is Randy
Corgan and the Work of Power. R casey AA ten
fifty AMIN six point five FM and the Teamsters nineteen
thirty two Broadcast Network Live from San Bernardino. Let's take
a quick break. We'll catch you on the other side.
Speaker 14 (33:19):
Ship that ice coat, Michelle, fight for that white coat.
Just one for them, hood girls, damn good, Giron straight, masterpiece,
silent Violin, living it up in the city, got chucks
up with Saint La.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Rob gotta kiss himself.
Speaker 11 (33:34):
I'm so pretty.
Speaker 14 (33:38):
The police and the fire made them too hot. Make
a dragon one on a rettile, make them too hot.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Say my name, you know.
Speaker 11 (33:47):
Who I.
Speaker 14 (33:50):
And my man about that breaking man girls hit Hallelujah,
Girls said hallelujah. Girls said to hallelujah because I'm saying
I don't give it to you, because that and it's Saturday.
We don't believe it?
Speaker 4 (34:08):
Just why.
Speaker 14 (34:15):
Don't believe me? Just wine, don't believe me? Just win,
don't believe me, just win, do believe me, just ware,
do believe it? Just n hey, hey, hey, wait a minute,
(34:36):
so my cup because something get in it? Sick a
sip signed the check, PULLI out, get the stretcher, grabs
the hollow Hollywood Jackson in Mississippi.
Speaker 11 (34:46):
If we show up, were gonna show up?
Speaker 4 (34:48):
Smooth it in a fresh ask.
Speaker 14 (34:50):
You got a poly ser fire minute looks so fat
like a dragon over of its fire man looks so hot.
Speaker 11 (35:01):
Next say my name? You know who I ain't not
too high?
Speaker 14 (35:05):
My man bout that money breaking bad Girls said hallelujah.
Girls said hallelujah. Girl said you hallelujah.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Because I'm telling funk.
Speaker 4 (35:14):
Don't give it to you.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
Because I.
Speaker 14 (35:18):
Because I'm tell't it's Saturday. Don't believe me? Just why
I don't believe me? Just whine, don't believe me, Just whine,
(35:41):
don't believe me? Just why don't believe me? Just why
don't believe me?
Speaker 4 (35:46):
Just win? What we leave, let me sell We're back.
Randy Corgan is the work of power. Hour, Casey ten
one six point five FM and the Teamsters nineteen thirty
two Broadcasts Network. That was pretty good. He did a
(36:09):
he was great. That's great. That was a nice and
it didn't have to help him along. He did a
good job of describing the business. That was That was
really good. He did a great job.
Speaker 10 (36:18):
Sounds like they're covering a lot of ground.
Speaker 4 (36:19):
Yeah, it looks like a lot of people are moving
to wraps.
Speaker 10 (36:23):
I talked to him about the lights out at the
Needle's office. He goes, We'll come out there.
Speaker 4 (36:27):
That's nice. Yeah, great, Yeah, especially not being limited on
distance him, you know, willing to go to Vegas and
expand it. They're out hustling. That's good. That's awesome. So
I'm gonna I'm gonna get into some labor news and
all that this side of the hour. We got a
lot of stuff going on, a lot of stuff's been happening,
and a lot of stuff in the local actually, a
(36:50):
lot of positive stuff been happening where you know, people
have been getting like you know, terminations overturned and reduced
and getting contracts are ready to be ratified, tentative agreements done.
I'm going to go through name some of those here
in a few minutes, but I know, you know, there's
I'll get into some of the negative news here and
(37:11):
here briefly, but you know, there's also a lot of
positive to reporting on. We got to make sure that
we focus everybody on what we can do versus what
we don't like going on around us. Otherwise we ended
up so we end up so negative, we can't get
anything done. In California. It looks like the Democrats are
seeking to to you know, really seeking the California governor's race.
(37:35):
And I guess the way this headline is labeled is
kiss labor's ring really realizing that labor has a big
influence in the outcome of elections, and they're working pretty hard.
This week, the California Labor Federation is actually hosting their
(37:56):
annual legislative conference where a panel that hosted last night
for candidates running for governor and Lorena Gonzalez, head of
the California Labor Federation, and Chris Hannah, a hand in,
a president of the building Trades. They were shooting candidates,
excuse me, shooting candidates, shooting questions at the candidates. See
(38:16):
I got the picket line in my head they're shooting candidates.
What a funny slip.
Speaker 10 (38:22):
You're going to make the Apple newscast after that one.
Speaker 4 (38:24):
That's hilarious. That's great. They were shooting candidates, you know,
they were shooting the questions. The candidates were asked to
waive flags indicating whether they supported various union objectives such
as striking, benefits for workers who go on strike, among
other things. I know we've got some stuff on the
(38:46):
table there, like what happens to on picket lines, picket
line activity. Lorena has been a huge advocate for us
in some of this space that we've been running into
where some of the law enforcement agencies are pushing back,
and we've leave that legislators and the governor can move
some things along to help striking workers not just for
(39:06):
pay but also their protected concerted activities. And during the panel,
Lourena Gonzalez not only shot the candidates but also said,
think about the question before you answer, because you know
I'll hold you to account. She's very assertive, absolutely willing
(39:27):
to put her neck on the line and say it
like it is. We really appreciate the relationship we have
with Lorana. She actually comes here at least once a year,
if not a couple of times a year for different functions,
primarily usually our Women's Conference for schedule permits. And so
that's great, it's good to see. Not sure if the
Republicans are going to reach out to us and ask
(39:48):
for our endorsement in the California governor's race. They usually
don't do that. They usually stay away. And I know
we got a lot of listeners that are Republican, and
that's okay. You challenger party to court the labor more
and to align themselves with labor. I know that the
Republicans say that they speak for working people. However, a
(40:10):
lot of the policies that typically happen, the Republicans are
behind a lot of the negative policies. So I'm hopeful,
always hopeful that my former party, which is the Republican Party,
could be better at supporting labor. And I think that
internally we can challenge them, and I challenge all of
you to do that very thing. The next item in
(40:31):
the news this is MPR. Some would want to eliminate MPR,
which I think is crazy. News has slided enough to
corporate America. We need more public radio and we need
more neutral radio. Every since the media doctrine was eliminated,
and for those of you that haven't looked that up yet,
(40:51):
you need to look that up. Because it used to
be news and the media had to be fair and balanced.
There was a requirement. That requirement was eliminated. And that's
why you have the problem you do now with media
is it is way way to cited one way or
the other, and it is it's now entertainment. It's not
(41:11):
really news anymore. And we need more organizations like NPR, PBS,
Public Broadcasting, and really neutral news to tell it like
it is versus it always having some sort of slant
or spin. And so NPR has reported that federal employee
unions are fight their fight for survival as Trump tries
(41:34):
to eviscerate them. Trump has argued that having to negotiate
with unions over workplace matters impedes his ability to manage
the government as he sees fit. I find this quote
like absolutely hilarious, Like that's kind of the point of
a union contract is to prevent the person in charge
(41:56):
from running it as you see fit. I guess yet
that you think that you know what's best for the government.
I'm not as trusting of somebody who's bankrupted multiple organizations
multiple times over their career. So I think it's really
imperative that workers have a union contract to help protect
them from the whims of a powerful individual or somebody
(42:21):
who is in control. And so the New York University
Law Review article by Nicholas Handler, who's an associate professor
of law at Texas A and M School of Law,
argues that collective bargaining serves as a check on presidential power.
(42:41):
And I think it's really important to recognize that because
even in big corporations and big companies that want that,
there's a lot of them that don't oppose unionization because
they realize that that there needs to be a union
contract in place to hold a balance for supervision or
(43:04):
managers or those that are in charge. And this is
a great example of that that there has to be
a check on that power, and that those binding agreements
that are negotiated, you know, over personnel matters, you know,
those things regarding your performance and working conditions or grievance procedures.
You know, the quote of to restrain and reshape the
(43:27):
presidential power to manage the federal employee of federal bureaucracy.
That's exactly the point, Like you can't allow an individual
person to know just whimsically say well, I don't like
certain people, I don't like certain situations, and I don't
like stuff and just wipe out let's say policy, working conditions,
(43:49):
or how reviews are handled, or how someone's performance or
hiring practices, whatever it may be. There's thousands and thousands
of issues that go into collective bargaining and so so
coming from a candidate that, when he was a candidate
said he was for the working people. If you're for
the working people, you will not oppose union contracts. And
some will say, oh, well, the government is full of waste. Well,
(44:13):
the president or any other institution can sit down and
say we're going to reduce the workforce by certain percentage,
and we're going to sit down with the unions and
we're going to negotiate the impact of how that happens.
So you're not just going to say, you know, pick
arbitrarily how you want to do it. The reality is
(44:34):
is the point of having a union contract is to
prevent the abuse of that power specifically, and civil servants
didn't always have this leverage. As a matter of fact,
the first half of the twentieth century, labor unions, you know,
it was only the private sector they were allowed to represent.
The public sector was left out, and it wasn't until
(44:55):
the sixties that public employees gained the right to bargain.
And now, you know, it's got good it's supposed to
have good benefits, and we can see over the last
few decades that retirement plans and benefits and pay in
the public sector has eroded as a result of it.
I'm not saying for everybody, but I know that we
(45:17):
represent fifteen thousand, actually, we represent sixteen thousand public sector
workers in the Inland Empire here at the local union.
And I can't imagine what these employers would do if
there was no collective bargaining for them. Imagine if the
cities and the county and everybody could just do whatever
they wanted. There'd be no check on them. That's not
(45:39):
you know, that's not going to bode well for them.
The best example I could give is police officers in
the nineteen fifties, sixties. Matter of fact, there's a lot
of corruption, there was a lot of they were on
the take and they didn't you know, they didn't get
paid well. And that's what you get when when the
(46:03):
money is not there or being spent in a way
that's going to take care of those that are taking
care of the community. So it's really important for us
to you know, pay attention to these things and make
sure that we make sure that balance is there, and
we remind everybody that that we are, you know, not
just going to roll over here, you know, just as
(46:24):
a great reminder, you know, air traffic controllers in the eighties,
we're fired in mass and you know it, it it.
You know, that was Reagan who was endorsed by a
lot of unions at the time, and you know, he
he he, you know. And now it's funny to see
all these challenges. You see TSA losing their collective bargaining rights.
(46:49):
So it's interesting to see these things come back full
circle again. You know, I guess now thirty forty years late,
thirty five forty years later, we just got to pay attention.
We've got to the one thing we have to do
is just make sure that we protect our collective bargaining
rights and others. Don't just sit on the sidelines while
someone else is being swiped away, while someone else's rights
are being kicked to the curb and say, well, it
(47:10):
doesn't affect me now, so I'm not going to say anything. Well,
any of that attitude won't bode well in the long
for us. And quite frankly, when you see hundreds of
thousands of workers losing their rights, arguably millions, at some point,
it's going to come and it's going to land on
your doorstep too. And so Colorado and the next thing
in the news, Colorado has a they got this weird
(47:34):
right to work law in the state, and they're so
called blue status is kind of tarnished a bit by
this prominent red mark, and they have a they've always
had this kind of pseudo right to work element where
even after somebody had won a union election or one election,
(47:57):
they also had to have another vote afterwards to have
union security in it. So there was like always two
votes and that's kind of ridiculous. But the legislature passed
SB twenty five zero zero five, which eliminates the requirement
(48:19):
for a second election to negotiate a union security agreement.
That's the contract. However, the Democratic governor says that he
plans to veto the bill to keep the state aligned
with right to work states, which is like and please
look up the history of right to work. Please, this
isn't a partisan issue. This is really a human rights issue.
(48:44):
And you know, right to work laws clearly identify and
recognize that they support corporate America. And you know, I
think corporate America is doing plenty fine. They're in control
of our country right now, so and they're making money,
they're deciding to do what they want on a large scale,
(49:07):
and a lot of ways hurts the little guy. So
you know, with that, let me move on to IBT News.
Teamsters call on Texas lawmakers to support driverless vehicle bill.
The teamsters are calling on Texas lawmakers to pass House
Bill forty four zero two, which is HB forty four
zero two, a critical legislation requiring trained human operators in
(49:27):
autonomous vehicles, following its passage out of the Texas House
Committee on Transportation, and from what I understand, this is bipartisan.
The push for AV regulation comes as the tech company
Aurora begins operating full fully driverless vehicles on Texas roads
despite serious concerns about safety and accountability. The company announced
(49:50):
plans to remove safety drivers from its trucks starting this month.
Let me know how that works out for you. When
you run over a family, that's just it's bound to happen.
It's going to happen. We know what's going to happen.
I don't know why people are falling victim to this
thinking it's okay to have a big rig or any
(50:11):
vehicle operate without a human operator. I'm fine, you want
the vehicle to run itself, but you should always have
a human inside of it to be able to take
the controls to deal with the things that a computer
can't deal with. If we're going to acquiesce ourselves that
humans do not need to do that basic function anymore, boy,
(50:32):
we're in trouble, everybody. So the next thing I want
to report on is the teamsters at the Albertsons at
Albertson's vote to overwhelmingly authorize a strike in Texas. Over
ninety drivers at Albertsons, represented by Local seven forty five,
have voted by more than ninety seven percent to authorize
a strike in response to the company's repeated refusal to
(50:54):
offer a fair contract. Instead, Albertson's management is pushing to
include contract language that would allow the use of unsafe
unregulated autonomous trucks. Imagine that. See you allow this to
happen and then all of a sudden, we don't have
any truck drivers. So you may say, oh, we don't
need any Okay, maybe they're going to create an autonomous
(51:14):
version of your job someday and you won't have it anymore.
I guess some people are just okay with that. I'm not,
and I think that the vast majority of the people
are not. So let's uh, let's get our heads on
straight and make sure that we support these workers. And
looks like they're probably going to have to go on strike,
so we support those. Those the efforts of Teamster's Local
(51:34):
seven to forty five, and my favorite discussion of the hour,
which is the Teamsters strike at Carrig Doctor Pepper, which
is happening as we speak. The pick and line is
going on right now in Victorville, Riverside, Palm Springs as
well as Vernon, San Fernando, Orange and Ventura. Members of
(51:55):
Local eight ninety six at KRAG Doctor Pepper and Victorville
have been forced to go on strike over unfair labor practices,
with over one hundred and fifty workers fighting for better
wages stronger pension and to recoup an unpaid arbitration award.
Let me tell you how petty this company has been
on the arbitration award. So they arbitrated a case regarding attendance,
(52:16):
and there's a collective baring agreement. In the collective barn agreement,
you agree to arbitration, and both sides always know that
whenever the arbitrator rules, you agree to. And the the
company lost the arbitration, union prevailed and it led to
a few thousand dollars for most workers in back pay
(52:39):
that they were going to have to be paid as
a result of that outcome. And that outcome came in
like November or December, and the employer has decided, no,
we're not going to pay it. We're going to appeal it.
So you may normally when you hear, oh, you got
the right to appeal things. I'm going to tell you
in my job, in the thirty years I've done this job,
(53:01):
I have only heard of an appeal happening less than
five times in my entire career of an arbitration award.
You usually it usually only happens if, like the arbitrator
really really stumbles or does something kind of pretty crazy
or bad or you know, you could tell maybe they're
(53:22):
out of their mind or something while they were processing it.
But it's it's about as rare as it happens because
the contract mechanism is the arbitration award is final in binding,
so you have to prove some sort of level of
incompetence or something very extreme. And so for KDP Carrick
Doctor Pepper to not pay this situation tells you that
(53:45):
this forty four billion dollar company is just out of control.
And you know they were ordered to pay hundreds of
thousands of dollars last year that it unlawfully attempted to
end the sick time policy, and you know it's time
for them to pay up. And that's part of this
overall dispute. So it's not just what's going on regarding
(54:07):
the renewal of a contract. It's also the company upholding
there into the bargain. And so that takes us to
the nineteen thirty two members who are honoring this picket
line and this labor dispute that is now extended from
from Victorville down to let's just talk about Riverside for
(54:28):
a few minutes, because that's where we all of us
that are sitting in the studio right now have been
spending most of our time, and you know, for those
of you're listening, i'd encourage you to get out there,
Like I think it's really important get out there, walk
the line, talk to the workers that are experiencing this.
You know sometimes that there's a lot of people on
the line, sometimes there's not. Making sure that everybody's engaged
in this process is really an important part of labor
(54:52):
and its important part for you to recognize, especially if
you've never had to go on strike. The best way
to experience it's the strike is not when you go
on strike the first time. It's actually to go help
someone else first. So get out there and help your
fellow worker in the area. In this space. I think
(55:12):
it's really important for us to always occupy the space.
And it's just a reminder we also can have a
lot of fun out there, Isn't that right, Robert Mark?
What do you guys got to say about that?
Speaker 11 (55:24):
You want to go first?
Speaker 2 (55:24):
Mark?
Speaker 7 (55:25):
Oh?
Speaker 10 (55:25):
Yeah, you smile a lot at three o'clock in the
morning when you're on a strike.
Speaker 4 (55:29):
La Oh yeah, because I know I'm going to make
a company miserable.
Speaker 11 (55:33):
I didn't even have caffeine yet, and what you were
doing woke me up.
Speaker 4 (55:37):
Well, you know, one of the funniest things I forgot
somebody had to remind me of. I think it was
Carlos that reminded me of it. When I was reading
somebody the Riot Act. I forget who it was. I
think it was the cops, whoever. I was reading the
Riot Act and for those of you that don't know,
I got a very loud voice and and there's donkeys,
(55:59):
wild donkey. Was that hilarious at the top of the
hill behind the building, apparently me yelling at everybody. Yeah,
I had drawn the donkeys because it was right as
the sun was coming up, right, They're coming up over.
Speaker 11 (56:14):
The hill, like what the It was like a movie
moment when like they were walking up the hill and
I can see them because I'm observing the scene as
you're going off on somebody. And then they stop and
it was four of them, like a little family, and
they turn and it looked like they were literally looking
towards the scene. And I pointed it out after you
had done your stuff, and then that was just really funny.
It was it was cool they were like what's going
(56:35):
on down there?
Speaker 4 (56:37):
And so you know they're up what you know, seventy
eighty feet on the top of this hill that's right
behind the building, and they're at they're at the very
crust of it. You can see the sun is coming up,
you know, so that the sky is brightening up, and yeah,
they're like looking down, going good morning. What's all the
commotion down there? And you know a few minutes later
there he hawned and stuff like that.
Speaker 10 (56:57):
But I'll tell you the humans are doing it again.
Speaker 4 (57:01):
Yeah, that was That's a new one.
Speaker 11 (57:03):
I make sure of it too.
Speaker 4 (57:04):
Did you take a picture? I didn't. Yeah, yeah, I've
I've not experienced a situation where the donkeys decided to
roll in and enjoy the scene. Uh so, so that's
a new one for me.
Speaker 11 (57:14):
But I could have joined the picket line.
Speaker 4 (57:15):
Yeah, So what was your what was your guys' favorite
part of the last couple of days on the picket line.
Speaker 10 (57:20):
Mine was the independent trucker who demanded respect.
Speaker 4 (57:24):
Oh yeah, yeah, we had to educate him on how
the teamstress built the end.
Speaker 10 (57:28):
So I wish I could repeat what you said when
he said I just want some respect.
Speaker 4 (57:33):
Well, you know, when when the insults started. One of
the things I did ask him was if the owner
of that truck made him shine those wheels? Yeah? And
then and then the conversation degraded quickly even more after that.
Speaker 10 (57:48):
He tried about three good times with you, and each
time you could see the look in his eyes like,
maybe I should let this go.
Speaker 4 (57:55):
How about you, Robert was.
Speaker 11 (57:57):
I think it's all fun and jokes and stuff, you know,
with the donkey and stuff, but to witness to workers,
especially in Victorville, because that's where it starts. Obviously, eight
nine to six represents seven up or doctor Pepper carey
workers at that facility, and they don't have a pension. Ryan,
So when I was doing my calm stuff and interviewing
some of the workers, they were like, well, our brothers
and sisters down the hill have a pension and they
(58:18):
have better benefits and stuff like that. And you know,
hearing them talk about their stories and stuff like that,
it makes it makes you, being on the PIGA line,
feel way more comfortable, you know, having those conversations. So
that was fun. But then the sad part was, you know,
when the company starts busting all these.
Speaker 4 (58:35):
Scabs and let's let's talk about this on the other
side of the are just stick this up because it's
only got a couple seconds left. So this is Randy
Corgan and the Worker Power. How we got to go
to break care in a minute casey AA ten fifty
AM one or six point five FM and the Teams's
nineteen thirty two broadcast network, longtime organizer, first time radio
hosts live from San Borandino. Take it Away, Mark.
Speaker 15 (58:57):
NBC News on CACAA LOMLA sponsored by Teamsters Local nineteen
thirty two Protecting the Future of Working Families Cheamsters nineteen
thirty two, dot.
Speaker 1 (59:07):
Org, NBC News Radio. I'm Lisa Taylor.
Speaker 2 (59:15):
President Trump's Peace and Prosperity tour in the Middle East
is making a stop and Cutter. Today, the President announced
new deals between Cutter and Boeing and the Department of Defense.
Boeing will be selling billions of dollars worth of planes
to the country and the DoD will be selling top
tier drones. Trump also pledged his commitment for peace in
the Middle East. There are over one million illegal immigrants
living in the country despite having final orders of deportation.
(59:39):
Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons says they're prioritizing the worst
of the worst.
Speaker 3 (59:44):
However, during our investigations and when we are out in
the communities, should we encounter someone that has a final order,
ICE is going to uphold their sworn duty.
Speaker 2 (59:52):
Earlier this week, the FEDS in Texas said they deported
more than five hundred people and arrested more than four
hundred suspected illegal immigrants as part of a weekly operation
in the Houston area. Too, they say had homicide convictions
and one was convicted of sexual exploitation of a miner.
Lisa Taylor, NBC News Radio.
Speaker 5 (01:00:11):
Are you looking for a good union job? The Inland Empires,
fourteen thousand members strong Teamsters Local nineteen thirty two has
opened a training center to get working people trained and
placed in open positions in public service, clerical work, and
in jobs in the logistics industry. And this is a
new opportunity to advance your career and raise standards across
(01:00:34):
the region. Visit nineteen thirty two Training Center dot org
to enroll today. That's nineteen thirty two Training Center dot org.
Speaker 16 (01:00:46):
Did you know that fifty five percent of working Americans
would choose a lower paying job to work under a leader.
Speaker 17 (01:00:52):
Who inspires their brilliance.
Speaker 16 (01:00:54):
In today's fast paced world. Resilience isn't just a trade,
it's a superpower. If you're feeling over by live'space with
Hurry and Maury struggling to find.
Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
A way, discover the secret with Simon D.
Speaker 18 (01:01:05):
Bailey's bestseller Resilient I Work how to coute yourself into
a thriving future. Get your copied today on Amazon and
unlock your full potential.
Speaker 9 (01:01:18):
This segment sponsored by our radio listening post. In Ukaipa,
u Kaipa Farm Fresh Produce where you can get healthy
in the heart of u Kaipa. You'll find locally sourced
fresh fruit, vegetables, farm eggs, honey, fresh bread, nuts, and
for your sweet tooth, delicious ice cream and locally produced
candy from liquorice to chocolates, all to your heart's content.
(01:01:39):
It's Ukaipa Farm Fresh Produce just down the street from
Tuscano's Pizza between thirteenth and fourteenth on Ukaipa Boulevard. Open
every day weekdays from eight am to six pm and
on weekends to five pm. For more info, you can
call nine to nine seven nine zero sixty one oh six.
That's nine O nine seven nine zero six one zero
(01:01:59):
six shop local with Ukaipa Farm Fresh Produce. Tell them
you heard it on this radio station and saw it
on the DNA advertising screen inside the store. It's Ukaipa
Farm Fresh Produce.
Speaker 19 (01:02:17):
For KCAA ten fifty AM NBC News Radio and Express
one of six point five FM. A Rancha Cucamonga man
has received a twelve month prison term for illegally possessing
sensitive technology that ended up in the hands of the Chinese.
Federal prosecutors say that Leaming Lee, sixty six, downloaded information
(01:02:38):
from his Southern California based employers and used it to
market his own company to a competing Chinese based company.
A federal judge also find Lee approximately fourteen thousand dollars
and ordered him to pay an additional seventeen thousand dollars
in restitution. San Bernardino County may be able to exchange
land it owns at Glen Helen Regional Park. The land
(01:03:00):
is replaced with the new park. Assemblyman James Ramos explained
his bill would rant state authorization for the county to
proceed with the major project to enhance the region's quality
of life and boost the local economy. The proposed multi
use project would feature a new hotel, a shopping center,
fitness center, restaurants, and additional recreational opportunities for both residents
(01:03:23):
and visitors. In Riverside, a mother left her newborn infant
abandoned near a dumpster at Riverside apartment complex. The newborn
baby boy was discovered breathing in crime with the umbilical
cords still attached, is in good health at Parkview Community Hospital.
There is a law in place, the California Safely Surrendered
Baby Law, which allows the surrender of newborns without fear
(01:03:47):
of imprisonment.
Speaker 17 (01:03:48):
No questions asked whether in.
Speaker 19 (01:03:50):
The Illin Empire warming up a bit with highs in
the high seventies and lows in the low fifties. For
NBC News Radio KCAA ten fifty AM and Express one
A six point five FM, I'm Lilian Vasquez and Europe
to date CASEAA keeping California alert and aware.
Speaker 9 (01:04:13):
This important, time sensitive message is brought to you by
this station's generous sponsor, George Letsfield Associates, who has important
Medicare information for all current and future Medicare recipients about
some big changes happening Medicare clarified. Medicare is a nonprofit
consumer service organization.
Speaker 12 (01:04:33):
It's more important than ever to review your Medicare plan
for twenty twenty five from October fifteenth through December seventh
to find out if you're in the right plan for you.
People are calling nine five one seven six nine zero
zero zero five nine five one seven six nine zero
zero zero five. A popular and local Medicare plan is improving.
(01:04:57):
Others are raising copays and adding deductible biggest changes in
the Medicare drug program in fifteen years.
Speaker 9 (01:05:05):
We thank George Letsfield and let's Field Insurance for their
generous support of this radio station. Welcome to the Worker
Power Hour with Randy Corrigan, a brand new show about
labor and worker issues. The host of the show is
Randy Corrigan, Secretary Treasurer and Principal Office and Leader of
(01:05:25):
Teamsters nineteen thirty two, one of the largest public sector
labor unions on the West Coast, representing workers in government
and non sworn law enforcement personnel. Randy Corgan is a
thirty year Teamster who first became involved in the labor
movement by volunteering his time as an organizer with the
Teamsters union at the age of twenty one.
Speaker 1 (01:05:44):
Since then, he's.
Speaker 9 (01:05:45):
Helped thousands organize, mobilize, and achieve bargaining rights. He accomplished
this by spending countless hours with brave men and women
all over southern California in their living rooms on the
picket line to bring workers towards victory. This is the
Worker Power And now here's the host of the show,
Randy Corgan.
Speaker 5 (01:06:12):
Do you want to be an American idiot?
Speaker 4 (01:06:16):
Hey, we're back Randy Corgan and the Worker Power Hour
KCAA ten fifty AM, one O six point five FM
and then Team Stars nineteen thirty two Broadcast Network, airing
live from San Bernardino, California. We're joined here here in
a few minutes by Angela Romero. We'll get to you.
Just just hold on briefly as I as I talk
(01:06:39):
about the fact that we are a long time I'm
a longtime organizer, first time radio host, so I get
to hold my rookie status and if I make a
mistake here while we're hosting this radio show, just blame
it on my rookie status. And for those who for
those of you that may not know, are this your
first time listening? Because we have Angela on right now,
(01:06:59):
and she is just just to point this out. She
is the representative House District twenty five in Utah, is
also the minority leader of the House there, and we
really appreciate her coming on to talk about all the
incredible work that's being done in Utah on the face
of public sector bargaining being directly under attack. And you know,
it really matches up with our format on this show
(01:07:21):
and what we're trying to do as a union, which
is you know, clearly you see we have a live
radio show here that turns into a podcast, but we
also are our message of worker power, building worker powers,
about educating workers on what they can do and how
they can take control. What's going on in Utah is
a perfect example of how this is happening, and it
(01:07:42):
couldn't match any better to the work that we're trying
to do on the ground. And we're super super happy
about those that are coming that come on the show
and can match the energy of the work that we're
doing at Teamsters Local nineteen thirty two here in southern California,
we obviously represent a very large population of public employees.
(01:08:04):
We've been watching what's going on in Utah very closely.
We're obviously alarmed by any attack that would happen to
public employees anywhere in the country, and to specifically see
how fast you in Utah dealt with this is just incredible.
And so with that, what I'd like to do is
(01:08:27):
give you a couple of minutes, Angela, for you to
introduce yourself and we really appreciate you coming on the show.
I'll talk about our great organization a little bit later,
and then also what we can do because we have
a big bus, a beautiful bus that we can get
fifty people on. We love I've got I've definitely got
fifty volunteers that already want to get on it, get
(01:08:49):
up to Utah and help you get out the vote
when the time is right. We have a very engaged
membership and are looking to help out. So with that,
Angela Romero, thank.
Speaker 17 (01:09:00):
You for having me.
Speaker 20 (01:09:01):
As you mentioned, I am the leader of the House Democrats,
and there are seventy five members in the House and
only fourteen of us are Democrats. But we're a small
group of legislators, but we're very mighty and we fight
for the rights of the people. I also serve as
the president of the national Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators.
So I am organized at a national level, and many
(01:09:24):
of the unions support our organization fight for immigrant rights
and just fighting for people in general. And I think
that's what you saw happen here with HB two sixty
seven with the public sector labor union amendments.
Speaker 17 (01:09:40):
I work for the City of Salad City.
Speaker 20 (01:09:42):
I'm in management, but I'm very supportive of our unions
and what our unions do for us. So when we
saw this bill come forward and we saw conversations and
negotiations going on behind the scenes, we knew that it
had to be an up and down vote, and we
knew if we did this referendum, working with the Utah
Education Association and other organizations, that we would be able
(01:10:03):
to get it on the ballot for twenty twenty six,
which is what happened. And Utah has a really unique
law when it comes to doing a referendum.
Speaker 17 (01:10:13):
It's a very high standard.
Speaker 20 (01:10:15):
So not only do you have to get enough signatures,
but you have to There are twenty nine Senate districts,
and out of those twenty nine Senate districts, you have
to have fifteen of those Senate districts and you have
to have eight percent of those voters, and so they
made it really impossible for people to do a referendum.
But we knew when when this bill passed, and it
didn't pass on party lines. It was a bipartisan effort
(01:10:39):
and because of our Republican colleagues that crossed over, there's
no way that the governor could veto the referendum, and
so that we needed that, that needed that to really
push this forward. And so we just saw people come
out of the woodwork, and after the session was over,
many of us were just there with our unions knocking
on doors every day, gather and signatures. My son actually
(01:11:01):
worked on signature gathering as a field organizer. So for
me it was a family affair just because of our
commitment to the people and to public service and thankful
to our unions for the worker rights that we have
currently right now.
Speaker 4 (01:11:17):
Yeah, I saw a quote from the governor that said
something to the effect of, well, yeah, I sign laws
all the time. I don't like you know. It was
a couple of weeks ago, and he was backpedaling pretty
quickly on the fact that that he had signed this,
especially once he saw that the amount of signatures were
so volumeless, you know, that were so big, and so
(01:11:37):
kudos to the labor movement, to all of you advocates
in that space that really, like you said, crossed over
partisan issues right crossover party lines and made sure that
the issue around workers was raised up enough to get
away from the typical partisan bickery and to do it
(01:11:58):
on a scale like you did. You know, knocking down
those fifteen districts at over eight percent is typically a
large threshold to get over, but you blew right past
that in a lot of ways, doubled it.
Speaker 20 (01:12:11):
And that's really the Ueautai Education Association and them organizing
all the different unions and never underestimate teachers, I can
tell you that. And I think we have out of
the twenty nine Senate districts, we have signatures in twenty
one of those districts was accounts so far, so they
exceeded the number that they were supposed to get the
(01:12:32):
fifteen Senate districts up to twenty one. And we'll see,
you know how close those other Senate districts are. But
I think this is a really good message to my
colleagues in the legislature when it comes to unions and
what was going to happen in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 17 (01:12:48):
So I'd love to see.
Speaker 20 (01:12:51):
Candidates on both sides of the aisle that are more
union friendly. And I think this is a strong, clear
message because I'm telling you, every year we've see union
rights chipped away slowly here in Utah, and this was
there was conversations between certain unions and the majority, and
some of us were saying, no, there's no room for negotiation.
(01:13:14):
And I know people were afraid because they're like, well,
what if we don't get the numbers for the referendum.
And I told people, if we don't, if we compromise
and we let the way, then they're going to use
this as a model and other states and they're going
to take away all our rights.
Speaker 17 (01:13:29):
And so it's either it's either all or nothing.
Speaker 20 (01:13:32):
And so I'm glad people realized that it needed to
be all or nothing, and people gathered together and they
fought for the rights of unions.
Speaker 4 (01:13:39):
You're right anytime there's an attack on bargaining, you know,
this is something that I hold near and dear, clearly
as a labor leader, but most specifically, if you look
at the history of how protected concerted activity was one
the first The first piece of it being enshrined in
the law was in nineteen thirty four under the Wagner
(01:13:59):
actimately nineteen thirty five at converting to the Nationally Relations Act,
and the argument for protected concerted activity and ultimately collective
bargaining was one out of the freedom to assemble and
the freedom of speech that workers did not have prior
to nineteen thirty four. In other words, prior to nineteen
thirty four, I'm sure you're well aware that there was
(01:14:21):
no law on the books protecting worker's right to freedom
of speech or freedom to assemble while at work. As
a matter of fact, it was the opposite that their
ability to do those very things which were afforded, as
you know, being in the United States, that you have
the freedom of speech, you have the freedom to assemble,
were actually taken away when you were a worker. Clearly,
(01:14:43):
that comes out of the code in which you could
own your labor at one point, which was slavery, it
not allowing itself to be broken. Fast forward again back
to nineteen thirty four thirty five concerted activity. The argument
to gaining concerted activity was one off of those arguments
on the floor in Congress, making the point that the
(01:15:06):
freedom of speech and the freedom to assemble, we're there.
So when you see the attack on public employee bargaining
or any bargaining right being stripped away, that means a
part of your First Amendment right is being repealed, is
being stripped away, is being taken back. And what I'm
trying to do is get a message out and really
double down in this space. And I think it's just
(01:15:28):
phenomenal that you reacted so quickly in this space to say, hey,
we're not going to compromise, because what happens, as you
pointed out, is that they're sit there and they try
to kind of divide everybody. Oh, we're not going to
attack the police officers, or we're not going to attack
this group or that group. They start to water it down.
Then interested groups start to back away, and then it starts,
(01:15:49):
and then it passes, and then you get maybe a
watered down version of it. But guess what, it still happens,
and workers end up losing in the long run. So
kudos to you for not being willing to compromise and
making sure that it was an all or nothing situation
and that in turn, you made sure you mobilized to
actually get it on the ballot man, Huge congratulations, And
(01:16:11):
I want to take it one step further. One of
the things that I said while this was going on
was on Friday, because that governor signed an ABE two
sixty seven on a Friday, and I personally believe that
all the public employees on that Monday should have taken
a position Friday that Monday, we're not going to work. Now.
There was police officers, firefighters, teachers every day. And I
(01:16:33):
know everybody doesn't necessarily agree with me on this, but
I think that if all of them took that position
we're not going to work, you took away our rights.
We're not going to work. I think everybody would have
scrambled to try to fix it a little bit quicker.
I'm really trying to agitate this space of worker power
and workers exercising that power. Again. I'm not taking away
at all the effectiveness and how powerful what you did
(01:16:57):
to move hundreds of thousands of people in this direction,
but I'm hoping that we can also step it up
one more level too. What do you think about that?
Speaker 17 (01:17:06):
No, I agree with you one hundred percent.
Speaker 20 (01:17:08):
As I mentioned to you, there were some people that
were part of certain unions that were negotiating and trying
to create to find some commonality with the with the
Republican sponsor and some of their people. And they had
even wrote a letter and I personally raise that to
some national organizations because of my ties to the nationalistpanic ocs,
(01:17:31):
the state legislators, so they were able to get some
of their national people, National AFL, CIO and others to
put pressure on the Utah unions to say, hey, there's
no room for compromise here. And so this was really
the heart and soul of the Utai Education Association and
all those teachers and not willing to back down because
this was a direct attack on public education and our
(01:17:55):
teachers and the firefighters and police officers and other and
other unions got looped into it, but this is really
an attack. And so for me to see all these
unions stand behind our teachers and all our union members
that work in public education was it was very touching
and just to see how everyone got together and organized.
(01:18:18):
And my background isn't organizing to before I became an
elected official, and as I mentioned, I work in the
public sector as well.
Speaker 17 (01:18:24):
I don't do my job to make money.
Speaker 20 (01:18:26):
I do my job to serve people, and that's what
most people in public unions do. Their firefighters, their bus drivers,
their teachers, their police officers. They're there to serve and
help the people, and they want to make sure that
they have their basic rights covered so that they can
collectively bargain, they can talk about their salaries. And this
bill was even to go further where it wasn't going
to allow some people to even participate in our public
(01:18:51):
PHP so to get those benefits for health and some
of these other benefits. So we'll see what they bring
forward in the two thousand and twenty six legislative session.
I don't know, but I think the message was loud
and keep clear to my colleagues that don't mess with unions.
And so for me, that was I was happy to
(01:19:14):
see everyone come together and fight. But I agree with you,
sometimes in order to make a statement, you have to
show what you do and the services you provide, because
if you don't, people just take you for granted.
Speaker 4 (01:19:27):
Well, clearly, it's it's been obvious that organizations like this,
there was the ones that have propped this up, you know,
Right to Work, Freedom Foundation, all those organizations that are
trying to erode work or rights. They they sometimes do
a good job of kind of pitting the organizations within
labor against one another and say, okay, well, we won't
(01:19:50):
attack the cops or the firefighters or this group or
that group, and it'll just be it'll just be you know,
such and such public employees. You know, that's where the
abuse is, that's where the waste is. And the reality
is is that a fight on one is a fight
on all. Clearly, that's how you all saw it. And
we've got to get workers more engaged in the space
(01:20:12):
that the reality is is when when workers, let's say
in the private sector, see an attack on public sector employees,
that it's no different than is if you were trying
to do the same thing in the private sector and
it just not you today. And if you say, well,
it's not me today, that's someone else that that and
(01:20:33):
you try to walk away from it, that's not your responsibility.
That that's a huge mistake. And we've got to really
really press workers to get them to understand that the
right to work foundation is at work all the time
trying to do exactly what we're talking about right now,
and that is strip away these rights of workers, villainize
(01:20:53):
public employees. Somehow they're a drain on the financial the
financial stability of an institution, the municipality, a county, whatever
it may be. The reality is is that corporate greed
that gets pulled out in tax revenue or in tax incentives,
or in abatements or in tax credits far exceeds the
(01:21:16):
amount of money that that there's any abuses on the
employee side. The reality is corporate welfare is a massive
drain on these these municipalities where let's say they put
up a mall, or they put up some sort of facility,
a car dealership, and the city or the county ends
(01:21:38):
up giving them a certain percentage of the sales tax
revenue back credited or the developer. It's it's like this
crazy scam to the billions of dollars every single month
that you if you, if you take it in you know, community,
we put it up on a large scale. In some
areas it's millions every single you know, certain cities it's
(01:21:59):
millions every year. It's crazy that somehow the workers themselves
are being villainized and targeted when they're the ones that
are answering the phone when you dial nine to one one.
They're the ones teaching our children in school. They're the
ones that take care of you when you show up
at the emergency room. They're the ones that show up
(01:22:19):
and put you in the ambulance. They're the ones that
make sure, at your most difficult time, at your most
incredible need that you may have, that they are there
for you, waiting and making sure that you're taken care
of with no questions asked. They don't call and check
to see if your your your payment came in. They
don't call and see, oh, did you make sure that
(01:22:42):
you're on the You know that your criteria is checked off.
There's no questions asked that public employee make sure that
you're taken care of. Obviously, we're passionate about it, and
we can see that you're just as passionate about it,
and we want to make sure that that message gets out.
That's why we have this radio show. That's why we
have a live radio show where we're trying to make
sure that the public understands how valuable these workers are.
(01:23:04):
On all the billboards we have in southern California, which
is now four of them on multiple large freeways right now,
we have headlined very important workers in each of the
cities and saying these are the workers that make sure
that your city operates well. Bring a positive message about
them versus it being a negative all the time. I
(01:23:24):
know that's a mouthful. That's a lot. Sorry, if we're
running on, I'm sure you got a lot of lenders.
Speaker 17 (01:23:28):
No, I understand.
Speaker 20 (01:23:31):
As I mentioned, when I'm not in the legislature in Utah,
I have the privilege of working for the City of
Salt Lake. I've worked for the City of Salt Lake
for almost twenty four years. And people, you know, say, well,
why didn't you want to change your job?
Speaker 17 (01:23:42):
And I go, I chose a.
Speaker 20 (01:23:44):
Career to serve people and to take care of people,
and to make sure that people's children are Say if
I'm in the division of Youth and Family Programs and
so I understand that, but you're right when we're given
all these incentives so people will build them. We just
gave thirty three million dollars for the guy who owns
the Utah Jazz to do some construction around the roads
(01:24:06):
on where the Delta Center is. And so again we
also gave some tax breaks this year. People like the
working people. They don't really see those tax breaks. It's
the upper it's the corporations, and it's the very wealthy
that see those tax breaks. I'd rather see those go
into a social safety net. I'd rather see it go
to help public employees. And so we see this all
(01:24:30):
the time. So this victory with this particular bill showed
the power, but we also have to execute that power
when we vote here in Utah. So I want to
see the same energy that we saw with this referendum
in twenty twenty six to make sure that we are
electing people who truly support public unions and all unions,
(01:24:52):
but also support public employees because we've seen through the
state of Utah the merit system go away. Governor as
you talked about, has done everything he can to take
away that merit status, and so we see our rights
slowly being chipped away at. And so the collective bargaining
(01:25:12):
I think was the one that just really got to
our public employees. But again, as I mentioned, that was
a specific attack on the Utah education system because they've
association because they have been working so hard to protect
our public schools. But I'm glad that police and fires
stood behind them and all the other unions did because,
as you said, no one does this alone. And so
(01:25:33):
we'll continue to see this until we wake up, as
you pointed out, and really look at who our elected
officials are and how they vote and do they truly
serve people or do they serve these corporate interests.
Speaker 4 (01:25:46):
Yeah, your point is well served on the infrastructure break
that a billionaire gets that's got plenty of money to
make sure the roads are taken care of around a
particular area. The small business owners in the area, they
don't get tax credits, they don't get incentives. All those
small business owners in the area, they're not you know,
they're they're barely getting by many times, and they don't
(01:26:09):
get to see those millions of dollars coming back to
them in discretionary tax revenue being redirected back to them
into their pockets. That doesn't happen. So let me shift
gears a little bit here. What was the behind the scenes,
Like you know, clearly it must have been chaotic, but
you guys obviously got right into into mode where you
(01:26:29):
were knocking on doors and you're canvas seeing and you're activating,
and I could just imagine what it was like mobilizing
on a scale like that where in every obviously every
corner of the state workers are knocking on doors and
asking them to sign the petition and making sure that
the message got out. What was that like? Had to
be an incredible experience being part of such a large,
(01:26:53):
fast movement like that.
Speaker 17 (01:26:55):
It was.
Speaker 20 (01:26:56):
I mean I spent majority of the time on the
doors after the session was over because I had come
back to my full time job, But then as soon
as my work day was over, I was there knocking
on doors and just to see the public support and
to just feel that sentergy and the energy that people had,
and to see people come together from all walks of
(01:27:16):
life just to protect workers' rights.
Speaker 17 (01:27:19):
It was a good feeling.
Speaker 20 (01:27:20):
But again, I want to see this in twenty twenty
six when we're knocking on doors to get people elected.
It's nice when we've had initiatives in the past, whether
it's a medicaid expansion, but what we've seen is people
will support medicaid expansion, or that we have cannabis here
in Utah, which is medical cannabis. We see them vote
(01:27:41):
for those things on the ballot, but we don't see
them vote for all the way down the ballot, so
they'll vote for the issue they care about, but they
won't vote for the elected official. And Utah, when you
look at the House of Representatives, out of seventy five members,
only fourteen of us are Democrats, and we went down
after redistracting from seventeen to fourteen. Senate there's twenty nine
senators and only six are Democrats. And if people who
(01:28:04):
are supporting these particular rights, and I'm not trying to
make this partisan, would vote down the ballot, I think
we wouldn't have such a lopsided legislature where we could
truly have some more honest conversations about important policy decisions
instead of talking about politics. Because it's frustrating at times
when we're here to elected to represent the people, but
(01:28:26):
we get sidetracked on political issues that we don't really
need to talk about, instead of focusing on how do
we make sure people can put food on the table,
how can we make sure that people can turn on lights,
and how can we make sure people have a roof
over their head?
Speaker 17 (01:28:41):
And that should be the bread and butter of what we.
Speaker 20 (01:28:44):
Do selected officials as a state legislature, but at times
that's not what happens that's not We're majority of our
time is focused. It's focused on political messaging and political theater,
and it's been happening for the last four years.
Speaker 4 (01:28:58):
Well, clearly you had you know, there's the Republicans have
complete control of the legislature and the governor's office. They're
in Utah, right and so clearly this bill which eliminated
right to work was held up and supported by them.
And obviously I'm assuming they're looking at this now seeing
this movement going, many of them may be looking at
(01:29:21):
it going maybe I shouldn't have done that, right because
their very constituents are signing a petition saying I don't
agree with the direction you took. And the reality is is,
though I would agree with you, we try not to
make it partisan. Clearly on this subject, the Republicans were
on the wrong side of the issue clearly, and they
(01:29:41):
need to be better at this subject. They and what's
going to get them better at it is more door knocking.
And to your point earlier, we have found over the
last few years that when we go knock on doors
and we introduced the conversation about jobs and we talk
about how jobs are impacting the local community, we're getting
(01:30:01):
a ninety percent success rate over a ninety percent success
rate in that exchange whatever we're asking them to do,
whether it's to get to a town hall meeting, participate
in something, pay attention to something that's going on, and
when we kind of dodge the partisan bantering, we find
that very robust conversations happen on that doorstep or in
(01:30:22):
that living room, and people then engage and then they
pack town halls as a result of doing it, because
what we're trying to do is take that partisan argument
out of it and say, look, we're talking about jobs
in the area, and we're talking about how jobs are impacted,
and we want to make sure that this is happening
or that's happening based on that, you know, on that platform,
(01:30:44):
and let's get the politics out of because most people
are clearly turned off by it. But you know, the
Republicans and you know some Democrats have to own the
fact that they've got to stop playing the political party
stuff and they got to get to protecting workers. This
is a perfect exam sample of workers being attacked, workers'
rights being attacked, and in an entire industry being attacked
(01:31:08):
that you no longer have the right to collectively bargain,
just widespread, like what do we do? It's just going
to lay down, And so it's just great to see
the way you guys responded so quickly. I just hope
that what we can do. I do believe we do.
I'm going to double down on something I said earlier,
and I know you agreed with me, and I appreciate it.
(01:31:29):
We got to turn these scenarios into where where when
workers face this sort of adversity that they do quickly
withhold their labor in a lot of ways because because
it sometimes the process getting dragged out through the referendum
and then having to go back out there and obviously
win the election cycle and all the pieces that come
(01:31:52):
with it, what is lost in it is the worker
power aspect. And if workers do in mass just say
you know what, we're not going to go to work
until you figure this out, it's going to send one
heck of a message to where they're not going to
bring something like that back again, because they're going to
realize the reaction is extreme, which is quite frankly, it's
(01:32:15):
fair because look how extreme their process or their their
proposal was. Excuse me, their bill was. It's the most extreme,
you took away workers' rights to bargain. So again I
really appreciate you you leaning in on it and seeing
it the same way, and I'm hopeful of what we
can do and we go up there and help you
get the vote out that we can also help agitate
(01:32:37):
people into that more assertive space too. Does that make sense?
Speaker 17 (01:32:41):
Yeah, it does.
Speaker 20 (01:32:41):
And I think, you know, you have to look at
the culture, and you have to look at the SAA
and here in Utah, and it's kind of a passive
aggressive culture.
Speaker 17 (01:32:49):
It's just how it is.
Speaker 20 (01:32:50):
And I always get in trouble because I'm just very direct.
Speaker 17 (01:32:53):
I'm from a family.
Speaker 20 (01:32:54):
I was raised by strong Latino women and they're very
direct and they tell you what they're thinking. And a
lot of times people don't even understand me. And I'm
not just talking about the Republicans. I'm talking about the
Democrats too. But that's why they elected me as their leader,
because they wanted someone that was just going to say
what they think and stand up for the rights of
the everyday person. And I again, I think people are
(01:33:16):
just so turned off from politics. But I think this
referendum and what we were able to do with this
referendum show people that if you come together and you
stand up for what you believe in, you can create
some change. And I think the Republicans didn't know what
hit them. As I told the speaker, you're on the
wrong side of history on this, and I've told him
on a couple of issues, you're on the wrong side
(01:33:37):
of history. And this showed right. This referendum and how
we gathered those signatures, whether it was through paid canvassers,
whether it was through people, showed that the Republican the
Republican House and Senate leaders were on the wrong side
of history and they underestimated the people. And so hopefully
(01:33:57):
we see that not fatal and we see that going
into the twenty twenty sixth election.
Speaker 4 (01:34:03):
Yeah, I don't think you guys are going to let
it fade away. That's from Dangsher and you're not definitely
not going to take it for granted like they did
on the other side. And I think what's great about
it is is you are pointing it out in the
right way. You're phrase of you're on the wrong side
of history is absolutely true. If you look at historically,
any group that is attacking workers' rights, any group that's
(01:34:26):
attacking Americans' rights. They're on the wrong side of history period.
And what we in labor have to do is we
have to we have to we have to really drill
down more on getting the average person, who may not
be a union member, to recognize how collective bargaining was
(01:34:46):
one the argument around the First Amendment, the argument to
the freedom to assemble, and the argument around once you
have those rights, why are we acquiescing them, giving them
away or a allowing them to be stripped. So your
approach collectively to do what you did in such a
(01:35:07):
large such a large scale, in my mind, is a
huge inspiration and sends an enormous message that really really
shows that they miscalculated, those elected officials miscalculated the resolve
of workers in this space, not just unions as institutions,
(01:35:27):
but more so, I think you've pointed out over and
over again workers and workers they get the space when
you talk to them, they get it when you knock
on their door, and you know they're willing to help
out when you explain to them what's at stake.
Speaker 20 (01:35:41):
And these are, like I said, these are essential workers.
As you pointed out as well, these are the people
we trust to get our kids to school. These are
the people we trust to teach our kids. These are
the people we trust we're when there's crisis, and so
to attack public unions, it just it boggled my mind.
(01:36:02):
And as I mentioned, most of us that serving you know,
in the public sector, it's not like we're making the
gazillion dollars. We're doing it because we care about people
and we want to serve our communities. And that's every
union worker I know, and any person who works for
the municipality I work for.
Speaker 17 (01:36:21):
They're here because they care about people.
Speaker 20 (01:36:24):
And so why would you take away those basic rights
for someone? Why would you, you know, take away the
collective bargaining, But more importantly at a state level, why
would you take the merit system away when someone's put
in the time, and they put in the effort, and
they put in the years. And so we've just seen
and you know, another bill that they've focus on is
taking away union dues. You know, you're not being able
(01:36:46):
to take it out of your check. So again, unions
have been under attack here in Utah for five or
six years, and I think they just thought things were
going to go the way that they usually go and
nobody was really going to pay attention. But I think
this hit home home when it came to collective bargaining
because they couldn't separate UEA from from fire or police
(01:37:06):
because it's within our constitution.
Speaker 17 (01:37:08):
So if they were going to attack one, they had
to attack all.
Speaker 20 (01:37:11):
And I'm glad that people stood behind UEA and didn't
cave in and didn't do these negotiations that were happening
behind the scenes with certain unions and they said, you know, no,
this is all or nothing. And that was mine and
Senator Escamilla's message to our caucuses she's the leader of
the Senate Democrats, is like, we can't compromise collective bargaining
(01:37:31):
because once we say yes and we agree to their negotiation,
this is going to have a ripple effect. This is
going to have a chilling effect across the country because
they're going to use this as their model.
Speaker 17 (01:37:42):
In other word, states, yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:37:44):
You're your you know you adhering to that goal is
admirable because there's this there's this argument to say, oh,
we got to work something out. The reality is, you know,
being all in and making sure that there is a
clear line drawn and if you're an attack on one,
(01:38:07):
there's an attack on all is exactly how it had
to be approached. I just think it's it had to
be phenomenal. What I want listeners to realize is how
difficult that was to manage for all of you that
were working on it, because as we were paying attention
to it, you could see that the governor kept leaning
in saying, well, I think another type of bill is
(01:38:28):
going to be worked on. I think that there's going
to be a compromise made here. This is going to happen.
That's going to happen. And before he signed it, he
was trying to get everybody to do something slightly different.
The amount of work it took for all of you
behind the scenes is incredible to keep everybody on the
same page, keep them unified, to say, look, if you're
(01:38:51):
going to fight one of us, you're fighting all of us.
We're not going to give up any sacrificial lamps in
this space. All I got to tell you is that
is exact exactly what the labor movement needs. That is
exactly what workers need. Is that sort of dedication to
one another. This is the stuff that makes things happen
on a larger scale on I mean it doesn't get
(01:39:12):
much larger than two hundred and fifty thousand what you did.
But quite frankly, I think, you know, in the labor
as a whole, we need to even do it on
larger scales now. And this is a real good example
of you all not kind of you know, getting broken
down by what's going on behind the scenes. And I'll
just say it one more time for those of you listening,
you got to understand that work behind the scenes was
(01:39:34):
incredibly challenging and incredibly difficult. Thank you for pointing that out.
Speaker 20 (01:39:39):
Yeah, because there are people that again were trying to
negotiate and they had had a letter and they had
logos of some of the unions that didn't agree to that,
and you know, there was some of us that were
again doing things behind the scenes. Not our caucus wasn't
even aware of it. Through my presidency as a national
Hispanic caucus of state legislators, I you know, my national contacts,
(01:40:00):
I'm like, hey, you need to put your people in line.
You need to have a conversation because I hear there's
some negotiation going on and I don't feel comfortable with it.
And those people fell through for us, and well they
didn't father. They listened and they stepped up and they said, hey,
what the hell are you doing, Like you can't be
compromising our rights. And so I think between just all
(01:40:21):
these different voices and really pushing, and there were people
that were afraid. They're like, well, no, we need to
negotiate because we need to protect the little rights we have,
and we're like, no, it's all our nothing. And I'm
glad that everyone fell in line and did the all
and nothing, because who knows where we'd be right now.
Little if that negotiation would have went through and people
(01:40:44):
would have bought off on it, you.
Speaker 4 (01:40:45):
Would have been like Wisconsin. You'd have been like Wisconsin,
because that's what they did in Wisconsin. Right when in
twenty eleven they tried to split, well, they didn't try.
They did split, and they only went after certain groups
in the public sector. Ultimately, later on they ended up
coming after all of them and everybody in the end
ended up losing as a result of that. And so
(01:41:07):
Utah obviously did it in a way that you prevented
that from happening. You prevented them from winning by doing
what you're doing. And clearly you we're not going to
take for granted what needs to be done in twenty
twenty six, but we're here. I'm telling you we will
fill a bus, we will send people up, we will
help you knock on doors. I'll tell you is it.
(01:41:29):
We'll work with the state, AFL or whoever it is
to be, you know, make sure that we're doing member
to member, worker to work or sort of stuff versus
the political stuff because obviously, you know, there's certain regulatory
factors we've got to pay attention to there. But at
the end of the day, we'll find a way to
make it happen. And heck, I've had hundreds of people
say we'll volunteer, go up there, take a week off
(01:41:49):
to help knock that down. I know when this happened
in Missouri. I think it was Missouri that repealed right
to work at you know, all of us threw down
and we were willing to send whatever it was going
to take to make sure we knocked on an every
single door that we had to knock on to make
it happen. Because a fight for one is a fight
for all.
Speaker 20 (01:42:07):
And I definitely think those are some conversations I can
entertain offline and and talk to you about because there's
a lot of things that can happen here in Utah.
I think where there's this stereotype that words is this
bright red state, and there's some truth to that.
Speaker 17 (01:42:22):
But I also think.
Speaker 20 (01:42:23):
This referendum and the work of all the unions coming
together to fight what had been proposed in HB two
sixty seven showed that there is people power here. But
we have to give people a reason to want to
fight and believe. And this was something that people say, Hey,
we need to protect these basic rights, but there's other
(01:42:44):
rights that we need to protect here in Utah, and
to make sure.
Speaker 17 (01:42:47):
That we're not going.
Speaker 20 (01:42:50):
In a way where we're taking away the power of unions.
There's a reason why we have unions. And even though
I'm not in a union, because of unions, I have
certain rights as a publican pool and I appreciate it
when it comes to my retirement, when it comes to
a lot of things that people don't have in the
private sector. And so there's really unique things about working
in the public sector and sacrificing and not getting that
(01:43:13):
big paycheck because you care about people, and so we
want to make sure that we protect those rights.
Speaker 4 (01:43:18):
Yeah, And is there anything in particular that you want
to share with listeners about this process or what you
experienced or what's coming. You know, you've got We've got
a few minutes here and anything you'd like to share,
you know, mic is yours.
Speaker 3 (01:43:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 17 (01:43:35):
Utah's just a really unique state. We have.
Speaker 20 (01:43:38):
Our legislative session is really interesting. We only meet for
forty five days, so everything has to happen within that
forty five days. So these bills, like you're passing hundreds
and hundreds of bills within this forty five day period,
and so there's a lot to be said of a
citizen what we call a citizen legislature is really truly
(01:43:59):
the model that we should we should be doing as
a state, or do we have to look at other avenues.
Speaker 17 (01:44:05):
The other thing is.
Speaker 20 (01:44:08):
Just people just really need to believe in a system again.
And I feel like Bernie Sanders was out here with
AOC and we had almost twenty thousand people at the
John Huntsman Center and not all of them could fit in.
So I feel like there's this movement, it's bubbling up,
(01:44:28):
and I'm just hoping we can keep that energy here
in Utah. I know, as a state representative, I do
the retail politics. Not everyone does, and so there are
things that I'll be doing in my district to keep
people engaged and keep them organized, because what we see
in a lot of our districts, especially our working class districts,
is people just don't go out and vote because they're like, well,
(01:44:50):
it's the Utah Legislature.
Speaker 17 (01:44:52):
They're just going to do what they're going to do,
and they always do this.
Speaker 20 (01:44:55):
And so I think this bill and the people the
collective power that came behind this bill kind of dispels
that myth. And I think if people could just really
step up, there are seats that Democrats in Utah lose
by fifty votes, by one hundred votes, and if we
just had a little bit more people power and more
people doing knocking on the doors and talking about issues
(01:45:18):
that people believe in, I really feel like we could
flip some seats and we could have more balance here.
And so I just want people to dispell that myth
that Utah is a red, red state, and I think
there's opportunity for us here to grow, and I think
there's opportunities for us to ensure that we're protecting our unions.
Speaker 4 (01:45:36):
But yeah, how about the phrase Utah is a worker power.
Speaker 17 (01:45:40):
State, it is a worker power stay.
Speaker 20 (01:45:44):
I prefer that then the Utah Way, that's the phrase
they use out here, Well it's a Utah way.
Speaker 17 (01:45:50):
Well, the Utah Way doesn't usually support workers.
Speaker 4 (01:45:53):
And so it supports corporate America's interest on trying to
control everything, and sometimes the policy, you know, it gets lost,
what's happening for workers gets lost in all of that stuff.
Speaker 20 (01:46:06):
But I also have to say that I wouldn't be
where I'm at as a leader or as an organizer
without the support of unions. When I first ran for office,
the reason I got put into office is because I
had union members that are knocking on doors for me,
because they believed in me, and they believe.
Speaker 17 (01:46:21):
That they knew that I was one of them.
Speaker 20 (01:46:23):
My grandfather built tanks for a living, came from a working,
blue collar background, and so I never forget where I
came from and who I am and who I will
fight for. And so if it wasn't for those unions
and many of the unions, the Teamsters and Local Too
to two and others, I wouldn't be where I'm at today,
(01:46:44):
and so I'm very thankful for that. So it's like,
you know, if someone gives you something, you also have
to give back and help support them. And so that's
why while I'm leader, I'll continue to make sure that
I'm a voice for for unions and for working people.
Speaker 4 (01:46:58):
Yeah, so you know I'm good friends Spencer Hope at
a local to tow too there in your hometown. But hey,
what tank company? Where was they building? Where's your grand
was your grandfather or your father is building tanks.
Speaker 20 (01:47:10):
My grandfather, my Grandfafather worked for the Twiler Army Depot,
and so my family, my maternal side, are from New Mexico,
northern New Mexico, and so the Twiler Army Depot recruited
a lot of our families to come work in the
coal mines and to work at the Twiller Army Depot.
And so my family came to Utah that way, so
(01:47:31):
have strong New Mexico ties. But I grew up in
a small town called Twela, Utah, and then first generation
to go to college, so I moved to the big
city and I never left.
Speaker 4 (01:47:42):
Well, most people don't realize the geography that Utah and
New Mexico actually touch each other, right, Yes, the four
corners there, you can actually step from one one state
to the other. Yeah, and a lot of mining, a
lot of a lot of industrial jobs moved around the
West like that, where families have followed the work. So
(01:48:02):
it's great to see that you're part of that heritage
and part of that great history and in a lot
of ways tough history, right, Like those jobs difficult, difficult jobs,
very difficult on working people for a long period of time.
Speaker 20 (01:48:17):
Well, and they really they went, you know, they specifically
recruited Latino families and we were kind of redlined into
one area of the town. I grew up in Twila,
so all our families lived in the same area. So
it was like a compositive system. And so for me,
I always had my community taking care of me and
(01:48:37):
supporting me, and so it was always a big family.
Speaker 17 (01:48:39):
And my grandfather when they first.
Speaker 20 (01:48:41):
Moved to Tetuila, there were signs that said no dogs,
no Mexicans. And so my grandfather and his buddies built
their own club called the Family Benefit Association.
Speaker 17 (01:48:51):
So they had their own bar, their own pool.
Speaker 20 (01:48:53):
Table, and they organized amongst themselves.
Speaker 17 (01:48:56):
So organizing kind of always just spend in my blood.
Speaker 4 (01:49:02):
Phenomenal And I could hear it's in your blood. I
can hear it's part of everything that you do again,
phenomenal work. I can't it's just so glad that you
came on the show to share this story. Especially in
a lot of the things that are happening right now
with public employees across the country. There are some people
that feel defeated, and I think that this is an
inspiration and this shows that there's no reason to be defeated.
(01:49:25):
That what whether you like some of the things that
are happening or the outcomes, you literally can control how
you deal with it as well as you can try
to protect it going forward and try to prevent other people.
And I like what you said earlier were you're looking
forward at what you can do as an additional step
to prevent this from happening again, or prevent that disconnect
(01:49:48):
from happening again. That's why I always, again I lean
into the space of saying, you know, workers are going
to have to be a little bit more militant because
they're going to have to be more reactive, and initiatives
like this initiative, as far as the Right to Work initiative,
the extreme Right to Work initiative, needs to realize that
(01:50:09):
they're going to provoke workers to fight back, because workers
do fight back once you explain to them what's going on,
and other workers will help and support.
Speaker 20 (01:50:19):
I agree, and I think that workers need to really
look at their elected officials at a local level, especially
at a state level, that's where a lot of our
rights are taken away, and really look at that individual
they're voting for. Does this person really support my best interests?
And if that person doesn't, they need to vote for
someone else.
Speaker 4 (01:50:37):
But the local politics, I think you said it earlier,
what happens is is the it falls down the ballot,
you know what I mean. A lot of the local
elected officials doesn't get the same sort of attention people.
Our civic responsibility has kind of distanced us from the
local politics, and so much more can be done at
(01:50:59):
the local level, quite frankly, than it can be at
the state level. Right, It's true. And the reality is
is we've got to start to get workers to understand
you got control over that. You've got more control over
that than you realize in your city, your town, or
your county. And we just got to we just gotta
be we got to lean more into that.
Speaker 20 (01:51:18):
Yeah, because again, at the end of the day, the
may is the one that will negotiate with worker rights
at a city level or at a county level, and
the city council is the one that authorizes that budget.
So it's really important to have those conversations and find
out who those individuals are and do they truly.
Speaker 17 (01:51:35):
Support workers and worker rights.
Speaker 20 (01:51:37):
At a local level here as well as your local
school boards too. I don't think a lot of times
people pay attention to school boards. And again, a lot
of people will vote for these initiatives that like medical
you know, we were looking at, you know, redistricting and
making sure that that was fair and medical cannabis, and
also expanding medicaid, and so many people voted for that,
(01:52:00):
but they just didn't vote down the ballot. And if
they would have voted down the ballot, I think we
would have had a more balanced legislature where we might
have been able to pass full medicaid expansion. Because when
we do initiatives here in Utah, it still has to
be approved by the legislature and they can change it.
So again, there's a lot of work ahead of us
to make sure that we're protecting the rights of people
(01:52:22):
and more importantly, the rights of our working people and
ensuring that we're protecting our most vulnerable as well, and
we have that social safety net for people as well,
and a lot of times we just don't have those conversations.
Speaker 4 (01:52:36):
Angela, Thank you very much. Robert, is there anything you
want to add to this?
Speaker 11 (01:52:40):
Yeah, I was just going to say representative, thank you
so much for coming on. You know, I think Randy
would agree to this too, especially in a time where
corporate America is feeling empowered to really hammer on, you know,
labor unions and especially our rank and file members. We
have someone like you in Utah, where it's it's a
red states, as you mentioned, but it's also working class state,
(01:53:01):
and so workers were obviously woken up by this you know,
horrible bill to attack their bargaining rights, and just wanted
to point out that, you know, you're a woman in power,
and you know that women in a union versus non
union make more than if they were non union worker.
So just thank you for your advocacy and for being
that spark in Utah, especially where everyone has the idea
(01:53:24):
that it's an anti worker state, which in many cases
it is, but we have people like you leading the
fight there, and so thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 20 (01:53:31):
Now, my mom and my cousin are they're both women,
are in construction and their operation rollers and they're part
of unions as well, and so for me that's very
important to protect those wages that they receive, whether they're
working a federal job or just working here locally.
Speaker 4 (01:53:47):
Yeah, anything you want to close.
Speaker 20 (01:53:50):
On, no, I just thank you for having me, and
I hope people will come on the bus loads and
I will knock on doors for us to elect more
pro union, pro worker candidates at the state and even
as you mentioned the local level, well.
Speaker 4 (01:54:07):
Thank you. We've been joined by Angela Romero, the representative
from House District twenty five in Utah. She has just
done this fabulous job of explaining how they have a
ballot initiative now and a ballot referendum to deal with
HB two sixty seven, which stripped away public employee rights.
(01:54:29):
She did a phenomenal job of articulating it on the show.
I think that this is, in my opinion, one of
our better shows in the last year and a half.
Very engaging, very detailed, and it's really inspirational to see,
even in the face of what is a very difficult situation,
(01:54:50):
that a very quick response can be managed, mobilized, doors
can be knocked on, and workers can be absolutely engaged.
And I just want you to know, Spencer just text
me back. I don't know if she's still listening in,
but Spencer Hogue from Local Tow Too two just ten
(01:55:11):
text text me back and says she is in blank
kicking machine. In other words, a very huge compliment coming
from the teamster local there in Utah about who was
just on her show. So really thank her for coming
on the show. We've just got a few minutes left.
I'm going to wrap up with some some things that
(01:55:32):
are going on. And boy, boy, she she killed it.
She described it, and what an inspiration it should be
to all of our listeners. Uh, you know, we could
take that this this half of the show and use it,
use some sound bites and snippets coming out of it
to really show that that no matter what's going on
(01:55:53):
and how you feel, there's a way to deal with it.
And so some of the things I wanted to talk
about is Rancha Kukum. We've reached an agreement. They'll be
voting there the members we represent at nineteen thirty two,
they've got some increases as well as a significant increase
on their health and welfare contribution, making it they went
(01:56:14):
from the lowest in the city to now the highest
as far as what the employer is paying. The Fontana
unit will have their retiree medical deductions for their component
being that start in July. We also have in a
(01:56:35):
couple of areas where terminations have been reduced significantly. No
longer are they a termination. Our staff has been able
to turn those either into suspensions or warning letters. We
also have a situation where the Kronos issue at the
hospital was out of whack and created a ton of
(01:56:57):
time keeping errors and those work those members have been
compensated or balanced out as a result of that. And
so we also are happy to report on a contract
extension for the PSD group. Now remember that's very very
(01:57:18):
delicate and difficult situation because PSD is tied to the
federal funds that are coming in and obviously in a
lot of ways being cut by what's going on with
DOGE or DOG or whatever that organization is. That's really uh,
you know, not doing good things for working people. Anyway,
we were able to do that should be out for
(01:57:39):
vote here pretty soon. That that just just just concluded
great work by the staff and great work by the team.
Even though lots of things may be happening out there,
we're making sure that that the everyday work is happening
on the ground. And and uh, with that, I'm gonna oh, oh,
this one last thing. In the case Amazon workers, over
(01:58:03):
fifteen claimants have been awarded over thirty thousand dollars in
claims for waging hour violations, and there's another one hundred
more claims that are coming in. So it's good to
see that happening. Lots of positive things all over the place.
And how is this happening is because we're building worker power.
We're building worker power in the inaland empire. You see
our billboards and our buses, and you see the entire
(01:58:25):
think of Teamster campaign that we have out there. And
what that's doing with our radio show and our buses
and our billboards is it's bringing attention to us. And
we'll have people like Angela on our show to talk
about how great it is to come together and the
things that the possibilities and the things that we can
do as workers and how we can drive the message
going forward. This is Randy Corgan and the Worker Power
(01:58:46):
Hour CASEAA ten fifty AM, one oh six point five FM,
and the Teamsters nineteen thirty two broadcast network, longtime organizer,
first time radio host, signing off, see you next week.
Speaker 17 (01:59:03):
They haven't changed the news that a field maybe hot.
Speaker 4 (01:59:18):
When you get drunk, me.
Speaker 1 (01:59:23):
You yah.
Speaker 15 (01:59:33):
NBC News on KCAA Lomolada sponsored by Teamsters Local nineteen
thirty two Protecting the Future of Working Families Teamsters nineteen
thirty two, Dot Org.
Speaker 19 (01:59:51):
For k c A A ten fifty A, m NBC
News Radio and Express one of six point five FM.
A Rench of Cuckamonga man has received a twelve month
prison term for illegally possessing sensitive technology that ended up
in the hands of the Chinese. Federal prosecutors say
NBC News Radio. I'm Lisa Taylor.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
President Trump's Peace and Prosperity tour in the Middle East
is making a stop and Cutter. Today, the President announced
new deals between Cutter and Boeing and the Department of Defense.
Boeing will be selling billions of dollars worth of planes
to the country and the DoD will be selling top
tier drones. Trump also pledged his commitment for peace in
the Middle East. There are over one million illegal immigrants
living in the country despite having final orders of deportation.
(00:27):
Acting ICE Director todd lyons as they are prioritizing the
worst of the worst.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
However, during our investigations and when we are out in
the communities, should we encounter someone that has a final order,
ICE is going to uphold their sworn duty.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Earlier this week, the FEDS in Texas said they deported
more than five hundred people and arrested more than four
hundred suspected illegal immigrants as part of a week long
operation in the Houston area.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
Too.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
They say had homicide convictions and one was convicted of
sexual exploitation of a miner. Lisa Taylor, NBC News Radio.
Not sure how much you know about progress of Insurance.
You may know us for insuring your home and auto.
You may know a couple of our commercials, But what
you may not know is that since twenty thirteen, Progressive
has been honoring veterans with vehicle donations through the annual
Keys to Progress Veteran vehicle Giveaway program, giving back to
(01:13):
those who gave so much. Now, you probably didn't wake
up today saying I really wish I knew more about
Progressive Insurance, but this seemed like the type of thing
people wouldn't mind hearing about. Find out more about how
we're dedicated to our customers and communities at Progressive dot com,
Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates.
Speaker 5 (01:30):
One of the best ways to build a healthier local
economy is by shopping locally. Teamster Advantage is a shop
local program started by Teamster Local nineteen thirty two that
is brought together hundreds of locally owned businesses to provide
discounts for residents who make shopping locally their priority, everything
from restaurants like Corky's to fund times at SB Raceway,
(01:54):
and much much more. If you're not currently a Teamster
and you want access to these local business discounts, contact
Jennifer at nine oh nine eight eight nine A three
seven seven extension two twenty four give her a call.
That number again is nine oh nine eight eight nine
(02:14):
A three seven seven extension two twenty four to Hebot
Club's original pure powdy rcosuper T comes from the only
tree in the world that fungus does not grow on.
As a result, it naturally has anti fungal, anti infection,
anti viral, antibacterial, anti inflammation, and anti parasite properties. So
the TA is great for healthy people because it helps
(02:36):
build the immune system, and it can truly be miraculous
for someone fighting a potentially life threatening disease due to
an infection, diabetes, or cancer. The T is also organic
and naturally caffeine free. A one pound package of T
is forty nine ninety five, which includes shipping. To order,
please visit to ebot club dot com. Thbo is spelled
T like tom, ahee B like oh. Then continue with
(03:01):
the word T and then the word club. The complete
website is to hubot club dot com or call us
at eight one eight sixty one zero eight zero eight
eight Monday through Saturday, nine am to five pm, California, time.
That's eight one eight sixty one zero eight zero eight
eight to ebot club dot com.
Speaker 6 (03:19):
I always hear from our clients who hired another firm
that they wish they'd hire DNA Financial first. Don't have
regrets about your IRS tax case. Just hire the best
in the first place.
Speaker 7 (03:27):
One owed one hundred fifty thousand to the IRS and
it's spent thousands on another firm. We stopped the levees
and negotiated a payment plan and had their penalties forgiving.
Speaker 6 (03:35):
And while every case is different, we guarantee that we'll
find your perfect resolution and get it done right.
Speaker 7 (03:39):
For a free consultation, call us at eight six six
two zero one zero one five six. That's eight sixty
six two zero one zero one five six. Then you
can say DNA.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
Did right buy me?
Speaker 8 (03:49):
Meet Barkley. When Barkley smells gas, he leaves fast. When
Barkley here's hissing coming from a gas appliance.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
Fast.
Speaker 8 (04:00):
When Barkley sees dird or water shooting from the ground,
he leaves fast. Barkley then calls nine one one and
Southwest Gas from a safe location.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
Did that dog just grab a phone and dial nine
one one?
Speaker 8 (04:14):
Gas lines can be buried anywhere, so remember to call
nine one one and Southwest Gas.
Speaker 9 (04:20):
Welcome to The Worker Power Hour with Randy Corrigan, a
brand new show about labor and worker issues. The host
of the show is Randy Corrigan, Secretary Treasurer and Principal
Office and leader of Teamsters nineteen thirty two, one of
the largest public sector labor unions on the West Coast,
representing workers in government and non sworn law enforcement personnel.
(04:41):
Randy Corgan is a thirty year Teamster who first became
involved in the labor movement by volunteering his time as
an organizer with.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
A Teamsters union at the age of twenty one.
Speaker 9 (04:50):
Since then, he's held thousands organized, mobilize and achieve bargaining rights.
He accomplished this by spending countless hours with brave men
and women all over Southern Cali in their living rooms
on the picket line to bring workers towards victory. This
is the Worker Power Hour, and now here's the host
of the show, Randy Corgan.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
Randy Corgan here in The Worker Power Hour ACAA ten
fifty AM one to six point five FM and the
Team Stars Vocal nineteen thirty two Broadcast Network Aerin Live
from San Bernardino. Welcome back, another show. Had a great
show last week, had great guests on last week. We've
had a lot happen in the last week, including a
(05:47):
lot of excitement on the picket lines, right, Mark and Robert,
I don't know.
Speaker 10 (05:52):
What you're talking about. I saw some excitement, but I'm
not sure who did it.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
Can you talk about it? Robert was standing over you know,
this is Robert new to the organization, so he watching him. So, yeah,
you have a year.
Speaker 11 (06:06):
Yeah, yeah, and I've seen some crazy stuff, but we
can talk about that some other time.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
Well, I'm gonna pull you. I'm going to pull the
two of you into some of these conversations over the
next couple hours. We're going to have some fun with it.
Speaker 10 (06:20):
I saw a history lesson.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
Yeah, yeah, I gave a truck driver a history lesson.
Got him to understand that essentially every rule in trucking
that that benefits the driver was brought to brought to
them by the teamsters. He at the end, he did,
He absolutely did. But yeah, we've had a very exciting week.
I'll be reporting on that in a few minutes. And
(06:44):
I've also learned that my staff really likes it. If
I show up to a picket line at three in
the morning before a staff meeting, that I seem to
be in a really good mood. If I'm on a
picket line for three or four or five I guess
in that case, five hours before the before the staff
meeting started.
Speaker 10 (07:01):
Yeah, that's better than prozac for you. That's like it's therapy.
Speaker 4 (07:05):
I'm telling you. I have a great time on the
pick of line, and I thought it.
Speaker 11 (07:08):
Was gonna be the opposite. I thought you were going
to go to the staff meeting, Matt, but I was
shocked to learn that it was.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
It's no. You get to take out all your frustrations
on a pick of line. That's what I love about it,
Like all your energy gets released, and you know, you
get to you get to you get to educate people
on the process. You get to explain to police officers
that show up and try to violate your civil rights
and how they could leave you know, it's a civil matter.
(07:35):
I basically, you know, explained to them. I mean I
used more colorful words. We're on live radio here, so
I can't use those words. But after we educated them
on what to do, I told them you could leave now,
and they did. Everybody's kind of shocked. They're like, I
don't understand. You know who's the most shocked is always
the employer. The employer is like, we called the cops.
(07:57):
How come the cops are leaving and the cops aren't
helping us?
Speaker 10 (08:00):
Wait a minute, that's not what's supposed to happen.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
Right, Like, well, it's because there's there's the law, and
if you know the law while you're on the picket line,
and you know exactly how to utilize it, you're not
going to allow your rights to be violated. And that
is exactly what we've been doing. It's it's it's fun.
And as an inside joke, there's still a fifteen minute
ordinance that that they're.
Speaker 10 (08:25):
Still looking for it.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
They're still trying to find that fifteen minute ordinance that
we got away with for a bit. It's yeah, different rules, yeah, yeah, different.
It's over the city line, over the county line. No,
it's it's good. I'll get into some more of those
details earlier. But for those of you have not been
with me on a picket line, you have not been
able to, in my opinion, enjoy me having an incredible
(08:49):
amount of fun. Typically I I it's a space that
I feel like we can you know, workers are exercising
their rights, and there's nothing more powerful than that because
every rule that workers have in this country, every benefit,
every weekend, eight hour workday, healthcare, whatever it is, those
(09:13):
all those rights were won by workers doing exactly what
we're experiencing on a picket line. Workers with holding their
labor in one form or another to prove a point
is what drives it for everybody else to benefit. And
so millions of people every day benefit from workers that
have gone on strike, and those millions of people that
(09:33):
have never had to go on strike benefit from those
very things that those workers have went on strike for.
It's always fun to be in the space where workers
are exercising that and they see how powerful that they
can be, in this case with a forty four billion
dollar corporation that they're exercising their right and withholding their
(09:54):
labor from. And again I'll get into those specifics a
little later, but I just really wanted at the top
of wanted to share my enthusiasm, especially for the workers themselves,
these workers in Victorville, seeing what they're fighting for. You know,
this is an area up in Victorville. They don't pay
a lot of people a lot And the reason why
they say is because, oh, the area doesn't drive good wages.
(10:18):
It's like these corporations have got it backwards. These big
corporations that land in a city like Victorville, knowe you're
supposed to pay more because if you pay more, then
people can buy homes, buy cars, buy goods and services
and it becomes very cyclical in a positive way for
the local economy. Instead, what they do is they more like, oh, well,
(10:38):
we can pay less than we're paying in other areas
because the cost of living is low. Well, the cost
of living is low because you're driving down the cost
of living by not paying enough. And you know, it's
the cart before the WHRSE sort of scenario. And so
I'm just really proud of these workers at Curig Doctor Pepper,
which is the old seven up, and just proud of
(11:00):
what they're doing. It's awesome to see them sticking together.
And then their picket lines have been extended to the
city of Vernon, to city of Riverside, to the city
of Palm Springs, to the city of San Fernando and
the city of Ventura and the city of Orange, and
all of those workers at all those facilities that those
(11:20):
those picket lines were extended to have walked off the
job as well. And so the company has flown in
a whole bunch of scabs to try to operate. And
I'll get into some of those specifics in a bit.
I just at the top of the hour, just wanted
to set the tone as to where we are and
what we're doing and why we got a little bit
of a skip in our step. And you know, Robert,
(11:41):
I think that I think it's funny that you thought
I would be upset after spending five hours on a
picket line. Like it's the complete opposite. It's like for me,
that's like working out. It's like it's like going to
the gym, and and when you after you get out
of the gym, you're like, like, you want to great mood,
you want to conquer the world. You got all your
(12:02):
endorphins running picking lines of my gym.
Speaker 11 (12:05):
Yeah, because at the staff meeting you were very like complimentary,
and I you know, usually the staff meetings at a
little rough sometimes at least for me. And so even
though you're not picking on me individually, but it's like,
you know, a little rough, but yeah, and then I.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
Mark's looking at your cross side right now. He's never
seen me get rough with you in the staff meeting.
Speaker 11 (12:23):
And then I walk into the staff meeting at nine
am and I'm like, oh wow, like he's in a
good mood. O.
Speaker 10 (12:26):
Hey, Robert, tell me what rough is?
Speaker 11 (12:28):
Right? So anyways, yeah, it was.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
It was a good staff So anyway, a quick recap
from last week's show from May seventh and uh, actually sorry, yeah,
May seventh, right, yeah, because stay's the fourteenth.
Speaker 12 (12:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
Seeh I don't even have my dates stretch. I've been
on a picking line too much here recently, back to
back and forgetting about what day of the week it is.
Speaker 10 (12:52):
That's what happens. You got up at midnight.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
Exactly, very true. So we had we had James Martinez
on and we've got this new little segment of the
show where he's volunteering to do volunteering to do James
Bites back where he gets to go to these our
Tha partners and sample the food and maybe sample some
of the services they provide. And he did a really
good job last week of talking about the donuts that
(13:18):
he got from Donut Town and Doe and then he
went to what was that Mexican food place up in Victorville.
Lost Poilos Brothers, Yeah, Lost poils Brothers, and he gave up.
He did a really good job of describing the food
and describing what he liked. And I was surprised that
he wasn't comatos after how much he ate literally in
(13:39):
the one day. Yeah, diabetic. Yeah, like it's just man like,
more power to him. And and he's I think we're
onto something that's going to be fun. It's he and
he's enjoying it, and he's looking forward to next month.
Actually we have to Yeah, he's looking forward to the
next show. We're going to do it probably once a month,
and he's going to review a few places that he went.
(14:00):
And so we also were joined by Ryan Ward. He
was a public defender investigator from sam Bardino County and
also very proud teamster man. He did a really good
job talking about what that role is. And you know,
people sometimes they forget they think teamsters are just truck drivers,
and you know, really, actually truck drivers is one of
the smallest units we represent. We actually represent lots of
(14:21):
professionals throughout the United States. And he's an investigator, Public
defender investigator, and he really talked about some of the
intricacies of what he does and we really appreciate him
coming on the show and I hope we can hear
from him more in the future. And then we were
joined by our very own Mario Vasquez, who was on
(14:42):
the line to pick a line up there and we
had some workers they videoed in and we got to
see him live and hear from them live on the
pick and line, and they got to talk about what
they do and what they're doing out there and what
a great job they're doing. Hopefully and hopefully they're listening
again right now live and we're talking about you all again.
You guys, keep it up. You're doing a great job.
(15:03):
They're holding down the line at Doctor Pepper. Now you've
extended your strike to five more locations in southern California.
So it was great having them all on. This is
a reminder to download the KSEAA app in the Apple Store,
Google play Store, and if you want to reach our
radio show, please contact us at radio show at Teamsters
nineteen thirty two dot org. And so the next part
(15:25):
of our show is live shout outs. I'm going to
get into those and we have listening live from throughout
the area. Whether you're listening on the app, or you're
listening on the radio or AM or FM, or you
could be very well watching us here on the screen.
Many of you tell me that you actually watch the
(15:47):
show live on I think it's Rumble or Kick or
a few of them, and you can actually see. You
can video in and watch what we got, what we're
doing in here. Make sure we're not doing anything inappropriate
that would be allegedly on the picket line anyway. So
we have Andrew Marquez from West Valley Detention Center Medical.
(16:08):
We have Ryan Ward, he is listening in a live
We had him, Thanks for coming on the show. Last week.
We had a We had Kat Cato from Public Health.
Good to see that you were up on the line
actually a couple of days ago, by the way, thanks
for getting out their cat. Also Warren Pennington from Desert
Water Agency, Ruben Gallardo from Redlands Wastewater, Ron Garcia from
(16:29):
Sunline Transit. We also have Christina or Christine Montoya from
the City of Asparia. We have Sandy Cabrera, AARMC X Ray,
Charmaine Bamo from h VP. We also have Charmaine Cole
from Register of Voters. We have Lisa Vasquez from ARMC.
(16:50):
We have Anita Ruis from AARMC. Vanessa Batter from ARMC,
Eric Zang from ARMC Info Manager. We have the Westminster
PSD site listening in as a whole. Thanks for listening in, crew,
we really appreciate it. Eric Hatfield from L and M.
We also have Program Integrity Department and Risk Management Department
(17:14):
listening in. Tina Avolos, Morgan, Alejandro Ariando, Cassandra Bishop or
buy up. Maybe there's a typo there from Redlands TA
Redlands tat if I butcher your name, My apologies. Jonathan
Guteris and Karen Tinsley from ID. William Guzman Building Inspector,
(17:34):
City at Needles, Susan Lofton and Kirk Garrison as always
listening in from the Sheriff's Department. We're gonna get you
guys an award for listening to the most shows. It's
close between you and a couple others. William Guzman Building
inspect I'm sorry, Nadal Raffiti AARMC. Brandy Nichols from AARMC
HIM department today she is retiring from the county. Last day.
(17:56):
Congratulations Brandy, appreciate you listening and live, and why don't
we get you in on the show and you can
talk about your amazing career if you just retired. I
have and Cruz tad O one, Robert Herita and as
well as Lissandro Diaz, the City of Coachella members and
John Gamboa from SBCs. So there's our live shout outs.
(18:21):
If I missed you, I know, I got a couple
of text messages here from a couple I have. Oh
this is funny. Ryan frankin retiree from Arizona. He's just
sent me an ear so I am assuming he's listening
in life. That's good. I like that, Ryan, Good, good one.
I appreciate you listening all the way from Wickenberg, Arizona.
(18:42):
I'm assuming he's doing it via the app. Yeah, text me, Ryan,
I want to know you're doing it at the app.
Are you actually watching on the screen through the through
the website. I'll check back that in a minute. And
so our our fun facts this part of the show
where we go over some of our fun facts. We're
(19:02):
going to do a job member highlight, a member job highlight,
and two labor wins The first one is the City
of Pomona. This is interesting. You might not think that
these are teamsters, but your crime scene investigators are teamsters.
In the City of Pomona, we represent a variety of
employees from all types of different classifications, and one of
(19:22):
those in the non sworn is the crime scene investigators.
The crime scene investigators at the City of Pomona are
responsible for crime scene documentation, evidence collection like fingerprints, blood weapons,
trace materials, processing evidence, and much more. This is as
a matter of fact, someone on our staff used to
do this job, Sherry, for many years, and I think
(19:45):
she's a trainer in this She's an educator in this
space and trains dozens and dozens of people every single
year on how to do the job and very very
difficult job. Think about how hard it would be to
going into a crime scene and having to to piece
everything together and essentially try to remake what's going on.
(20:05):
It's got to be challenging mentally as well as emotionally,
and you know, grueling. You know, imagine a tough scene
where you got to be there twelve, sixteen, eighteen, twenty hours.
I've heard sometimes them being there, you know, as many
as you know, like twenty four hours straight having to
until you've collected everything and done everything. So we really
appreciate the work that you do there in the City
(20:26):
of Pomona and the crime scene investigators. We also represent
some of those individuals and some other cities will cover
them at a later date. Our labor wins the University
of Oregon Student Workers Union and University of Oregon they
reach a tentative agreement after a strike that lasted more
than a week, The University of Oregon Student Workers Union
and the university itself have announced that they have come
(20:49):
to a tentative agreement on a labor contract. Student workers
at the University of Oregon walked off the job the
morning of April twenty eighth after eleven months of failed
negotiations with the universities to see if they got a deal.
They got it done. Union groups. The next item is
a union groups needed one hundred and forty thousand utons.
(21:09):
That's how you call it utons? People of Utah.
Speaker 11 (21:12):
Yeah, Utons like Californians by Utahs.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
Like that's tough. That's like tough to say. Utons like
you feel you feel? I wonder if they call themselves utons.
Speaker 10 (21:22):
Is that a new utensil?
Speaker 4 (21:23):
Yeah, U Tongus's just call it the people from Utah
to support a referendum. In case this doesn't exist, maybe
they don't call themselves utons. They got more than a
quarter million signatures labor groups. As matter of fact, we're
going to have someone on the other side of the
show at the three o'clock hour. That was part of
making sure that this happened. And labor groups had thirty
(21:46):
days to get one hundred and forty thousand signatures to
put a referendum on the ballot, asking Utah voters if
they want to repeal a new law barring public employee
unions from negotiating contracts with their government employers. They ended
up with over two hundred and fifty thousand valid signatures,
making it the most successful signature gathering effort in the
state in their history of the state, according to a
(22:09):
Lieutenant Governor's office, racking up in more than one hundred
thousand more names than the previous record set in twenty eighteen.
And ironically that was set because of medical marijuana, and
so labor has beat medical marijuana as far as an
initiative is concerned. That makes me proud if we can
always beat out pot, marijuana, cannabis, whatever we want to
(22:35):
call it. So what I'm gonna do with news is
I'm actually going to kick news to the other side
of the break that we do on the bottom of
this and the bottom of this show, and I'm going
to bring in our Teamster Advantage partner. Our Teamster Advantage
program is one of at least my favorite program on
the organization because we have more than a thousand small
(22:57):
businesses connected to our network and it's our our contribution
to advertising Forum for free. We bring them on a
radio show, we have them as part of our app.
We send out push notifications as part of the Teams
to Advantage app. We remind all of our members to
try to vote or excuse me, to try to shop local,
stay connected to local businesses and instead of you know,
(23:18):
going to the big box stores or some big corporate
owned entity, make sure that you're participating with small business
because the small business owners and those that work for
the small businesses, they're you know, middle class people just
trying to raise their family, get their kids to sports
like everybody else's and you know, we got to really, really,
you know, spend time purposely advertising for them and helping
(23:42):
them and as part of our partnership with more than
twenty five Chambers of commerce throughout the Inland Empire, it's
part of us bringing an awareness that unions are good
for the local economy. Again, you know this is we
don't charge anybody for participating in the program, and our
members love it. Our members love to connect to these
small businesses and some of them do really well in it.
(24:04):
Some of them don't get a lot of hits on it,
but at the end of the day, they're not paying
for anything, so there's no loss to the small business.
And with that, I have Angel Rodriguez from lit Well
Signs in up in Victorville, right.
Speaker 13 (24:18):
Correct, Thank you guys for having me on first and foremost.
Speaker 4 (24:20):
Yeah, Angel, thanks for coming on. Why don't you tell
us about your small business and what you do. And
you're a brand new We just signed you up like
a week ago, right, you.
Speaker 13 (24:30):
Guys came by last week.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 13 (24:32):
So we're family owned business in Victorville, California, a little
over twelve years of experience in the high desert.
Speaker 4 (24:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 13 (24:40):
We do everything, wraps, everything, signs, interior, exterior. We'd like
to take your business and just personalize it from front
to back. So if Robert was coming and starting his
business and he said, hey, I have this idea and
I have a location, and I would go take a
walk with him and pitch our ideas or what we
think works. And we have designers who can create something
that hopefully brings his vision to life, and you know,
(25:03):
design it, manufacture it, pull the permits or anything in
the city if we need to, and then bring it
to life. Forty We do do a lot of work
in the high desert, so Cow, as far out as Vegas,
you know, Barstow all over California. As we continue to
expand we have, we changed the name so priory it
was seven to sixty. We changed a little well signs
(25:24):
as we expand. We look forward to working with you guys.
We're glad to be a part of the team stairs
and we do give a ten percent discount for stuff
like that. But yeah, just a little little rundown.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
So I imagine you do some pretty interesting things. I
know I had. I had a Cagor Raider repped, Okay,
so I know when I brought that into Yeah, yeah guy,
this was man, this is years ago. It's like twelve
thirteen years ago, I bought an old CagA Raider. Huh.
Actually I got an old Cagor Rader from somebody. They
was just sitting in their backyard, still worked. It looked horrible,
(25:56):
so I took it in. I had them with our
Union Service logan. I had them wrap it with the
Union Service logo, and I mean it just came out.
It took something that was old and ugly and just
made it look like a centerpiece in the room. Like
everybody's like, man, where'd you get that fridger. I'm like,
that's like twenty five years old. But I put a
(26:17):
fresh rap on it and it looks amazing.
Speaker 13 (26:19):
I don't think a lot of people understand how much
we can do. So if you walk into our office,
a lot of the walls are wrapped and you might
not even notice that, or desk or fridge or you know, helmets, boats, canams, RVs.
Pretty much anything we can we can wrap.
Speaker 4 (26:36):
So what's the craziest thing you've wrapped? Craziest? I mean,
for me, the craziest thing I wrapped was obviously.
Speaker 13 (26:46):
I think we did some large fridges that were pretty cool.
They came out pretty cool for a.
Speaker 4 (26:52):
It was a local company.
Speaker 13 (26:53):
I can't remember the name, but it was the first
time that we wrapped the fridge and it was huge.
It was a huge fridge custom design. But I think
that was the kind of most outlandish or different thing
that we've done. For me, the creative stuff is what's
the coolest. I think we had somebody come in I
think last month. That's uh, he's from Atlanta. He's a
huge Falcons fan. He has a big o twenty five
(27:14):
hundred truck that we custom through the Falcons logo on there.
Speaker 4 (27:18):
And when we see the truck in the Falcons wrap,
we're gonna know you exactly exactly.
Speaker 13 (27:22):
So like, the custom stuff is more what I like
or pride myself in. I mean we have a unique yeah, definitely,
And it's cool to see when somebody comes in with
an idea how we can create something with that and
bring it to life for them. And I think that's
that's a great experience.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
So, like, what does it cost to get like a
truck wrapped, you know, just like an average here.
Speaker 13 (27:44):
Yeah, so full wps kind of range anywhere from two
to four grand. Again, it depends on the condition of
the vehicle currently to make what material we use to wrap.
What kind of protection you want to have. There's kind
of variables that go into it. But in terms for
a full rap, you're looking anywhere from two to four
grand on your average vehicle. Bigger vehicles could be a
(28:05):
little bit more, Smaller vehicles a little bit less.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
Does what the graphics look like matter and the price
is it going to increase or is it really not
matter too much?
Speaker 13 (28:11):
Again, we enjoy doing those things, so we I kind
of prefer that we you don't. You just have a
name and you kind of just give us the creative
and you roll with yeah, and then we can just
show you something and say, hey, I like that, but
I want to throw this in there or that in there,
and then once we come to something that we both
agree on, we'll bring it to life for you.
Speaker 4 (28:30):
Any funny stories you got anything kind of crazy funny?
Speaker 12 (28:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 13 (28:35):
I think on some some of the like installs and
stuff can get a little crazy out there with the
wind there. I think we just did some We just
did some work for someone forward up there. It was
pretty cool.
Speaker 4 (28:44):
They got a.
Speaker 13 (28:44):
Commercial going and we wrap some of their vehicles. So
just I think us being in the community and seeing
people and just seeing the the work out there is
what's that's the coolest thing. I don't know if I
have anything too funny. It's more more serious, not serious.
Speaker 4 (28:59):
But you didn't have like a like a boyfriend, girlfriend
or husband and wife like getting a fight or something
and then and then maybe reconcile, and then somebody had
to put the husband or the wife face on the car,
you know what I mean, like, yeah, this is my
wife or this is my husband. I don't know.
Speaker 13 (29:19):
We see a lot of a lot of the pinks.
So a lot of the women are coming in for pinks,
and you could just always see the men's faces are
a little word because they might have to drive that
car or something.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
But yeah, it's just just a pink wrap by itself.
Speaker 13 (29:34):
Yeah, then straight up the bright pinks or fluorescent pinks.
There's so many different options, but you can always see
in the men's faces it's like, all right, you know,
we have.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
To do it. But then they do.
Speaker 13 (29:45):
The men do some cool things as well, like the
falcons one or just other.
Speaker 4 (29:48):
I'm sure the girlfriend or the wife doesn't want to
drive around the big old falcons, right, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 13 (29:53):
But the creativity is what's what's cool.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
We do a lot of.
Speaker 13 (29:56):
Work for Victorville, victor Valley Community College up there, wrap
some of their semis, so they're you know, twenty twenty
five feet semis that we get to wrap. So seeing
those out on the road or parked and displayed is
pretty cool to see as well.
Speaker 4 (30:09):
How long does a wrap work or how long does
it does it survive? Obviously in Victorville you're in the
sun for five months out of the year. That's blazing.
Speaker 13 (30:17):
Yeah, so that's a Again, it depends on how well
you take care of it, what material we're using. Generically
they say three to five years. If you're gonna park
it in the garage, you can get a little more
out of that. You can do a ceramic coat to
the rap, which helps extend the life of the rap,
but three to five years is typically what they say.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
Okay, well, and I love this ten percent. I mean imagine,
you know, you you do something that price big of
a price tag, that's a big pop for it. Yeah.
Our main thing, great discount.
Speaker 13 (30:43):
What I want to do is build a relationship with you.
So again, this might be your first business, it might
be your first go around. I care more about building
that relationship so that when you're second, third, fourth, business open,
where are the guys that you come to?
Speaker 4 (30:55):
Yeah, this guy thinking ahead, thinking ahead? Anything else you
want to cover before we take a quick break and
and go to our next part of the show. This
is your is where you get to check us out?
Or have you been telling everybody you're gonna be on
the radio.
Speaker 13 (31:08):
Yeah, I've been telling everybody we're gonna be on to
tune in and check it out again.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
I appreciate you guys coming by.
Speaker 13 (31:12):
If you guys want to check us out on Instagram,
it's at well signs l I T W E L
L S I G N S. You can see some
of our work on there. And then if you guys
have any questions or anything you know, obviously feel free
to reach out and we'd love to work with you.
Speaker 4 (31:26):
Well, I'm sure you've driven around. You drove around the building,
and you see we love our logo right at a
logo everywhere. Yeah, So any ideas you know, not necessarily
right now, but any ideas you can come up with.
You know, we we're always we have a bunch of
billboards in the area, electronic billboards. We we obviously have
the radio show. We're We're all about getting our brand out.
(31:47):
So if there's things you can think of to help
us along that you know, we could utilize you for,
we're definitely you know, we're in so, so you know,
feel free to get creative. That that logo you have
right behind you, the work of Power logo, we're really
pounding that and we see a lot of people really
enjoying that, so you know, feel free to definitely just
(32:08):
don't repeat that logo. We'll come hunch, We'll have a
pickot line at your facility. Definitely.
Speaker 13 (32:13):
Oh yeah, we appreciate it, and yeah, I appreciate you
guys having me.
Speaker 11 (32:16):
Also, where's the name come from? Littwell, because like the
first so.
Speaker 13 (32:20):
We actually started in the High Desert. It was called
seven sixty wraps and signed seven to six. That is
the area code for the High Desert. As we've expanded
and kind of outgrown that and aren't reaching other places
outside the state or even farther in the state, we
just wanted to get a feel for something that everybody
can relate to. So if we're getting somebody from Texas
who needs something, he's not gonna know yeah what is right?
Speaker 4 (32:40):
So it's cool.
Speaker 13 (32:41):
It worked for us for a while. But this is
just our way of growing and expanding and getting out.
Speaker 11 (32:45):
There from like you know, I was like, oh a bro,
that's lit.
Speaker 13 (32:48):
Yeah, it's similar to that. Yeah, trying to keep it
trending but still corporate at the same time. The slogan
is illuminating signs, one idea at a time.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
Yeah, So there you go. Cool. Well, this is Randy
Corgan and the Work of Power. R casey AA ten
fifty AMIN six point five FM and the Teamsters nineteen
thirty two Broadcast Network Live from San Bernardino. Let's take
a quick break. We'll catch you on the other side.
Speaker 14 (33:19):
Ship that ice coat, Michelle, fight for that white coat.
Just one for them, hood girls, damn good, Giron straight, masterpiece,
silent Violin, living it up in the city, got chucks
up with Saint La.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Rob gotta kiss himself.
Speaker 11 (33:34):
I'm so pretty.
Speaker 14 (33:38):
The police and the fire made them too hot. Make
a dragon one on a rettile, make them too hot.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Say my name, you know.
Speaker 11 (33:47):
Who I.
Speaker 14 (33:50):
And my man about that breaking man girls hit Hallelujah,
Girls said hallelujah. Girls said to hallelujah because I'm saying
I don't give it to you, because that and it's Saturday.
We don't believe it?
Speaker 4 (34:08):
Just why.
Speaker 14 (34:15):
Don't believe me? Just wine, don't believe me? Just win,
don't believe me, just win, do believe me, just ware,
do believe it? Just n hey, hey, hey, wait a minute,
(34:36):
so my cup because something get in it? Sick a
sip signed the check, PULLI out, get the stretcher, grabs
the hollow Hollywood Jackson in Mississippi.
Speaker 11 (34:46):
If we show up, were gonna show up?
Speaker 4 (34:48):
Smooth it in a fresh ask.
Speaker 14 (34:50):
You got a poly ser fire minute looks so fat
like a dragon over of its fire man looks so hot.
Speaker 11 (35:01):
Next say my name? You know who I ain't not
too high?
Speaker 14 (35:05):
My man bout that money breaking bad Girls said hallelujah.
Girls said hallelujah. Girl said you hallelujah.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Because I'm telling funk.
Speaker 4 (35:14):
Don't give it to you.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
Because I.
Speaker 14 (35:18):
Because I'm tell't it's Saturday. Don't believe me? Just why
I don't believe me? Just whine, don't believe me, Just whine,
(35:41):
don't believe me? Just why don't believe me? Just why
don't believe me?
Speaker 4 (35:46):
Just win? What we leave, let me sell We're back.
Randy Corgan is the work of power. Hour, Casey ten
one six point five FM and the Teamsters nineteen thirty
two Broadcasts Network. That was pretty good. He did a
(36:09):
he was great. That's great. That was a nice and
it didn't have to help him along. He did a
good job of describing the business. That was That was
really good. He did a great job.
Speaker 10 (36:18):
Sounds like they're covering a lot of ground.
Speaker 4 (36:19):
Yeah, it looks like a lot of people are moving
to wraps.
Speaker 10 (36:23):
I talked to him about the lights out at the
Needle's office. He goes, We'll come out there.
Speaker 4 (36:27):
That's nice. Yeah, great, Yeah, especially not being limited on
distance him, you know, willing to go to Vegas and
expand it. They're out hustling. That's good. That's awesome. So
I'm gonna I'm gonna get into some labor news and
all that this side of the hour. We got a
lot of stuff going on, a lot of stuff's been happening,
and a lot of stuff in the local actually, a
(36:50):
lot of positive stuff been happening where you know, people
have been getting like you know, terminations overturned and reduced
and getting contracts are ready to be ratified, tentative agreements done.
I'm going to go through name some of those here
in a few minutes, but I know, you know, there's
I'll get into some of the negative news here and
(37:11):
here briefly, but you know, there's also a lot of
positive to reporting on. We got to make sure that
we focus everybody on what we can do versus what
we don't like going on around us. Otherwise we ended
up so we end up so negative, we can't get
anything done. In California. It looks like the Democrats are
seeking to to you know, really seeking the California governor's race.
(37:35):
And I guess the way this headline is labeled is
kiss labor's ring really realizing that labor has a big
influence in the outcome of elections, and they're working pretty hard.
This week, the California Labor Federation is actually hosting their
(37:56):
annual legislative conference where a panel that hosted last night
for candidates running for governor and Lorena Gonzalez, head of
the California Labor Federation, and Chris Hannah, a hand in,
a president of the building Trades. They were shooting candidates,
excuse me, shooting candidates, shooting questions at the candidates. See
(38:16):
I got the picket line in my head they're shooting candidates.
What a funny slip.
Speaker 10 (38:22):
You're going to make the Apple newscast after that one.
Speaker 4 (38:24):
That's hilarious. That's great. They were shooting candidates, you know,
they were shooting the questions. The candidates were asked to
waive flags indicating whether they supported various union objectives such
as striking, benefits for workers who go on strike, among
other things. I know we've got some stuff on the
(38:46):
table there, like what happens to on picket lines, picket
line activity. Lorena has been a huge advocate for us
in some of this space that we've been running into
where some of the law enforcement agencies are pushing back,
and we've leave that legislators and the governor can move
some things along to help striking workers not just for
(39:06):
pay but also their protected concerted activities. And during the panel,
Lourena Gonzalez not only shot the candidates but also said,
think about the question before you answer, because you know
I'll hold you to account. She's very assertive, absolutely willing
(39:27):
to put her neck on the line and say it
like it is. We really appreciate the relationship we have
with Lorana. She actually comes here at least once a year,
if not a couple of times a year for different functions,
primarily usually our Women's Conference for schedule permits. And so
that's great, it's good to see. Not sure if the
Republicans are going to reach out to us and ask
(39:48):
for our endorsement in the California governor's race. They usually
don't do that. They usually stay away. And I know
we got a lot of listeners that are Republican, and
that's okay. You challenger party to court the labor more
and to align themselves with labor. I know that the
Republicans say that they speak for working people. However, a
(40:10):
lot of the policies that typically happen, the Republicans are
behind a lot of the negative policies. So I'm hopeful,
always hopeful that my former party, which is the Republican Party,
could be better at supporting labor. And I think that
internally we can challenge them, and I challenge all of
you to do that very thing. The next item in
(40:31):
the news this is MPR. Some would want to eliminate MPR,
which I think is crazy. News has slided enough to
corporate America. We need more public radio and we need
more neutral radio. Every since the media doctrine was eliminated,
and for those of you that haven't looked that up yet,
(40:51):
you need to look that up. Because it used to
be news and the media had to be fair and balanced.
There was a requirement. That requirement was eliminated. And that's
why you have the problem you do now with media
is it is way way to cited one way or
the other, and it is it's now entertainment. It's not
(41:11):
really news anymore. And we need more organizations like NPR, PBS,
Public Broadcasting, and really neutral news to tell it like
it is versus it always having some sort of slant
or spin. And so NPR has reported that federal employee
unions are fight their fight for survival as Trump tries
(41:34):
to eviscerate them. Trump has argued that having to negotiate
with unions over workplace matters impedes his ability to manage
the government as he sees fit. I find this quote
like absolutely hilarious, Like that's kind of the point of
a union contract is to prevent the person in charge
(41:56):
from running it as you see fit. I guess yet
that you think that you know what's best for the government.
I'm not as trusting of somebody who's bankrupted multiple organizations
multiple times over their career. So I think it's really
imperative that workers have a union contract to help protect
them from the whims of a powerful individual or somebody
(42:21):
who is in control. And so the New York University
Law Review article by Nicholas Handler, who's an associate professor
of law at Texas A and M School of Law,
argues that collective bargaining serves as a check on presidential power.
(42:41):
And I think it's really important to recognize that because
even in big corporations and big companies that want that,
there's a lot of them that don't oppose unionization because
they realize that that there needs to be a union
contract in place to hold a balance for supervision or
(43:04):
managers or those that are in charge. And this is
a great example of that that there has to be
a check on that power, and that those binding agreements
that are negotiated, you know, over personnel matters, you know,
those things regarding your performance and working conditions or grievance procedures.
You know, the quote of to restrain and reshape the
(43:27):
presidential power to manage the federal employee of federal bureaucracy.
That's exactly the point, Like you can't allow an individual
person to know just whimsically say well, I don't like
certain people, I don't like certain situations, and I don't
like stuff and just wipe out let's say policy, working conditions,
(43:49):
or how reviews are handled, or how someone's performance or
hiring practices, whatever it may be. There's thousands and thousands
of issues that go into collective bargaining and so so
coming from a candidate that, when he was a candidate
said he was for the working people. If you're for
the working people, you will not oppose union contracts. And
some will say, oh, well, the government is full of waste. Well,
(44:13):
the president or any other institution can sit down and
say we're going to reduce the workforce by certain percentage,
and we're going to sit down with the unions and
we're going to negotiate the impact of how that happens.
So you're not just going to say, you know, pick
arbitrarily how you want to do it. The reality is
(44:34):
is the point of having a union contract is to
prevent the abuse of that power specifically, and civil servants
didn't always have this leverage. As a matter of fact,
the first half of the twentieth century, labor unions, you know,
it was only the private sector they were allowed to represent.
The public sector was left out, and it wasn't until
(44:55):
the sixties that public employees gained the right to bargain.
And now, you know, it's got good it's supposed to
have good benefits, and we can see over the last
few decades that retirement plans and benefits and pay in
the public sector has eroded as a result of it.
I'm not saying for everybody, but I know that we
(45:17):
represent fifteen thousand, actually, we represent sixteen thousand public sector
workers in the Inland Empire here at the local union.
And I can't imagine what these employers would do if
there was no collective bargaining for them. Imagine if the
cities and the county and everybody could just do whatever
they wanted. There'd be no check on them. That's not
(45:39):
you know, that's not going to bode well for them.
The best example I could give is police officers in
the nineteen fifties, sixties. Matter of fact, there's a lot
of corruption, there was a lot of they were on
the take and they didn't you know, they didn't get
paid well. And that's what you get when when the
(46:03):
money is not there or being spent in a way
that's going to take care of those that are taking
care of the community. So it's really important for us
to you know, pay attention to these things and make
sure that we make sure that balance is there, and
we remind everybody that that we are, you know, not
just going to roll over here, you know, just as
(46:24):
a great reminder, you know, air traffic controllers in the eighties,
we're fired in mass and you know it, it it.
You know, that was Reagan who was endorsed by a
lot of unions at the time, and you know, he
he he, you know. And now it's funny to see
all these challenges. You see TSA losing their collective bargaining rights.
(46:49):
So it's interesting to see these things come back full
circle again. You know, I guess now thirty forty years late,
thirty five forty years later, we just got to pay attention.
We've got to the one thing we have to do
is just make sure that we protect our collective bargaining
rights and others. Don't just sit on the sidelines while
someone else is being swiped away, while someone else's rights
are being kicked to the curb and say, well, it
(47:10):
doesn't affect me now, so I'm not going to say anything. Well,
any of that attitude won't bode well in the long
for us. And quite frankly, when you see hundreds of
thousands of workers losing their rights, arguably millions, at some point,
it's going to come and it's going to land on
your doorstep too. And so Colorado and the next thing
in the news, Colorado has a they got this weird
(47:34):
right to work law in the state, and they're so
called blue status is kind of tarnished a bit by
this prominent red mark, and they have a they've always
had this kind of pseudo right to work element where
even after somebody had won a union election or one election,
(47:57):
they also had to have another vote afterwards to have
union security in it. So there was like always two
votes and that's kind of ridiculous. But the legislature passed
SB twenty five zero zero five, which eliminates the requirement
(48:19):
for a second election to negotiate a union security agreement.
That's the contract. However, the Democratic governor says that he
plans to veto the bill to keep the state aligned
with right to work states, which is like and please
look up the history of right to work. Please, this
isn't a partisan issue. This is really a human rights issue.
(48:44):
And you know, right to work laws clearly identify and
recognize that they support corporate America. And you know, I
think corporate America is doing plenty fine. They're in control
of our country right now, so and they're making money,
they're deciding to do what they want on a large scale,
(49:07):
and a lot of ways hurts the little guy. So
you know, with that, let me move on to IBT News.
Teamsters call on Texas lawmakers to support driverless vehicle bill.
The teamsters are calling on Texas lawmakers to pass House
Bill forty four zero two, which is HB forty four
zero two, a critical legislation requiring trained human operators in
(49:27):
autonomous vehicles, following its passage out of the Texas House
Committee on Transportation, and from what I understand, this is bipartisan.
The push for AV regulation comes as the tech company
Aurora begins operating full fully driverless vehicles on Texas roads
despite serious concerns about safety and accountability. The company announced
(49:50):
plans to remove safety drivers from its trucks starting this month.
Let me know how that works out for you. When
you run over a family, that's just it's bound to happen.
It's going to happen. We know what's going to happen.
I don't know why people are falling victim to this
thinking it's okay to have a big rig or any
(50:11):
vehicle operate without a human operator. I'm fine, you want
the vehicle to run itself, but you should always have
a human inside of it to be able to take
the controls to deal with the things that a computer
can't deal with. If we're going to acquiesce ourselves that
humans do not need to do that basic function anymore, boy,
(50:32):
we're in trouble, everybody. So the next thing I want
to report on is the teamsters at the Albertsons at
Albertson's vote to overwhelmingly authorize a strike in Texas. Over
ninety drivers at Albertsons, represented by Local seven forty five,
have voted by more than ninety seven percent to authorize
a strike in response to the company's repeated refusal to
(50:54):
offer a fair contract. Instead, Albertson's management is pushing to
include contract language that would allow the use of unsafe
unregulated autonomous trucks. Imagine that. See you allow this to
happen and then all of a sudden, we don't have
any truck drivers. So you may say, oh, we don't
need any Okay, maybe they're going to create an autonomous
(51:14):
version of your job someday and you won't have it anymore.
I guess some people are just okay with that. I'm not,
and I think that the vast majority of the people
are not. So let's uh, let's get our heads on
straight and make sure that we support these workers. And
looks like they're probably going to have to go on strike,
so we support those. Those the efforts of Teamster's Local
(51:34):
seven to forty five, and my favorite discussion of the hour,
which is the Teamsters strike at Carrig Doctor Pepper, which
is happening as we speak. The pick and line is
going on right now in Victorville, Riverside, Palm Springs as
well as Vernon, San Fernando, Orange and Ventura. Members of
(51:55):
Local eight ninety six at KRAG Doctor Pepper and Victorville
have been forced to go on strike over unfair labor practices,
with over one hundred and fifty workers fighting for better
wages stronger pension and to recoup an unpaid arbitration award.
Let me tell you how petty this company has been
on the arbitration award. So they arbitrated a case regarding attendance,
(52:16):
and there's a collective baring agreement. In the collective barn agreement,
you agree to arbitration, and both sides always know that
whenever the arbitrator rules, you agree to. And the the
company lost the arbitration, union prevailed and it led to
a few thousand dollars for most workers in back pay
(52:39):
that they were going to have to be paid as
a result of that outcome. And that outcome came in
like November or December, and the employer has decided, no,
we're not going to pay it. We're going to appeal it.
So you may normally when you hear, oh, you got
the right to appeal things. I'm going to tell you
in my job, in the thirty years I've done this job,
(53:01):
I have only heard of an appeal happening less than
five times in my entire career of an arbitration award.
You usually it usually only happens if, like the arbitrator
really really stumbles or does something kind of pretty crazy
or bad or you know, you could tell maybe they're
(53:22):
out of their mind or something while they were processing it.
But it's it's about as rare as it happens because
the contract mechanism is the arbitration award is final in binding,
so you have to prove some sort of level of
incompetence or something very extreme. And so for KDP Carrick
Doctor Pepper to not pay this situation tells you that
(53:45):
this forty four billion dollar company is just out of control.
And you know they were ordered to pay hundreds of
thousands of dollars last year that it unlawfully attempted to
end the sick time policy, and you know it's time
for them to pay up. And that's part of this
overall dispute. So it's not just what's going on regarding
(54:07):
the renewal of a contract. It's also the company upholding
there into the bargain. And so that takes us to
the nineteen thirty two members who are honoring this picket
line and this labor dispute that is now extended from
from Victorville down to let's just talk about Riverside for
(54:28):
a few minutes, because that's where we all of us
that are sitting in the studio right now have been
spending most of our time, and you know, for those
of you're listening, i'd encourage you to get out there,
Like I think it's really important get out there, walk
the line, talk to the workers that are experiencing this.
You know sometimes that there's a lot of people on
the line, sometimes there's not. Making sure that everybody's engaged
in this process is really an important part of labor
(54:52):
and its important part for you to recognize, especially if
you've never had to go on strike. The best way
to experience it's the strike is not when you go
on strike the first time. It's actually to go help
someone else first. So get out there and help your
fellow worker in the area. In this space. I think
(55:12):
it's really important for us to always occupy the space.
And it's just a reminder we also can have a
lot of fun out there, Isn't that right, Robert Mark?
What do you guys got to say about that?
Speaker 11 (55:24):
You want to go first?
Speaker 2 (55:24):
Mark?
Speaker 7 (55:25):
Oh?
Speaker 10 (55:25):
Yeah, you smile a lot at three o'clock in the
morning when you're on a strike.
Speaker 4 (55:29):
La Oh yeah, because I know I'm going to make
a company miserable.
Speaker 11 (55:33):
I didn't even have caffeine yet, and what you were
doing woke me up.
Speaker 4 (55:37):
Well, you know, one of the funniest things I forgot
somebody had to remind me of. I think it was
Carlos that reminded me of it. When I was reading
somebody the Riot Act. I forget who it was. I
think it was the cops, whoever. I was reading the
Riot Act and for those of you that don't know,
I got a very loud voice and and there's donkeys,
(55:59):
wild donkey. Was that hilarious at the top of the
hill behind the building, apparently me yelling at everybody. Yeah,
I had drawn the donkeys because it was right as
the sun was coming up, right, They're coming up over.
Speaker 11 (56:14):
The hill, like what the It was like a movie
moment when like they were walking up the hill and
I can see them because I'm observing the scene as
you're going off on somebody. And then they stop and
it was four of them, like a little family, and
they turn and it looked like they were literally looking
towards the scene. And I pointed it out after you
had done your stuff, and then that was just really funny.
It was it was cool they were like what's going
(56:35):
on down there?
Speaker 4 (56:37):
And so you know they're up what you know, seventy
eighty feet on the top of this hill that's right
behind the building, and they're at they're at the very
crust of it. You can see the sun is coming up,
you know, so that the sky is brightening up, and yeah,
they're like looking down, going good morning. What's all the
commotion down there? And you know a few minutes later
there he hawned and stuff like that.
Speaker 10 (56:57):
But I'll tell you the humans are doing it again.
Speaker 4 (57:01):
Yeah, that was That's a new one.
Speaker 11 (57:03):
I make sure of it too.
Speaker 4 (57:04):
Did you take a picture? I didn't. Yeah, yeah, I've
I've not experienced a situation where the donkeys decided to
roll in and enjoy the scene. Uh so, so that's
a new one for me.
Speaker 11 (57:14):
But I could have joined the picket line.
Speaker 4 (57:15):
Yeah, So what was your what was your guys' favorite
part of the last couple of days on the picket line.
Speaker 10 (57:20):
Mine was the independent trucker who demanded respect.
Speaker 4 (57:24):
Oh yeah, yeah, we had to educate him on how
the teamstress built the end.
Speaker 10 (57:28):
So I wish I could repeat what you said when
he said I just want some respect.
Speaker 4 (57:33):
Well, you know, when when the insults started. One of
the things I did ask him was if the owner
of that truck made him shine those wheels? Yeah? And
then and then the conversation degraded quickly even more after that.
Speaker 10 (57:48):
He tried about three good times with you, and each
time you could see the look in his eyes like,
maybe I should let this go.
Speaker 4 (57:55):
How about you, Robert was.
Speaker 11 (57:57):
I think it's all fun and jokes and stuff, you know,
with the donkey and stuff, but to witness to workers,
especially in Victorville, because that's where it starts. Obviously, eight
nine to six represents seven up or doctor Pepper carey
workers at that facility, and they don't have a pension. Ryan,
So when I was doing my calm stuff and interviewing
some of the workers, they were like, well, our brothers
and sisters down the hill have a pension and they
(58:18):
have better benefits and stuff like that. And you know,
hearing them talk about their stories and stuff like that,
it makes it makes you, being on the PIGA line,
feel way more comfortable, you know, having those conversations. So
that was fun. But then the sad part was, you know,
when the company starts busting all these.
Speaker 4 (58:35):
Scabs and let's let's talk about this on the other
side of the are just stick this up because it's
only got a couple seconds left. So this is Randy
Corgan and the Worker Power. How we got to go
to break care in a minute casey AA ten fifty
AM one or six point five FM and the Teams's
nineteen thirty two broadcast network, longtime organizer, first time radio
hosts live from San Borandino. Take it Away, Mark.
Speaker 15 (58:57):
NBC News on CACAA LOMLA sponsored by Teamsters Local nineteen
thirty two Protecting the Future of Working Families Cheamsters nineteen
thirty two, dot.
Speaker 1 (59:07):
Org, NBC News Radio. I'm Lisa Taylor.
Speaker 2 (59:15):
President Trump's Peace and Prosperity tour in the Middle East
is making a stop and Cutter. Today, the President announced
new deals between Cutter and Boeing and the Department of Defense.
Boeing will be selling billions of dollars worth of planes
to the country and the DoD will be selling top
tier drones. Trump also pledged his commitment for peace in
the Middle East. There are over one million illegal immigrants
living in the country despite having final orders of deportation.
(59:39):
Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons says they're prioritizing the worst
of the worst.
Speaker 3 (59:44):
However, during our investigations and when we are out in
the communities, should we encounter someone that has a final order,
ICE is going to uphold their sworn duty.
Speaker 2 (59:52):
Earlier this week, the FEDS in Texas said they deported
more than five hundred people and arrested more than four
hundred suspected illegal immigrants as part of a weekly operation
in the Houston area. Too, they say had homicide convictions
and one was convicted of sexual exploitation of a miner.
Lisa Taylor, NBC News Radio.
Speaker 5 (01:00:11):
Are you looking for a good union job? The Inland Empires,
fourteen thousand members strong Teamsters Local nineteen thirty two has
opened a training center to get working people trained and
placed in open positions in public service, clerical work, and
in jobs in the logistics industry. And this is a
new opportunity to advance your career and raise standards across
(01:00:34):
the region. Visit nineteen thirty two Training Center dot org
to enroll today. That's nineteen thirty two Training Center dot org.
Speaker 16 (01:00:46):
Did you know that fifty five percent of working Americans
would choose a lower paying job to work under a leader.
Speaker 17 (01:00:52):
Who inspires their brilliance.
Speaker 16 (01:00:54):
In today's fast paced world. Resilience isn't just a trade,
it's a superpower. If you're feeling over by live'space with
Hurry and Maury struggling to find.
Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
A way, discover the secret with Simon D.
Speaker 18 (01:01:05):
Bailey's bestseller Resilient I Work how to coute yourself into
a thriving future. Get your copied today on Amazon and
unlock your full potential.
Speaker 9 (01:01:18):
This segment sponsored by our radio listening post. In Ukaipa,
u Kaipa Farm Fresh Produce where you can get healthy
in the heart of u Kaipa. You'll find locally sourced
fresh fruit, vegetables, farm eggs, honey, fresh bread, nuts, and
for your sweet tooth, delicious ice cream and locally produced
candy from liquorice to chocolates, all to your heart's content.
(01:01:39):
It's Ukaipa Farm Fresh Produce just down the street from
Tuscano's Pizza between thirteenth and fourteenth on Ukaipa Boulevard. Open
every day weekdays from eight am to six pm and
on weekends to five pm. For more info, you can
call nine to nine seven nine zero sixty one oh six.
That's nine O nine seven nine zero six one zero
(01:01:59):
six shop local with Ukaipa Farm Fresh Produce. Tell them
you heard it on this radio station and saw it
on the DNA advertising screen inside the store. It's Ukaipa
Farm Fresh Produce.
Speaker 19 (01:02:17):
For KCAA ten fifty AM NBC News Radio and Express
one of six point five FM. A Rancha Cucamonga man
has received a twelve month prison term for illegally possessing
sensitive technology that ended up in the hands of the Chinese.
Federal prosecutors say that Leaming Lee, sixty six, downloaded information
(01:02:38):
from his Southern California based employers and used it to
market his own company to a competing Chinese based company.
A federal judge also find Lee approximately fourteen thousand dollars
and ordered him to pay an additional seventeen thousand dollars
in restitution. San Bernardino County may be able to exchange
land it owns at Glen Helen Regional Park. The land
(01:03:00):
is replaced with the new park. Assemblyman James Ramos explained
his bill would rant state authorization for the county to
proceed with the major project to enhance the region's quality
of life and boost the local economy. The proposed multi
use project would feature a new hotel, a shopping center,
fitness center, restaurants, and additional recreational opportunities for both residents
(01:03:23):
and visitors. In Riverside, a mother left her newborn infant
abandoned near a dumpster at Riverside apartment complex. The newborn
baby boy was discovered breathing in crime with the umbilical
cords still attached, is in good health at Parkview Community Hospital.
There is a law in place, the California Safely Surrendered
Baby Law, which allows the surrender of newborns without fear
(01:03:47):
of imprisonment.
Speaker 17 (01:03:48):
No questions asked whether in.
Speaker 19 (01:03:50):
The Illin Empire warming up a bit with highs in
the high seventies and lows in the low fifties. For
NBC News Radio KCAA ten fifty AM and Express one
A six point five FM, I'm Lilian Vasquez and Europe
to date CASEAA keeping California alert and aware.
Speaker 9 (01:04:13):
This important, time sensitive message is brought to you by
this station's generous sponsor, George Letsfield Associates, who has important
Medicare information for all current and future Medicare recipients about
some big changes happening Medicare clarified. Medicare is a nonprofit
consumer service organization.
Speaker 12 (01:04:33):
It's more important than ever to review your Medicare plan
for twenty twenty five from October fifteenth through December seventh
to find out if you're in the right plan for you.
People are calling nine five one seven six nine zero
zero zero five nine five one seven six nine zero
zero zero five. A popular and local Medicare plan is improving.
(01:04:57):
Others are raising copays and adding deductible biggest changes in
the Medicare drug program in fifteen years.
Speaker 9 (01:05:05):
We thank George Letsfield and let's Field Insurance for their
generous support of this radio station. Welcome to the Worker
Power Hour with Randy Corrigan, a brand new show about
labor and worker issues. The host of the show is
Randy Corrigan, Secretary Treasurer and Principal Office and Leader of
(01:05:25):
Teamsters nineteen thirty two, one of the largest public sector
labor unions on the West Coast, representing workers in government
and non sworn law enforcement personnel. Randy Corgan is a
thirty year Teamster who first became involved in the labor
movement by volunteering his time as an organizer with the
Teamsters union at the age of twenty one.
Speaker 1 (01:05:44):
Since then, he's.
Speaker 9 (01:05:45):
Helped thousands organize, mobilize, and achieve bargaining rights. He accomplished
this by spending countless hours with brave men and women
all over southern California in their living rooms on the
picket line to bring workers towards victory. This is the
Worker Power And now here's the host of the show,
Randy Corgan.
Speaker 5 (01:06:12):
Do you want to be an American idiot?
Speaker 4 (01:06:16):
Hey, we're back Randy Corgan and the Worker Power Hour
KCAA ten fifty AM, one O six point five FM
and then Team Stars nineteen thirty two Broadcast Network, airing
live from San Bernardino, California. We're joined here here in
a few minutes by Angela Romero. We'll get to you.
Just just hold on briefly as I as I talk
(01:06:39):
about the fact that we are a long time I'm
a longtime organizer, first time radio host, so I get
to hold my rookie status and if I make a
mistake here while we're hosting this radio show, just blame
it on my rookie status. And for those who for
those of you that may not know, are this your
first time listening? Because we have Angela on right now,
(01:06:59):
and she is just just to point this out. She
is the representative House District twenty five in Utah, is
also the minority leader of the House there, and we
really appreciate her coming on to talk about all the
incredible work that's being done in Utah on the face
of public sector bargaining being directly under attack. And you know,
it really matches up with our format on this show
(01:07:21):
and what we're trying to do as a union, which
is you know, clearly you see we have a live
radio show here that turns into a podcast, but we
also are our message of worker power, building worker powers,
about educating workers on what they can do and how
they can take control. What's going on in Utah is
a perfect example of how this is happening, and it
(01:07:42):
couldn't match any better to the work that we're trying
to do on the ground. And we're super super happy
about those that are coming that come on the show
and can match the energy of the work that we're
doing at Teamsters Local nineteen thirty two here in southern California,
we obviously represent a very large population of public employees.
(01:08:04):
We've been watching what's going on in Utah very closely.
We're obviously alarmed by any attack that would happen to
public employees anywhere in the country, and to specifically see
how fast you in Utah dealt with this is just incredible.
And so with that, what I'd like to do is
(01:08:27):
give you a couple of minutes, Angela, for you to
introduce yourself and we really appreciate you coming on the show.
I'll talk about our great organization a little bit later,
and then also what we can do because we have
a big bus, a beautiful bus that we can get
fifty people on. We love I've got I've definitely got
fifty volunteers that already want to get on it, get
(01:08:49):
up to Utah and help you get out the vote
when the time is right. We have a very engaged
membership and are looking to help out. So with that,
Angela Romero, thank.
Speaker 17 (01:09:00):
You for having me.
Speaker 20 (01:09:01):
As you mentioned, I am the leader of the House Democrats,
and there are seventy five members in the House and
only fourteen of us are Democrats. But we're a small
group of legislators, but we're very mighty and we fight
for the rights of the people. I also serve as
the president of the national Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators.
So I am organized at a national level, and many
(01:09:24):
of the unions support our organization fight for immigrant rights
and just fighting for people in general. And I think
that's what you saw happen here with HB two sixty
seven with the public sector labor union amendments.
Speaker 17 (01:09:40):
I work for the City of Salad City.
Speaker 20 (01:09:42):
I'm in management, but I'm very supportive of our unions
and what our unions do for us. So when we
saw this bill come forward and we saw conversations and
negotiations going on behind the scenes, we knew that it
had to be an up and down vote, and we
knew if we did this referendum, working with the Utah
Education Association and other organizations, that we would be able
(01:10:03):
to get it on the ballot for twenty twenty six,
which is what happened. And Utah has a really unique
law when it comes to doing a referendum.
Speaker 17 (01:10:13):
It's a very high standard.
Speaker 20 (01:10:15):
So not only do you have to get enough signatures,
but you have to There are twenty nine Senate districts,
and out of those twenty nine Senate districts, you have
to have fifteen of those Senate districts and you have
to have eight percent of those voters, and so they
made it really impossible for people to do a referendum.
But we knew when when this bill passed, and it
didn't pass on party lines. It was a bipartisan effort
(01:10:39):
and because of our Republican colleagues that crossed over, there's
no way that the governor could veto the referendum, and
so that we needed that, that needed that to really
push this forward. And so we just saw people come
out of the woodwork, and after the session was over,
many of us were just there with our unions knocking
on doors every day, gather and signatures. My son actually
(01:11:01):
worked on signature gathering as a field organizer. So for
me it was a family affair just because of our
commitment to the people and to public service and thankful
to our unions for the worker rights that we have
currently right now.
Speaker 4 (01:11:17):
Yeah, I saw a quote from the governor that said
something to the effect of, well, yeah, I sign laws
all the time. I don't like you know. It was
a couple of weeks ago, and he was backpedaling pretty
quickly on the fact that that he had signed this,
especially once he saw that the amount of signatures were
so volumeless, you know, that were so big, and so
(01:11:37):
kudos to the labor movement, to all of you advocates
in that space that really, like you said, crossed over
partisan issues right crossover party lines and made sure that
the issue around workers was raised up enough to get
away from the typical partisan bickery and to do it
(01:11:58):
on a scale like you did. You know, knocking down
those fifteen districts at over eight percent is typically a
large threshold to get over, but you blew right past
that in a lot of ways, doubled it.
Speaker 20 (01:12:11):
And that's really the Ueautai Education Association and them organizing
all the different unions and never underestimate teachers, I can
tell you that. And I think we have out of
the twenty nine Senate districts, we have signatures in twenty
one of those districts was accounts so far, so they
exceeded the number that they were supposed to get the
(01:12:32):
fifteen Senate districts up to twenty one. And we'll see,
you know how close those other Senate districts are. But
I think this is a really good message to my
colleagues in the legislature when it comes to unions and
what was going to happen in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 17 (01:12:48):
So I'd love to see.
Speaker 20 (01:12:51):
Candidates on both sides of the aisle that are more
union friendly. And I think this is a strong, clear
message because I'm telling you, every year we've see union
rights chipped away slowly here in Utah, and this was
there was conversations between certain unions and the majority, and
some of us were saying, no, there's no room for negotiation.
(01:13:14):
And I know people were afraid because they're like, well,
what if we don't get the numbers for the referendum.
And I told people, if we don't, if we compromise
and we let the way, then they're going to use
this as a model and other states and they're going
to take away all our rights.
Speaker 17 (01:13:29):
And so it's either it's either all or nothing.
Speaker 20 (01:13:32):
And so I'm glad people realized that it needed to
be all or nothing, and people gathered together and they
fought for the rights of unions.
Speaker 4 (01:13:39):
You're right anytime there's an attack on bargaining, you know,
this is something that I hold near and dear, clearly
as a labor leader, but most specifically, if you look
at the history of how protected concerted activity was one
the first The first piece of it being enshrined in
the law was in nineteen thirty four under the Wagner
(01:13:59):
actimately nineteen thirty five at converting to the Nationally Relations Act,
and the argument for protected concerted activity and ultimately collective
bargaining was one out of the freedom to assemble and
the freedom of speech that workers did not have prior
to nineteen thirty four. In other words, prior to nineteen
thirty four, I'm sure you're well aware that there was
(01:14:21):
no law on the books protecting worker's right to freedom
of speech or freedom to assemble while at work. As
a matter of fact, it was the opposite that their
ability to do those very things which were afforded, as
you know, being in the United States, that you have
the freedom of speech, you have the freedom to assemble,
were actually taken away when you were a worker. Clearly,
(01:14:43):
that comes out of the code in which you could
own your labor at one point, which was slavery, it
not allowing itself to be broken. Fast forward again back
to nineteen thirty four thirty five concerted activity. The argument
to gaining concerted activity was one off of those arguments
on the floor in Congress, making the point that the
(01:15:06):
freedom of speech and the freedom to assemble, we're there.
So when you see the attack on public employee bargaining
or any bargaining right being stripped away, that means a
part of your First Amendment right is being repealed, is
being stripped away, is being taken back. And what I'm
trying to do is get a message out and really
double down in this space. And I think it's just
(01:15:28):
phenomenal that you reacted so quickly in this space to say, hey,
we're not going to compromise, because what happens, as you
pointed out, is that they're sit there and they try
to kind of divide everybody. Oh, we're not going to
attack the police officers, or we're not going to attack
this group or that group. They start to water it down.
Then interested groups start to back away, and then it starts,
(01:15:49):
and then it passes, and then you get maybe a
watered down version of it. But guess what, it still happens,
and workers end up losing in the long run. So
kudos to you for not being willing to compromise and
making sure that it was an all or nothing situation
and that in turn, you made sure you mobilized to
actually get it on the ballot man, Huge congratulations, And
(01:16:11):
I want to take it one step further. One of
the things that I said while this was going on
was on Friday, because that governor signed an ABE two
sixty seven on a Friday, and I personally believe that
all the public employees on that Monday should have taken
a position Friday that Monday, we're not going to work. Now.
There was police officers, firefighters, teachers every day. And I
(01:16:33):
know everybody doesn't necessarily agree with me on this, but
I think that if all of them took that position
we're not going to work, you took away our rights.
We're not going to work. I think everybody would have
scrambled to try to fix it a little bit quicker.
I'm really trying to agitate this space of worker power
and workers exercising that power. Again. I'm not taking away
at all the effectiveness and how powerful what you did
(01:16:57):
to move hundreds of thousands of people in this direction,
but I'm hoping that we can also step it up
one more level too. What do you think about that?
Speaker 17 (01:17:06):
No, I agree with you one hundred percent.
Speaker 20 (01:17:08):
As I mentioned to you, there were some people that
were part of certain unions that were negotiating and trying
to create to find some commonality with the with the
Republican sponsor and some of their people. And they had
even wrote a letter and I personally raise that to
some national organizations because of my ties to the nationalistpanic ocs,
(01:17:31):
the state legislators, so they were able to get some
of their national people, National AFL, CIO and others to
put pressure on the Utah unions to say, hey, there's
no room for compromise here. And so this was really
the heart and soul of the Utai Education Association and
all those teachers and not willing to back down because
this was a direct attack on public education and our
(01:17:55):
teachers and the firefighters and police officers and other and
other unions got looped into it, but this is really
an attack. And so for me to see all these
unions stand behind our teachers and all our union members
that work in public education was it was very touching
and just to see how everyone got together and organized.
(01:18:18):
And my background isn't organizing to before I became an
elected official, and as I mentioned, I work in the
public sector as well.
Speaker 17 (01:18:24):
I don't do my job to make money.
Speaker 20 (01:18:26):
I do my job to serve people, and that's what
most people in public unions do. Their firefighters, their bus drivers,
their teachers, their police officers. They're there to serve and
help the people, and they want to make sure that
they have their basic rights covered so that they can
collectively bargain, they can talk about their salaries. And this
bill was even to go further where it wasn't going
to allow some people to even participate in our public
(01:18:51):
PHP so to get those benefits for health and some
of these other benefits. So we'll see what they bring
forward in the two thousand and twenty six legislative session.
I don't know, but I think the message was loud
and keep clear to my colleagues that don't mess with unions.
And so for me, that was I was happy to
(01:19:14):
see everyone come together and fight. But I agree with you,
sometimes in order to make a statement, you have to
show what you do and the services you provide, because
if you don't, people just take you for granted.
Speaker 4 (01:19:27):
Well, clearly, it's it's been obvious that organizations like this,
there was the ones that have propped this up, you know,
Right to Work, Freedom Foundation, all those organizations that are
trying to erode work or rights. They they sometimes do
a good job of kind of pitting the organizations within
labor against one another and say, okay, well, we won't
(01:19:50):
attack the cops or the firefighters or this group or
that group, and it'll just be it'll just be you know,
such and such public employees. You know, that's where the
abuse is, that's where the waste is. And the reality
is is that a fight on one is a fight
on all. Clearly, that's how you all saw it. And
we've got to get workers more engaged in the space
(01:20:12):
that the reality is is when when workers, let's say
in the private sector, see an attack on public sector employees,
that it's no different than is if you were trying
to do the same thing in the private sector and
it just not you today. And if you say, well,
it's not me today, that's someone else that that and
(01:20:33):
you try to walk away from it, that's not your responsibility.
That that's a huge mistake. And we've got to really
really press workers to get them to understand that the
right to work foundation is at work all the time
trying to do exactly what we're talking about right now,
and that is strip away these rights of workers, villainize
(01:20:53):
public employees. Somehow they're a drain on the financial the
financial stability of an institution, the municipality, a county, whatever
it may be. The reality is is that corporate greed
that gets pulled out in tax revenue or in tax incentives,
or in abatements or in tax credits far exceeds the
(01:21:16):
amount of money that that there's any abuses on the
employee side. The reality is corporate welfare is a massive
drain on these these municipalities where let's say they put
up a mall, or they put up some sort of facility,
a car dealership, and the city or the county ends
(01:21:38):
up giving them a certain percentage of the sales tax
revenue back credited or the developer. It's it's like this
crazy scam to the billions of dollars every single month
that you if you, if you take it in you know, community,
we put it up on a large scale. In some
areas it's millions every single you know, certain cities it's
(01:21:59):
millions every year. It's crazy that somehow the workers themselves
are being villainized and targeted when they're the ones that
are answering the phone when you dial nine to one one.
They're the ones teaching our children in school. They're the
ones that take care of you when you show up
at the emergency room. They're the ones that show up
(01:22:19):
and put you in the ambulance. They're the ones that
make sure, at your most difficult time, at your most
incredible need that you may have, that they are there
for you, waiting and making sure that you're taken care
of with no questions asked. They don't call and check
to see if your your your payment came in. They
don't call and see, oh, did you make sure that
(01:22:42):
you're on the You know that your criteria is checked off.
There's no questions asked that public employee make sure that
you're taken care of. Obviously, we're passionate about it, and
we can see that you're just as passionate about it,
and we want to make sure that that message gets out.
That's why we have this radio show. That's why we
have a live radio show where we're trying to make
sure that the public understands how valuable these workers are.
(01:23:04):
On all the billboards we have in southern California, which
is now four of them on multiple large freeways right now,
we have headlined very important workers in each of the
cities and saying these are the workers that make sure
that your city operates well. Bring a positive message about
them versus it being a negative all the time. I
(01:23:24):
know that's a mouthful. That's a lot. Sorry, if we're
running on, I'm sure you got a lot of lenders.
Speaker 17 (01:23:28):
No, I understand.
Speaker 20 (01:23:31):
As I mentioned, when I'm not in the legislature in Utah,
I have the privilege of working for the City of
Salt Lake. I've worked for the City of Salt Lake
for almost twenty four years. And people, you know, say, well,
why didn't you want to change your job?
Speaker 17 (01:23:42):
And I go, I chose a.
Speaker 20 (01:23:44):
Career to serve people and to take care of people,
and to make sure that people's children are Say if
I'm in the division of Youth and Family Programs and
so I understand that, but you're right when we're given
all these incentives so people will build them. We just
gave thirty three million dollars for the guy who owns
the Utah Jazz to do some construction around the roads
(01:24:06):
on where the Delta Center is. And so again we
also gave some tax breaks this year. People like the
working people. They don't really see those tax breaks. It's
the upper it's the corporations, and it's the very wealthy
that see those tax breaks. I'd rather see those go
into a social safety net. I'd rather see it go
to help public employees. And so we see this all
(01:24:30):
the time. So this victory with this particular bill showed
the power, but we also have to execute that power
when we vote here in Utah. So I want to
see the same energy that we saw with this referendum
in twenty twenty six to make sure that we are
electing people who truly support public unions and all unions,
(01:24:52):
but also support public employees because we've seen through the
state of Utah the merit system go away. Governor as
you talked about, has done everything he can to take
away that merit status, and so we see our rights
slowly being chipped away at. And so the collective bargaining
(01:25:12):
I think was the one that just really got to
our public employees. But again, as I mentioned, that was
a specific attack on the Utah education system because they've
association because they have been working so hard to protect
our public schools. But I'm glad that police and fires
stood behind them and all the other unions did because,
as you said, no one does this alone. And so
(01:25:33):
we'll continue to see this until we wake up, as
you pointed out, and really look at who our elected
officials are and how they vote and do they truly
serve people or do they serve these corporate interests.
Speaker 4 (01:25:46):
Yeah, your point is well served on the infrastructure break
that a billionaire gets that's got plenty of money to
make sure the roads are taken care of around a
particular area. The small business owners in the area, they
don't get tax credits, they don't get incentives. All those
small business owners in the area, they're not you know,
they're they're barely getting by many times, and they don't
(01:26:09):
get to see those millions of dollars coming back to
them in discretionary tax revenue being redirected back to them
into their pockets. That doesn't happen. So let me shift
gears a little bit here. What was the behind the scenes,
Like you know, clearly it must have been chaotic, but
you guys obviously got right into into mode where you
(01:26:29):
were knocking on doors and you're canvas seeing and you're activating,
and I could just imagine what it was like mobilizing
on a scale like that where in every obviously every
corner of the state workers are knocking on doors and
asking them to sign the petition and making sure that
the message got out. What was that like? Had to
be an incredible experience being part of such a large,
(01:26:53):
fast movement like that.
Speaker 17 (01:26:55):
It was.
Speaker 20 (01:26:56):
I mean I spent majority of the time on the
doors after the session was over because I had come
back to my full time job, But then as soon
as my work day was over, I was there knocking
on doors and just to see the public support and
to just feel that sentergy and the energy that people had,
and to see people come together from all walks of
(01:27:16):
life just to protect workers' rights.
Speaker 17 (01:27:19):
It was a good feeling.
Speaker 20 (01:27:20):
But again, I want to see this in twenty twenty
six when we're knocking on doors to get people elected.
It's nice when we've had initiatives in the past, whether
it's a medicaid expansion, but what we've seen is people
will support medicaid expansion, or that we have cannabis here
in Utah, which is medical cannabis. We see them vote
(01:27:41):
for those things on the ballot, but we don't see
them vote for all the way down the ballot, so
they'll vote for the issue they care about, but they
won't vote for the elected official. And Utah, when you
look at the House of Representatives, out of seventy five members,
only fourteen of us are Democrats, and we went down
after redistracting from seventeen to fourteen. Senate there's twenty nine
senators and only six are Democrats. And if people who
(01:28:04):
are supporting these particular rights, and I'm not trying to
make this partisan, would vote down the ballot, I think
we wouldn't have such a lopsided legislature where we could
truly have some more honest conversations about important policy decisions
instead of talking about politics. Because it's frustrating at times
when we're here to elected to represent the people, but
(01:28:26):
we get sidetracked on political issues that we don't really
need to talk about, instead of focusing on how do
we make sure people can put food on the table,
how can we make sure that people can turn on lights,
and how can we make sure people have a roof
over their head?
Speaker 17 (01:28:41):
And that should be the bread and butter of what we.
Speaker 20 (01:28:44):
Do selected officials as a state legislature, but at times
that's not what happens that's not We're majority of our
time is focused. It's focused on political messaging and political theater,
and it's been happening for the last four years.
Speaker 4 (01:28:58):
Well, clearly you had you know, there's the Republicans have
complete control of the legislature and the governor's office. They're
in Utah, right and so clearly this bill which eliminated
right to work was held up and supported by them.
And obviously I'm assuming they're looking at this now seeing
this movement going, many of them may be looking at
(01:29:21):
it going maybe I shouldn't have done that, right because
their very constituents are signing a petition saying I don't
agree with the direction you took. And the reality is is,
though I would agree with you, we try not to
make it partisan. Clearly on this subject, the Republicans were
on the wrong side of the issue clearly, and they
(01:29:41):
need to be better at this subject. They and what's
going to get them better at it is more door knocking.
And to your point earlier, we have found over the
last few years that when we go knock on doors
and we introduced the conversation about jobs and we talk
about how jobs are impacting the local community, we're getting
(01:30:01):
a ninety percent success rate over a ninety percent success
rate in that exchange whatever we're asking them to do,
whether it's to get to a town hall meeting, participate
in something, pay attention to something that's going on, and
when we kind of dodge the partisan bantering, we find
that very robust conversations happen on that doorstep or in
(01:30:22):
that living room, and people then engage and then they
pack town halls as a result of doing it, because
what we're trying to do is take that partisan argument
out of it and say, look, we're talking about jobs
in the area, and we're talking about how jobs are impacted,
and we want to make sure that this is happening
or that's happening based on that, you know, on that platform,
(01:30:44):
and let's get the politics out of because most people
are clearly turned off by it. But you know, the
Republicans and you know some Democrats have to own the
fact that they've got to stop playing the political party
stuff and they got to get to protecting workers. This
is a perfect exam sample of workers being attacked, workers'
rights being attacked, and in an entire industry being attacked
(01:31:08):
that you no longer have the right to collectively bargain,
just widespread, like what do we do? It's just going
to lay down, And so it's just great to see
the way you guys responded so quickly. I just hope
that what we can do. I do believe we do.
I'm going to double down on something I said earlier,
and I know you agreed with me, and I appreciate it.
(01:31:29):
We got to turn these scenarios into where where when
workers face this sort of adversity that they do quickly
withhold their labor in a lot of ways because because
it sometimes the process getting dragged out through the referendum
and then having to go back out there and obviously
win the election cycle and all the pieces that come
(01:31:52):
with it, what is lost in it is the worker
power aspect. And if workers do in mass just say
you know what, we're not going to go to work
until you figure this out, it's going to send one
heck of a message to where they're not going to
bring something like that back again, because they're going to
realize the reaction is extreme, which is quite frankly, it's
(01:32:15):
fair because look how extreme their process or their their
proposal was. Excuse me, their bill was. It's the most extreme,
you took away workers' rights to bargain. So again I
really appreciate you you leaning in on it and seeing
it the same way, and I'm hopeful of what we
can do and we go up there and help you
get the vote out that we can also help agitate
(01:32:37):
people into that more assertive space too. Does that make sense?
Speaker 17 (01:32:41):
Yeah, it does.
Speaker 20 (01:32:41):
And I think, you know, you have to look at
the culture, and you have to look at the SAA
and here in Utah, and it's kind of a passive
aggressive culture.
Speaker 17 (01:32:49):
It's just how it is.
Speaker 20 (01:32:50):
And I always get in trouble because I'm just very direct.
Speaker 17 (01:32:53):
I'm from a family.
Speaker 20 (01:32:54):
I was raised by strong Latino women and they're very
direct and they tell you what they're thinking. And a
lot of times people don't even understand me. And I'm
not just talking about the Republicans. I'm talking about the
Democrats too. But that's why they elected me as their leader,
because they wanted someone that was just going to say
what they think and stand up for the rights of
the everyday person. And I again, I think people are
(01:33:16):
just so turned off from politics. But I think this
referendum and what we were able to do with this
referendum show people that if you come together and you
stand up for what you believe in, you can create
some change. And I think the Republicans didn't know what
hit them. As I told the speaker, you're on the
wrong side of history on this, and I've told him
on a couple of issues, you're on the wrong side
(01:33:37):
of history. And this showed right. This referendum and how
we gathered those signatures, whether it was through paid canvassers,
whether it was through people, showed that the Republican the
Republican House and Senate leaders were on the wrong side
of history and they underestimated the people. And so hopefully
(01:33:57):
we see that not fatal and we see that going
into the twenty twenty sixth election.
Speaker 4 (01:34:03):
Yeah, I don't think you guys are going to let
it fade away. That's from Dangsher and you're not definitely
not going to take it for granted like they did
on the other side. And I think what's great about
it is is you are pointing it out in the
right way. You're phrase of you're on the wrong side
of history is absolutely true. If you look at historically,
any group that is attacking workers' rights, any group that's
(01:34:26):
attacking Americans' rights. They're on the wrong side of history period.
And what we in labor have to do is we
have to we have to we have to really drill
down more on getting the average person, who may not
be a union member, to recognize how collective bargaining was
(01:34:46):
one the argument around the First Amendment, the argument to
the freedom to assemble, and the argument around once you
have those rights, why are we acquiescing them, giving them
away or a allowing them to be stripped. So your
approach collectively to do what you did in such a
(01:35:07):
large such a large scale, in my mind, is a
huge inspiration and sends an enormous message that really really
shows that they miscalculated, those elected officials miscalculated the resolve
of workers in this space, not just unions as institutions,
(01:35:27):
but more so, I think you've pointed out over and
over again workers and workers they get the space when
you talk to them, they get it when you knock
on their door, and you know they're willing to help
out when you explain to them what's at stake.
Speaker 20 (01:35:41):
And these are, like I said, these are essential workers.
As you pointed out as well, these are the people
we trust to get our kids to school. These are
the people we trust to teach our kids. These are
the people we trust we're when there's crisis, and so
to attack public unions, it just it boggled my mind.
(01:36:02):
And as I mentioned, most of us that serving you know,
in the public sector, it's not like we're making the
gazillion dollars. We're doing it because we care about people
and we want to serve our communities. And that's every
union worker I know, and any person who works for
the municipality I work for.
Speaker 17 (01:36:21):
They're here because they care about people.
Speaker 20 (01:36:24):
And so why would you take away those basic rights
for someone? Why would you, you know, take away the
collective bargaining, But more importantly at a state level, why
would you take the merit system away when someone's put
in the time, and they put in the effort, and
they put in the years. And so we've just seen
and you know, another bill that they've focus on is
taking away union dues. You know, you're not being able
(01:36:46):
to take it out of your check. So again, unions
have been under attack here in Utah for five or
six years, and I think they just thought things were
going to go the way that they usually go and
nobody was really going to pay attention. But I think
this hit home home when it came to collective bargaining
because they couldn't separate UEA from from fire or police
(01:37:06):
because it's within our constitution.
Speaker 17 (01:37:08):
So if they were going to attack one, they had
to attack all.
Speaker 20 (01:37:11):
And I'm glad that people stood behind UEA and didn't
cave in and didn't do these negotiations that were happening
behind the scenes with certain unions and they said, you know, no,
this is all or nothing. And that was mine and
Senator Escamilla's message to our caucuses she's the leader of
the Senate Democrats, is like, we can't compromise collective bargaining
(01:37:31):
because once we say yes and we agree to their negotiation,
this is going to have a ripple effect. This is
going to have a chilling effect across the country because
they're going to use this as their model.
Speaker 17 (01:37:42):
In other word, states, yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:37:44):
You're your you know you adhering to that goal is
admirable because there's this there's this argument to say, oh,
we got to work something out. The reality is, you know,
being all in and making sure that there is a
clear line drawn and if you're an attack on one,
(01:38:07):
there's an attack on all is exactly how it had
to be approached. I just think it's it had to
be phenomenal. What I want listeners to realize is how
difficult that was to manage for all of you that
were working on it, because as we were paying attention
to it, you could see that the governor kept leaning
in saying, well, I think another type of bill is
(01:38:28):
going to be worked on. I think that there's going
to be a compromise made here. This is going to happen.
That's going to happen. And before he signed it, he
was trying to get everybody to do something slightly different.
The amount of work it took for all of you
behind the scenes is incredible to keep everybody on the
same page, keep them unified, to say, look, if you're
(01:38:51):
going to fight one of us, you're fighting all of us.
We're not going to give up any sacrificial lamps in
this space. All I got to tell you is that
is exact exactly what the labor movement needs. That is
exactly what workers need. Is that sort of dedication to
one another. This is the stuff that makes things happen
on a larger scale on I mean it doesn't get
(01:39:12):
much larger than two hundred and fifty thousand what you did.
But quite frankly, I think, you know, in the labor
as a whole, we need to even do it on
larger scales now. And this is a real good example
of you all not kind of you know, getting broken
down by what's going on behind the scenes. And I'll
just say it one more time for those of you listening,
you got to understand that work behind the scenes was
(01:39:34):
incredibly challenging and incredibly difficult. Thank you for pointing that out.
Speaker 20 (01:39:39):
Yeah, because there are people that again were trying to
negotiate and they had had a letter and they had
logos of some of the unions that didn't agree to that,
and you know, there was some of us that were
again doing things behind the scenes. Not our caucus wasn't
even aware of it. Through my presidency as a national
Hispanic caucus of state legislators, I you know, my national contacts,
(01:40:00):
I'm like, hey, you need to put your people in line.
You need to have a conversation because I hear there's
some negotiation going on and I don't feel comfortable with it.
And those people fell through for us, and well they
didn't father. They listened and they stepped up and they said, hey,
what the hell are you doing, Like you can't be
compromising our rights. And so I think between just all
(01:40:21):
these different voices and really pushing, and there were people
that were afraid. They're like, well, no, we need to
negotiate because we need to protect the little rights we have,
and we're like, no, it's all our nothing. And I'm
glad that everyone fell in line and did the all
and nothing, because who knows where we'd be right now.
Little if that negotiation would have went through and people
(01:40:44):
would have bought off on it, you.
Speaker 4 (01:40:45):
Would have been like Wisconsin. You'd have been like Wisconsin,
because that's what they did in Wisconsin. Right when in
twenty eleven they tried to split, well, they didn't try.
They did split, and they only went after certain groups
in the public sector. Ultimately, later on they ended up
coming after all of them and everybody in the end
ended up losing as a result of that. And so
(01:41:07):
Utah obviously did it in a way that you prevented
that from happening. You prevented them from winning by doing
what you're doing. And clearly you we're not going to
take for granted what needs to be done in twenty
twenty six, but we're here. I'm telling you we will
fill a bus, we will send people up, we will
help you knock on doors. I'll tell you is it.
(01:41:29):
We'll work with the state, AFL or whoever it is
to be, you know, make sure that we're doing member
to member, worker to work or sort of stuff versus
the political stuff because obviously, you know, there's certain regulatory
factors we've got to pay attention to there. But at
the end of the day, we'll find a way to
make it happen. And heck, I've had hundreds of people
say we'll volunteer, go up there, take a week off
(01:41:49):
to help knock that down. I know when this happened
in Missouri. I think it was Missouri that repealed right
to work at you know, all of us threw down
and we were willing to send whatever it was going
to take to make sure we knocked on an every
single door that we had to knock on to make
it happen. Because a fight for one is a fight
for all.
Speaker 20 (01:42:07):
And I definitely think those are some conversations I can
entertain offline and and talk to you about because there's
a lot of things that can happen here in Utah.
I think where there's this stereotype that words is this
bright red state, and there's some truth to that.
Speaker 17 (01:42:22):
But I also think.
Speaker 20 (01:42:23):
This referendum and the work of all the unions coming
together to fight what had been proposed in HB two
sixty seven showed that there is people power here. But
we have to give people a reason to want to
fight and believe. And this was something that people say, Hey,
we need to protect these basic rights, but there's other
(01:42:44):
rights that we need to protect here in Utah, and
to make sure.
Speaker 17 (01:42:47):
That we're not going.
Speaker 20 (01:42:50):
In a way where we're taking away the power of unions.
There's a reason why we have unions. And even though
I'm not in a union, because of unions, I have
certain rights as a publican pool and I appreciate it
when it comes to my retirement, when it comes to
a lot of things that people don't have in the
private sector. And so there's really unique things about working
in the public sector and sacrificing and not getting that
(01:43:13):
big paycheck because you care about people, and so we
want to make sure that we protect those rights.
Speaker 4 (01:43:18):
Yeah, And is there anything in particular that you want
to share with listeners about this process or what you
experienced or what's coming. You know, you've got We've got
a few minutes here and anything you'd like to share,
you know, mic is yours.
Speaker 3 (01:43:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 17 (01:43:35):
Utah's just a really unique state. We have.
Speaker 20 (01:43:38):
Our legislative session is really interesting. We only meet for
forty five days, so everything has to happen within that
forty five days. So these bills, like you're passing hundreds
and hundreds of bills within this forty five day period,
and so there's a lot to be said of a
citizen what we call a citizen legislature is really truly
(01:43:59):
the model that we should we should be doing as
a state, or do we have to look at other avenues.
Speaker 17 (01:44:05):
The other thing is.
Speaker 20 (01:44:08):
Just people just really need to believe in a system again.
And I feel like Bernie Sanders was out here with
AOC and we had almost twenty thousand people at the
John Huntsman Center and not all of them could fit in.
So I feel like there's this movement, it's bubbling up,
(01:44:28):
and I'm just hoping we can keep that energy here
in Utah. I know, as a state representative, I do
the retail politics. Not everyone does, and so there are
things that I'll be doing in my district to keep
people engaged and keep them organized, because what we see
in a lot of our districts, especially our working class districts,
is people just don't go out and vote because they're like, well,
(01:44:50):
it's the Utah Legislature.
Speaker 17 (01:44:52):
They're just going to do what they're going to do,
and they always do this.
Speaker 20 (01:44:55):
And so I think this bill and the people the
collective power that came behind this bill kind of dispels
that myth. And I think if people could just really
step up, there are seats that Democrats in Utah lose
by fifty votes, by one hundred votes, and if we
just had a little bit more people power and more
people doing knocking on the doors and talking about issues
(01:45:18):
that people believe in, I really feel like we could
flip some seats and we could have more balance here.
And so I just want people to dispell that myth
that Utah is a red, red state, and I think
there's opportunity for us here to grow, and I think
there's opportunities for us to ensure that we're protecting our unions.
Speaker 4 (01:45:36):
But yeah, how about the phrase Utah is a worker power.
Speaker 17 (01:45:40):
State, it is a worker power stay.
Speaker 20 (01:45:44):
I prefer that then the Utah Way, that's the phrase
they use out here, Well it's a Utah way.
Speaker 17 (01:45:50):
Well, the Utah Way doesn't usually support workers.
Speaker 4 (01:45:53):
And so it supports corporate America's interest on trying to
control everything, and sometimes the policy, you know, it gets lost,
what's happening for workers gets lost in all of that stuff.
Speaker 20 (01:46:06):
But I also have to say that I wouldn't be
where I'm at as a leader or as an organizer
without the support of unions. When I first ran for office,
the reason I got put into office is because I
had union members that are knocking on doors for me,
because they believed in me, and they believe.
Speaker 17 (01:46:21):
That they knew that I was one of them.
Speaker 20 (01:46:23):
My grandfather built tanks for a living, came from a working,
blue collar background, and so I never forget where I
came from and who I am and who I will
fight for. And so if it wasn't for those unions
and many of the unions, the Teamsters and Local Too
to two and others, I wouldn't be where I'm at today,
(01:46:44):
and so I'm very thankful for that. So it's like,
you know, if someone gives you something, you also have
to give back and help support them. And so that's
why while I'm leader, I'll continue to make sure that
I'm a voice for for unions and for working people.
Speaker 4 (01:46:58):
Yeah, so you know I'm good friends Spencer Hope at
a local to tow too there in your hometown. But hey,
what tank company? Where was they building? Where's your grand
was your grandfather or your father is building tanks.
Speaker 20 (01:47:10):
My grandfather, my Grandfafather worked for the Twiler Army Depot,
and so my family, my maternal side, are from New Mexico,
northern New Mexico, and so the Twiler Army Depot recruited
a lot of our families to come work in the
coal mines and to work at the Twiller Army Depot.
And so my family came to Utah that way, so
(01:47:31):
have strong New Mexico ties. But I grew up in
a small town called Twela, Utah, and then first generation
to go to college, so I moved to the big
city and I never left.
Speaker 4 (01:47:42):
Well, most people don't realize the geography that Utah and
New Mexico actually touch each other, right, Yes, the four
corners there, you can actually step from one one state
to the other. Yeah, and a lot of mining, a
lot of a lot of industrial jobs moved around the
West like that, where families have followed the work. So
(01:48:02):
it's great to see that you're part of that heritage
and part of that great history and in a lot
of ways tough history, right, Like those jobs difficult, difficult jobs,
very difficult on working people for a long period of time.
Speaker 20 (01:48:17):
Well, and they really they went, you know, they specifically
recruited Latino families and we were kind of redlined into
one area of the town. I grew up in Twila,
so all our families lived in the same area. So
it was like a compositive system. And so for me,
I always had my community taking care of me and
(01:48:37):
supporting me, and so it was always a big family.
Speaker 17 (01:48:39):
And my grandfather when they first.
Speaker 20 (01:48:41):
Moved to Tetuila, there were signs that said no dogs,
no Mexicans. And so my grandfather and his buddies built
their own club called the Family Benefit Association.
Speaker 17 (01:48:51):
So they had their own bar, their own pool.
Speaker 20 (01:48:53):
Table, and they organized amongst themselves.
Speaker 17 (01:48:56):
So organizing kind of always just spend in my blood.
Speaker 4 (01:49:02):
Phenomenal And I could hear it's in your blood. I
can hear it's part of everything that you do again,
phenomenal work. I can't it's just so glad that you
came on the show to share this story. Especially in
a lot of the things that are happening right now
with public employees across the country. There are some people
that feel defeated, and I think that this is an
inspiration and this shows that there's no reason to be defeated.
(01:49:25):
That what whether you like some of the things that
are happening or the outcomes, you literally can control how
you deal with it as well as you can try
to protect it going forward and try to prevent other people.
And I like what you said earlier were you're looking
forward at what you can do as an additional step
to prevent this from happening again, or prevent that disconnect
(01:49:48):
from happening again. That's why I always, again I lean
into the space of saying, you know, workers are going
to have to be a little bit more militant because
they're going to have to be more reactive, and initiatives
like this initiative, as far as the Right to Work initiative,
the extreme Right to Work initiative, needs to realize that
(01:50:09):
they're going to provoke workers to fight back, because workers
do fight back once you explain to them what's going on,
and other workers will help and support.
Speaker 20 (01:50:19):
I agree, and I think that workers need to really
look at their elected officials at a local level, especially
at a state level, that's where a lot of our
rights are taken away, and really look at that individual
they're voting for. Does this person really support my best interests?
And if that person doesn't, they need to vote for
someone else.
Speaker 4 (01:50:37):
But the local politics, I think you said it earlier,
what happens is is the it falls down the ballot,
you know what I mean. A lot of the local
elected officials doesn't get the same sort of attention people.
Our civic responsibility has kind of distanced us from the
local politics, and so much more can be done at
(01:50:59):
the local level, quite frankly, than it can be at
the state level. Right, It's true. And the reality is
is we've got to start to get workers to understand
you got control over that. You've got more control over
that than you realize in your city, your town, or
your county. And we just got to we just gotta
be we got to lean more into that.
Speaker 20 (01:51:18):
Yeah, because again, at the end of the day, the
may is the one that will negotiate with worker rights
at a city level or at a county level, and
the city council is the one that authorizes that budget.
So it's really important to have those conversations and find
out who those individuals are and do they truly.
Speaker 17 (01:51:35):
Support workers and worker rights.
Speaker 20 (01:51:37):
At a local level here as well as your local
school boards too. I don't think a lot of times
people pay attention to school boards. And again, a lot
of people will vote for these initiatives that like medical
you know, we were looking at, you know, redistricting and
making sure that that was fair and medical cannabis, and
also expanding medicaid, and so many people voted for that,
(01:52:00):
but they just didn't vote down the ballot. And if
they would have voted down the ballot, I think we
would have had a more balanced legislature where we might
have been able to pass full medicaid expansion. Because when
we do initiatives here in Utah, it still has to
be approved by the legislature and they can change it.
So again, there's a lot of work ahead of us
to make sure that we're protecting the rights of people
(01:52:22):
and more importantly, the rights of our working people and
ensuring that we're protecting our most vulnerable as well, and
we have that social safety net for people as well,
and a lot of times we just don't have those conversations.
Speaker 4 (01:52:36):
Angela, Thank you very much. Robert, is there anything you
want to add to this?
Speaker 11 (01:52:40):
Yeah, I was just going to say representative, thank you
so much for coming on. You know, I think Randy
would agree to this too, especially in a time where
corporate America is feeling empowered to really hammer on, you know,
labor unions and especially our rank and file members. We
have someone like you in Utah, where it's it's a
red states, as you mentioned, but it's also working class state,
(01:53:01):
and so workers were obviously woken up by this you know,
horrible bill to attack their bargaining rights, and just wanted
to point out that, you know, you're a woman in power,
and you know that women in a union versus non
union make more than if they were non union worker.
So just thank you for your advocacy and for being
that spark in Utah, especially where everyone has the idea
(01:53:24):
that it's an anti worker state, which in many cases
it is, but we have people like you leading the
fight there, and so thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 20 (01:53:31):
Now, my mom and my cousin are they're both women,
are in construction and their operation rollers and they're part
of unions as well, and so for me that's very
important to protect those wages that they receive, whether they're
working a federal job or just working here locally.
Speaker 4 (01:53:47):
Yeah, anything you want to close.
Speaker 20 (01:53:50):
On, no, I just thank you for having me, and
I hope people will come on the bus loads and
I will knock on doors for us to elect more
pro union, pro worker candidates at the state and even
as you mentioned the local level, well.
Speaker 4 (01:54:07):
Thank you. We've been joined by Angela Romero, the representative
from House District twenty five in Utah. She has just
done this fabulous job of explaining how they have a
ballot initiative now and a ballot referendum to deal with
HB two sixty seven, which stripped away public employee rights.
(01:54:29):
She did a phenomenal job of articulating it on the show.
I think that this is, in my opinion, one of
our better shows in the last year and a half.
Very engaging, very detailed, and it's really inspirational to see,
even in the face of what is a very difficult situation,
(01:54:50):
that a very quick response can be managed, mobilized, doors
can be knocked on, and workers can be absolutely engaged.
And I just want you to know, Spencer just text
me back. I don't know if she's still listening in,
but Spencer Hogue from Local Tow Too two just ten
(01:55:11):
text text me back and says she is in blank
kicking machine. In other words, a very huge compliment coming
from the teamster local there in Utah about who was
just on her show. So really thank her for coming
on the show. We've just got a few minutes left.
I'm going to wrap up with some some things that
(01:55:32):
are going on. And boy, boy, she she killed it.
She described it, and what an inspiration it should be
to all of our listeners. Uh, you know, we could
take that this this half of the show and use it,
use some sound bites and snippets coming out of it
to really show that that no matter what's going on
(01:55:53):
and how you feel, there's a way to deal with it.
And so some of the things I wanted to talk
about is Rancha Kukum. We've reached an agreement. They'll be
voting there the members we represent at nineteen thirty two,
they've got some increases as well as a significant increase
on their health and welfare contribution, making it they went
(01:56:14):
from the lowest in the city to now the highest
as far as what the employer is paying. The Fontana
unit will have their retiree medical deductions for their component
being that start in July. We also have in a
(01:56:35):
couple of areas where terminations have been reduced significantly. No
longer are they a termination. Our staff has been able
to turn those either into suspensions or warning letters. We
also have a situation where the Kronos issue at the
hospital was out of whack and created a ton of
(01:56:57):
time keeping errors and those work those members have been
compensated or balanced out as a result of that. And
so we also are happy to report on a contract
extension for the PSD group. Now remember that's very very
(01:57:18):
delicate and difficult situation because PSD is tied to the
federal funds that are coming in and obviously in a
lot of ways being cut by what's going on with
DOGE or DOG or whatever that organization is. That's really uh,
you know, not doing good things for working people. Anyway,
we were able to do that should be out for
(01:57:39):
vote here pretty soon. That that just just just concluded
great work by the staff and great work by the team.
Even though lots of things may be happening out there,
we're making sure that that the everyday work is happening
on the ground. And and uh, with that, I'm gonna oh, oh,
this one last thing. In the case Amazon workers, over
(01:58:03):
fifteen claimants have been awarded over thirty thousand dollars in
claims for waging hour violations, and there's another one hundred
more claims that are coming in. So it's good to
see that happening. Lots of positive things all over the place.
And how is this happening is because we're building worker power.
We're building worker power in the inaland empire. You see
our billboards and our buses, and you see the entire
(01:58:25):
think of Teamster campaign that we have out there. And
what that's doing with our radio show and our buses
and our billboards is it's bringing attention to us. And
we'll have people like Angela on our show to talk
about how great it is to come together and the
things that the possibilities and the things that we can
do as workers and how we can drive the message
going forward. This is Randy Corgan and the Worker Power
(01:58:46):
Hour CASEAA ten fifty AM, one oh six point five FM,
and the Teamsters nineteen thirty two broadcast network, longtime organizer,
first time radio host, signing off, see you next week.
Speaker 17 (01:59:03):
They haven't changed the news that a field maybe hot.
Speaker 4 (01:59:18):
When you get drunk, me.
Speaker 1 (01:59:23):
You yah.
Speaker 15 (01:59:33):
NBC News on KCAA Lomolada sponsored by Teamsters Local nineteen
thirty two Protecting the Future of Working Families Teamsters nineteen
thirty two, Dot Org.
Speaker 19 (01:59:51):
For k c A A ten fifty A, m NBC
News Radio and Express one of six point five FM.
A Rench of Cuckamonga man has received a twelve month
prison term for illegally possessing sensitive technology that ended up
in the hands of the Chinese. Federal prosecutors say
Popular Podcasts
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!
Fudd Around And Find Out
UConn basketball star Azzi Fudd brings her championship swag to iHeart Women’s Sports with Fudd Around and Find Out, a weekly podcast that takes fans along for the ride as Azzi spends her final year of college trying to reclaim the National Championship and prepare to be a first round WNBA draft pick. Ever wonder what it’s like to be a world-class athlete in the public spotlight while still managing schoolwork, friendships and family time? It’s time to Fudd Around and Find Out!