← Green & Red: Podcasts for Scrappy Radicals
Green & Red: Podcasts for Scrappy Radicals
Best of G&R: Happy Scrappy Labor Day!! The Ruling Class vs Radical Organizing (G&R 414)
00:41:58
Loading summary
Transcript128 lines
- [00:01]
A
Welcome to Green and Red Scrappy Politics for Scrappy People, a regular podcast on radical environmental and anti capitalist politics.
- [00:10]
B
Brought to you by Bob Bozanko and Scott Parkins.
- [00:14]
A
Welcome to the silky smooth sounds of the Green and Red podcast. Your co host, Scott Parkin in San Francisco, California today. And as always, I am joined by.
- [00:27]
B
Boba Zenko from Houston. From the Gulf coast, not from the elite liberal coast.
- [00:33]
A
Yeah, yeah, I'm part of the, I'm a west Coast, I'm a left coast elitist, I guess.
- [00:37]
B
Yes. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I'm not from the land of Pelosi and Feinstein.
- [00:44]
A
Yeah, exactly. And, and, and you know the tech giants who are so influential.
- [00:50]
B
Yeah. I'm from the land of Abbott. Did crazy Republicans and oil companies.
- [00:55]
A
Ted Cruz, you know, he's, he's actually an east coast elitist.
- [00:57]
B
Deep down, you know, he is, he's Canadian. Yeah, that's true, Raphael.
- [01:04]
A
That's why it's one of the Goldman sack. Works for Goldman. Works for Goldman Sachs. Right.
- [01:07]
B
Like sometimes just messing around. I always call Raphael Cruz. But it's, I think it's funny because sometimes liberals get mad at me and say like, that's not cool, blah, blah, blah, that's kind of racist. Like it's his name.
- [01:19]
A
Yeah.
- [01:19]
B
And the fact that he banned his own name I think is fair game, right? Yeah, yeah.
- [01:25]
A
It's just. Anyway, anyway, he kind of looks like the Zodiac Killer, right?
- [01:32]
B
He is the Zodiac. I'm putting it out there right now. Ted Cruz is the Zodiac Killer. Yeah.
- [01:42]
A
So it's a, it's a scrappy Labor Day weekend and so we're going to be reporting today live from the class war. So we're going to be talking, maybe not live, but we're going to be talking about Labor Day and labor items. And you know, we have actually a few other things to talk about as well. We'll probably riff and rant and ramble because, you know, that's what we do. But we're going to kick off with this week in a radical history. We have a couple of items here that we wanted to bring up. First, on August 28, 1955, is when 14 year old Emmett Till was tortured and murdered after reportedly flirting with a white woman. His killers were acquitted. Emmett's mother held an open casket funeral to show the world her son's mulated body. And his death actually helped encourage the civil rights movement. And then I have a little bit of a longer one that I'm going to go into, which is August 30 was August 30, 1948 was the birthday of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton. We've actually done a show on and we'll tag it in the, in the show notes. But Fred Hampton was born in Summit, Illinois and he was a, he was a dynamic leader, to say the least. He was key informing links between the Black Panthers and working class people of all races. At 21, he was assassinated in a joint operation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the, the darling of the liberal establishment and the Chicago Police. I won't, I'm. I'm sure they're very popular with, you know, liberals in Chicago. But you know, Fred Hampton, he was the Illinois, he was the chair of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panthers. He actually co founded a multiracial Rainbow Coalition. The original Rainbow Coalition, just to be clear, it was the coalition of the Young Lords, which was a Puerto Rican group, the Young Patriots, which was like a working class white group, Chicago street gangs that included the Blackstone Rangers. Nationally, the Rainbow Coalition included the American Indian Movement, the Students for Democratic Society, the Brown Beret, the Red Guard Party and Jesse Jackson. Hampton and this actually kind of plays well with us reporting live from the class war. One of the things he said is we don't, we don't think you fight fire with fire best. We think you fight fire with water best. We're going to fight racism, not with racism, but we're going to fight with solidarity. We say we're not going to fight capitalism with black capitalism, we're going to fight it with socialism. Fred Hampton then in December 1968 was targeted and eventually assassinated by the FBI and the Chicago police. And that was actually after a number of years of a COINTEL operation which did everything it could to discredit Hampton and the Illinois, well, the Illinois Black Panthers. But of course, as we all know, there was a larger national cointelpro operation to discredit the Black Panthers nationally as well.
- [05:07]
B
You know what's amazing about Hampton and a lot of those younger guys associated at the time, Bobby Hut and others, they read what they wrote. I mean just, it's a really incredibly informed and sophisticated analysis by these guys who were really young at the time. And it really encompassed all kinds of people, these ideas. And like as you pointed out, there were socialists. They were, they understood class power and socialism very well. So yeah, Hampton is a really an incredible theorist and it's worth just kind of looking up some of the stuff he wrote, I think incredibly useful today, in fact. So yeah, I only have a couple things very short. On 9-3-1911, the Little Red Song Book of the IWW. A new edition came out and it included a song by the great Joe Hill called the Preacher and the Slave. And I say that mainly because it's like one of my favorite songs. I play it all the time in my classes and stuff, which talks about the role of organized religion, suppressing people's movements. And he's specifically talking at the time about, you know, like at the era of unionization, the ministers would come in and tell these workers not to form units and not to organize and not to go on strike. There's a great scene that John Sales made one about that. Sales himself plays the minister. Right. And I also bring that up because there's a little, little spoiler, a little Easter egg, a teaser, I don't know what you call it, but make sure you listen to our outro music. And then the other thing I'm not going to spend a lot of time on because we really do need to spend like a show on this sometime on September 9, 1970. Wine. I believe I should write these things down. The Attica uprising broke out. Attica prison in New York. One of the biggest prison uprising in the US at the end, I think was 11 people were dead. The guards, you know, came in, the, the New York politicians led by Nelson Rockefeller kind of double crossed. They made promises, they negotiated them, they just opened fire on them. And you know, it really, that's something that like, you know, in the United States we hear a lot about the carceral state, the prison industrial complex and stuff like that. But sometimes the kind of use of just outright violence is kind of, you know, we don't talk about enough, you know, right now in Texas this summer, the temperatures inside prisons has been like 120s, 130s, and they have no air conditioning. I forget how many. Didn't somebody mention that the other day? One of, one of our guests, I think was talking about people dying in Texas prisons because they eat. So Atticus is really famous that way.
- [07:45]
A
So I, I actually, I actually mentioned it in like a previous, a recent scrappy Sunday, talking about, talking about how it's too damn hot.
- [07:54]
B
Yeah, so Anyway, Attica began 52 years ago this week.
- [08:02]
A
And, and, and one thing with Attica is that, you know, Nelson Rockefeller is actually seen as this sort of like nice liberal of the Governor of New.
- [08:09]
B
York, epitome of Republican liberalism, Rockefeller Republicans.
- [08:12]
A
Yeah, but then, but then he, you know, besides, you know, you know, clamping down on the, the Attica. What happened at Attica the, you know, the Nelson Rockefeller drug laws are actually something that threw a lot of people in prison in New York State.
- [08:25]
B
Y. Y. Yeah, yeah. It's funny, you know, Biden announced kind of an amnesty, right? Anyone in federal prison from, you know, marijuana possession is going to be released. It's like no one's in federal prison for marijuana possession. It's not, you know, so it's actually.
- [08:42]
A
A very small number of people.
- [08:43]
B
Yeah, I. I don't think there are any, actually. But the point is, it's like him saying, I'm not afraid of it. I'm the most pro union president. I'm the most pro environment president ever. I released the prison anyway.
- [08:55]
A
And Biden's probably to the right of now Nelson Rockefeller these days, too.
- [08:59]
B
Right there. Right. He's the right of Richard Nixon. So. Yeah, there you go.
- [09:03]
A
There you go.
- [09:04]
B
Yeah, it's, it's. It's tough sledding. Anyhow, what we're gonna get.
- [09:11]
A
Go ahead.
- [09:12]
B
You ready to get scrapped?
- [09:13]
A
Are you ready? Because I'm ready to get scrappy for some scrappy Labor Day. So what we're going to get into a little bit is the history of Labor Day, and then we're going to actually talk about, like, some current labor stuff. And just a couple of quick facts about the background on Labor Day is that it was a federal holiday that was born at the height of the 1894 Pullman rail strike, when 125,000 workers across 29 railroads walked off the job to protest wage strikes. And just to be clear, that was not a rail strike that was shut down by the most pro union president in history. Historians actually say that then President Glover Grover Cleveland was worried about losing working class votes in the. In the run up to the 1896 election. So he signed the Labor Day bill in an effort to appease labor leaders. But with many things, there are different sides to what this history is. A parallel historical narrative claims that the bill was signed to quell leftist political dissent and in doing so discouraged the working class from organizing against their Gilded Age oppressors. And then also, many historians agree that the idea of Labor Day actually came from a laborer named Peter McGuire, who was the founder of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America and an early leader of the American Federation of Labor who had reportedly suggested the idea to a central labor union. We, you know, we've actually done a couple of. We've done. We try to do a labor show. If we don't do a labor show, we actually repost about a labor show. We also have done shows on Mayday, and we have a mayday show from 2021 that's about the history of Labor Day. Excuse me, the history of May Day that includes some background on Labor Day. And then another holiday that came up, I believe, during the McCarthy era called loyalty Day. And so also part of what is at play here is that the US Government and the corporate leaders actually wanted to not give workers in the US A holiday to rally around, which was Mayday, which is actually recognized internationally as International Workers Day. It actually was a workers holiday that came out of the Haymarket riots in the 1870s in Chicago. 1880.
- [11:32]
B
1886.
- [11:32]
A
1886. Sorry. For some reason I had 1876 in my mind. 1886 out of a riot. The Haymarket riot in Chicago.
- [11:43]
B
Yeah. And that, I mean, Mayday and Labor Day look kind of the same thing, right? So talk about one. And, and you know, it's in that great American tradition of kind of co optation, right. Cleveland actually dispatched troops to, to beat the strike in 1894. Another important element of the Pullman strike, because you mentioned it, is that Eugene Debs kind of had these visions of kind of like a redux of 1877, the Great Uprising, the nationalist. Right. And if as much as the state, Samuel Gompers and the AFL were responsible for kind of quashing it because they refused to go wrong. And this is, I think, something to understand because we're seeing that right now, right, where you have these kind of labor leaders who are making deals and offering concessions and offering cuts to get along with the, especially the Democratic leadership. And we're looking at this right now, right? When union leadership right now, its main goal was to kind of support Biden rather than to, to kind of help the workers out. So it's, it's really in a home date. And it also fits into that idea, like I said, of co optation. When I think of Labor Day now, I think of like Juneteenth, right? Juneteenth has become like a national holiday, which is great, obviously. Right. But it's, it's, it's, you know, you kind of offer symbolism rather than something like material, right? So at the same time, you're disenfranchising African Americans and you're destroying public education, which disproportionately is useful for poor, for kids. You, you create these, like, you put your BLM flag out the summer of 2020, and you create a national holiday out of Juneteenth. And it's really this kind of politics of, of symbols. And so that's, and, and Labor Day, you know, I think is kind of like that too. I mean it, it's, it's a consumer holiday, right. Slavery day. Let's, let's have a sale or used. In the old days it was like, you know, Labor Day weekend. It's your last weekend of the summer before school starts. Go to the beach, you know, so it's, it's become lots of, lots of.
- [13:43]
A
Barbecues and ball games.
- [13:44]
B
Lots of barbecues and sale. Labor Day sale. Yeah. Right. So anyway, but we, we obviously look at it differently. We think anytime there's any reason to celebrate labor and organize labor and radical labor, you should do so. Yeah, right. Yeah.
- [14:00]
A
So I, I, I, I, I mean I think that, I think the sort of co optation thing is like an, is an important, is an important thing to note here because we're, you know, especially now where we have this sort of, you know, upsurge of labor activity that's been going on in the country for a couple of years, if, if not longer. And so, you know, Biden talking about how he's the most pro union president. You have, you know, lots of corporations which are, you know, coming up with these like what they call corporate quote unquote purpose, which are like basically mission statements to talk about how good they are to their employees or how much, how diverse they are or you know, it's, it's all part of that same co optation game. And they're still, you know, we just did a show recently about how Apple which you know, sells rainbow watch bands and you know, talks about how diverse it is and the CEO is actually gay himself. But you know, they, they actually are like pulling benefits from, from workers if they, if they make too much trouble. And so it's, it's an important thing to note is like the material, the, the material things in which companies can give like pay and benefits and things like that. That's actually harder to come by than just the sort of like symbolic public relations sort of moves that they make. And it goes all the way up to Biden.
- [15:30]
B
Yeah, you watch this weekend, you know, like on Twitter and social media, all of these major corporations are going to put out like tweets like celebrating Labor Day and celebrating their workers and all this.
- [15:39]
A
Well, and let's also watch Labor Day for all the right wing politicians who, yeah, careers trying to bust unions about how down they are with the American workers.
- [15:48]
B
It's, I mean it's really quite amazing, but I think it's also really reflective how utterly useless the Democratic Party is that the gop, especially since Trump has essentially positioned itself now as this like kind of defender of working class interests. Right. And I get a great deal of working class support. White working class Republican. Right. And it's not like the Democrats offer you, you anything, right. But a pocket full of sand. But it's, it's really quite remarkable that the way, you know, like kind of labor politics is, is developing us. And also it's kind of like and Pride month. Right. Like the CIA and Lockheed Martin and the FBI all put out or Martin.
- [16:26]
A
Luther King Day too.
- [16:27]
B
Martin Luther King Day, right. They put out these like oh, we love, you know, like and I think the CIA put an ad this year like a gay CIA employee, you know, talking about how great it was at the CIA. You know, so, and I mean but you got to take admittedly, right. A lot of liberals eat that up. Right. They love it. Right. They're into that. So the fact that you're working for the CIA, who cares? You know, it's, it's diversity. Right? Yeah.
- [16:50]
A
And, and I want to say, and part of this is, is a, like a, I don't want to call it like a backlash but if anything it's a soft backlash. It's a response to how actually the, the country is, is shifting. There was like a new Gallup poll that came out where says that 67% of Americans approve of unions. People want unions to succeed. It's, it's a record, it's actually a record high since the last time. It's actually surpassed the last time it was this high which was in 1999. 57% say unions can help companies where the comp or the workers are, where the workers are unionized. Research backs this up like worker retention, productivity increase with good contracts. But despite this, there's one, this sort of co optation strategy used by some companies and some politicians and then, and media figures, let's be real. And then there's also this, there's a, there's a good bit of anti union propaganda out there for it still happening.
- [17:50]
B
Yeah, I mean specifically there was a poll like yesterday, the day before about the auto workers. And I mean it was like around 70% of Americans support the auto workers, you know. And you know it's interesting because UPS just went on strike in the settlement and it was approved. Right. But I think it left out a lot of the part time workers and I mean there were some reports that Biden had pressured the Teamsters to kind of agree to this. And I'm kind of curious now as to see what's going to happen with the auto workers because he clearly needs their support, especially in Michigan and Pennsylvania, places like that. But at the same time, he doesn't want to strike.
- [18:24]
A
You know, it's like one of the biggest unions in the country, like 150,000 auto workers. And interesting thing. And like, we have, we have little regard for union bosses. But some of the, some of the things that they say is pretty interesting. Like Sean Fain, the UAW president, came out with a video and said billionaires, in my opinion, don't have a right to exist. Which is, you know, playing up the class war.
- [18:46]
B
And, and I think, I think Fran Drescher started that. Yeah.
- [18:50]
A
And Fran Drescher, you know, is talking about storming the storm in the gates of the somebody yesterday.
- [18:55]
B
She's been quoting Marx, in fact.
- [18:58]
A
So, yeah, I mean, we've done some shows on, on the, the, the Screen Actors Guild and the, and the Workers and the Writers Guild strike. But I mean, it's. That's also still in play too, right?
- [19:11]
B
From the nanny in a penthouse to the.
- [19:16]
A
And go ahead, you go.
- [19:18]
B
No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I just want to say one thing about labor before we segue to whatever we're doing now.
- [19:23]
A
I have a couple other things on labor. Like with the SAG WGA strike. It was actually came out in the Intercept today that Disney, where their CEO a month or two ago put his foot in his mouth and said that even though he's earning 30, literally $31 million a year that derided strikers of not being realistic, Disney has actually posted a job. It's always interesting to watch Corporate job board. So apparently Disney has listed a job for PR crisis management for 300. You make $330,000 a year. It kind of, it's in response to like, how bad Bob Iger has, like, put his foot in his mouth.
- [20:02]
B
Has Mandy Potemkin visited him for cigars yet? Ron Perlman.
- [20:06]
A
Ron Perlman.
- [20:06]
B
Pearlman. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Potemkin was out there that day, you know, talking shit, too. So Perlman. Yeah, I want him on my side like hellboy.
- [20:16]
A
Clay Murrow of Sons of Anarchy.
- [20:18]
B
Like, he's a scary guy. He's a scary guy.
- [20:20]
A
I want him on my team, too. I'm glad. I'm glad. And there was a video of him recently where he, he is talking about how these studio execs produce nothing and make money off of all of these workers, like actors and writers who make, you know, like, there's. There's a small piece of people in the acting profession who make the kind of money that Ron Perlman or Fran Drescher or George Clooney make.
- [20:42]
B
But.
- [20:43]
A
But, like, most of them make less than $60,000 a year.
- [20:46]
B
I have a couple friends who are actors. They're not obviously Hollywood stars, but they've been putting pictures of themselves on the picket line, which is really cool because these are not like, inherently political people, but it's. It's been pretty cool. And again, that same poll, big showed American supporting the auto workers also. They supported the. The actors and the writers as well. And these are all heavily support, I think, like, at least two thirds in most of these cases. I think in all these cases, I think. But we've been seeing that for four or five years now, like, where unions are, like, kind of have. Have a good pr. And that's the irony. Like in Ohio, where I'm from, right, they used to be like. And I'm. I. I use blue and red just kind of as an example. Right. Because Democrats don't really help them either. But, you know, my area was always, like, overwhelming Democratic and blue, heavily unionized. And now.
- [21:34]
A
And your area been Youngstown, Ohio.
- [21:36]
B
Youngstown being in Ohio, Houston. Oh, Houston's way more blue than Ohio is. Honestly, I think Harris county might be more liberal or whatever than where you are at this point.
- [21:46]
A
It's very possible. Yeah.
- [21:48]
B
But now, you know, you have this area which is half a Lazarus, just been devastated. You have, like, massive unemployment, depopulation, deskilling opioids, One of the worst opioids. And it's overwhelmingly Republican. It's overwhelmingly Jews. So again, the Democratic Party is just kind of offers these platitudes, but what did they actually give workers? They gave them concessions, they gave them mill closings, they gave them nafta. Right. And until we. We realized that. So what I was going to say. I don't know if you have something specific. I was just gonna. I was just gonna do a little history lesson because I was actually talking about this in class yesterday, and I had prepared for it, but it just came up to me because I think it's important to understand, like, when. When it comes to labor, there was an extended period in American life, you know, at various times, like even before the Depression, like in the 20s, where there was this kind of recognition among kind of what I call, like, smart capitalists, like River Hoover, people like that, that rather than have this kind of constant series of conflicts that are often viable Right. You know, and we mentioned things like great uprising, our hay market. But you know, well into the, the early 20th century, you know, you had strikes, you had, you know, the police and the army being called out. So what people like Hoover created was what we've often thought. We've done a bunch of shows on this corporate liberalism. Right. And the idea there is if you, you know, because something else we've talked about a million times, which is kind of one of our missions, I think is to create the idea that obviously capitalism, profits is crucial. Right. Private arms. But what capitalists want probably as much as anything is stability. And having, you know, like these national uprisings or having strikes are having, you know, this fear of sabotage and monkey wrenching, you know, scares you. And it's not good for profits, it's not good for the corporate environment. And so you started to see this.
- [23:38]
A
Not good for buying and consumption.
- [23:39]
B
Yeah, yeah. So you started to see this idea and it really even like in the twenties with Hoover where, you know, if you kind of address some of the needs of your workers, not any kind of like radical way or redistribution or anything, you know, give them a whippers comp. System or give them, you know, maybe better wages or whatever. Right. Then you're going to have harmony, you're going to have stability. And then after World War II, obviously you had that, you know, the whole idea there is like forward is a protectionism, you get people working stuff, but you give them a decent wage and you give them a reason to go to work and so they're less likely to. To create problems. Right. Go on strike for me. So that kind of stuff. And that clearly is evaporated. What I mean, really since the 70s. But especially, I think the pathos. Right. Gave it a new impetus.
- [24:26]
A
Yeah.
- [24:26]
B
And so we see that now where very few companies have these kind of corporate liberal ideals when it comes to their workers, they do on issues like, you know, these kind of, I hate to call them cultural issues because I think they're bigger than that. But they'll have like, you know, gay marriage, they're fine on. And some major corporations have said that they would pay for their employees if they had to leave the state to have an abortion or something like that.
- [24:49]
A
Right.
- [24:49]
B
But when it comes to kind of the bread and butter issues of wages and working conditions and all that, I mean, they're basically there. I mean, we're still dealing in a world of Montgomery Burns. Right. So by the way, did you see a. Rahm Emanuel said that he's willing to eat a Fish from Fukushima water. It's like Monty Burns, right? Somebody Mars needs to put a three eyed fish in front of him.
- [25:11]
A
Another noted attempted union buster when he was a mayor of Chicago.
- [25:15]
B
Oh, Rahm Emanuel is a horrible guy. Oh, speaking of which, I forgot I wore this just for today. It's my, my wobbly shirt. No gods, no masters, no gods, no masters, no gods, no masters. Which is kind of a decent little movie about the Italian anarchists in the twenties. Want to watch something at any rate? But yeah, so just my lesson, so keep that in mind too, that there was a period when the working, the ruling class kind of took labor seriously enough to kind of negotiate with them and talk to it and try to create these, these relationships that would be kind of less onerous or less brutal, not redistributive, nothing like that. But you know, today, I mean it's, it's obviously they don't even do that. They just kind of, it's, it's easier just to kind of go in and impose your will or, or offer them these kind of symbolic things. Right.
- [25:59]
A
So the only other thing I was going to say is that, that the, one of the things that shift is what we're seeing with like a lot of these strikes is it's coming from teachers, it's coming from service workers, it's coming from logistics workers like at Amazon and UPS and places like that, which is actually somewhat important, important sign about how the economy has shifted and who has the power. We actually have an upcoming show on the LA teachers strike with some filmmakers and some teachers actually who are, who are leaders in the strike. But you know, even just today around service workers like, you know, the, all the workers at Dunkin Donuts in Atlanta walked out on strike. Southwest Airlines pilots went out on strike yesterday. New Jersey's transit locomotive engineers voted unanimously to, to authorize the strike. You know what Bob is talking about where you know, the labor has not yet risen to the point where the, the power holders are concerned about the power of labor. We still are building towards that and there's like just so much disruption happening even in little bits. There's also like a criticism that comes from other quarters of the so called left that it's not really a strike unless it's more than a thousand people. Is that right? Is that what the number is from the.
- [27:12]
B
Let me email Doug about that.
- [27:16]
A
Maybe we can just tweet at Doug and he can clarify.
- [27:18]
B
The vicar, the vicar of Brooklyn.
- [27:21]
A
I think it's, I think it's the U. S. Labor Department Numbers. A thousand though, right?
- [27:25]
B
That's the only thing that counts. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And, and actually on this issue, I would recommend it, if anybody's interested to check out Payday report and Mike, who I think does a good job. More perfect union.
- [27:35]
A
More perfect union is another good place to check out some of this stuff too.
- [27:38]
B
You know what else is striking? You know, you have guys like he's got from Starbucks, Howard Schultz. Yeah, Bezos and all those guys. Not, not Musk. He's freaking. But you know, a lot of these guys are also come across like kind of lefties kind of like that. Right. Liberals kind of like, like Bezos and Schultz because they'll speak about things like Black Lives Matter and gay rights and diversity.
- [27:57]
A
Schultz was on, on point to be Hillary's department Secretary of Labor.
- [28:01]
B
I've heard that. I don't know if that's true or not, but, but clearly he was a Democrat, right? He was advising her. But when it comes to actual things like union organizations, I mean these guys are Frick and Montgomery Burns. You know, like Schultz has basically said he'd shut down Amazon Starbucks before he allows the union. And so they come across and they have this kind of.
- [28:20]
A
Jeff, didn't he, didn't he fire the CEO when the lean new drive started and take back over in order.
- [28:27]
B
But look at how many of workers you start to organize. You said that fire. And actually I, I have a. It only happened a day or two ago and I need to read more about it, but apparently the Biden actually did issue kind of an NLRB directive, I guess it was, that actually protected organizing rights. It's, it's kind of a move forward. So you know, since we rip on them all the time, I'll give them props when. When due. Right. I still think his metamor. He should not run for president yet as what, 70% of his own party believes that.
- [28:56]
A
But you know, you know, those are just polls, Bob. It doesn't really matter.
- [29:00]
B
But I always thought that was telling because you have like somebody like Schulz or Bezos can really sound pretty reasonable when they're talking about certain issues, especially these, you know, issues of like diversity and you know, tolerance and all that stuff.
- [29:14]
A
Choice.
- [29:14]
B
Choice. Yeah, exactly. But when it comes to like the nuts and bolts of actually paying your workers, they're no different than, you know, Slate burns and you know, the Springfield nuclear plant. Right. And I'm sorry, I'm going on a rift now, but you also mentioned, and this is just striking to me, you mentioned the, the auto Workers, which would you say? They have 150,000 members and you know.
- [29:35]
A
It'S something like 80 or 90% voted, authorized the strike.
- [29:38]
B
Not that long ago the auto workers had over a million members, as did the steel workers and all these. And so we've seen this move away from these kind of heavy duty industrial and extractive industries. And that's why like those numbers to me are kind of like whether it's a thousand worker place or a 50 worker place, they're kind of useless. Right. Because the American economy has changed so much that you're just not going to have that many places that have a thousand workers that could go that can organize a union. And in fact many of them have. Right. And so that the future is in the Starbucks and the independent coffee shops and the fast food Amazons and fast.
- [30:13]
A
Foods and little bars and teach and teachers.
- [30:16]
B
I think the teachers are pretty significant.
- [30:19]
A
Teachers and grad students.
- [30:20]
B
Well, you know, public employees unionization in the public sector is still fairly strong. It's like, I think in the 35 range, it's in the private sector where it's basically disappeared. You know, in the 50s the entire country I think about had about a third unionization. Like the entire country, everybody. And today I forget what it is, it's like around 10. But in the public sector it's still like apps, me and teachers and people like that. It's really strong. Yeah, they're, they're clearly the future. They need to be. And many of these are occurring in red states too. Right. And they're, they're basically just by, they're, they're wildcatting. They have these state laws where they're not allowed to go on strike and they're just like, screw that. Right.
- [31:02]
A
That's what West Virginia teachers did.
- [31:03]
B
Yeah. I'm waiting because especially with these attacks on education in places like Texas and Florida, I think you'll probably see some kind of resurgence in that too.
- [31:11]
A
But anyway, I think it's also important to note that, you know, it was, it wasn't even into the like New Deal in 1930s where they're, you know, collective bargaining was actually legal and before that they just like did everything they could to like bust heads. You know, there was a shooting war between coal miners and coal bosses and you know, on Blair Mountain in West Virginia and things like that. And now it's this more, you know, insidious, subtle way of union busting through cultural issues and pr. And you know, we had a show recently about negotiations about how the bosses use the law the labor laws to their advantage and things like that. It's much more insidious. And yet the class war, the people getting screwed over on pay and benefits, it's like, more real than ever.
- [31:59]
B
Yeah. I would also suggest you go back to the. Really, the first interview we ever did with the legendary Scott Lynn. Yeah. Where he talked about this at great length. Really made the important point, I think, that even these unions who we praise, like the CIO when they negotiated, instituted, basically agreed to a no strike clause. And I mean, at the end of the day, that's what you have as a worker. That's your ultimate weapon. Right. The ability to withhold your labor. What did Bill Haywood say? All we got to do is stick our hands in our pockets and they can't do anything. And so when you have these no strike pledges, you refuse to go on strike. I mean, you could go on strike before you have a union, you know, like, do that, you know, and if it's a big place, what are they gonna do? They can't bring in a million workers to replace you.
- [32:42]
A
Right. I mean, I think that's what those Dunkin Donuts workers in Atlanta are doing. I don't think they have a union. They're just walking out.
- [32:47]
B
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, even when teachers go on strike, you end up getting, you know, like, Martin Simpson becomes a substitute in these. You know, of course, now you could just show Prager View videos, I guess.
- [32:58]
A
So Trump, you, Trump use is really.
- [33:00]
B
What you need to do. We. We need to actually do a show on kind of education and. Or think it's. That's obviously pretty depressing. So anyway, happy, happy real Labor Day. Not your Labor Day. Happy American Labor Day.
- [33:14]
A
Happy Labor Day. Happy scrap.
- [33:15]
B
Scrappy later scrappy Labor Day. And I guess, you know, as an American, it's a chance like real estate and go to the ball game or go to the beach for your last time. But, you know, you know, you think about it, you know, take down the system and remember, you know, think. Think globally. Guilty locally. Right. Yeah. Burn it.
- [33:33]
A
Burn it all down. That's all. That's all we got to say.
- [33:37]
B
Whenever I were the guillotine now, I think of, like, freaking Trump's people wanted to hang or execute Mike Pence, and he supports Pen still. Oh, boy.
- [33:49]
A
Anyway, I think in that debate, Pence said he was very proud of the. The accomplishments of the. The Trump Pence administration as he. As he ended the Trump Pence administration running for his life. From Trump's first.
- [34:01]
B
Isn't it like, it's chilling that, like, Pence is kind of reasonable in American politics right now.
- [34:07]
A
Right.
- [34:09]
B
I mean, that might be the best case scenario. Mike Pence becoming president. He wouldn't do anything for four years, nothing get done. And then, you know, and then we can move on to the Kamala Harris years.
- [34:20]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [34:21]
B
So just what we need anyway.
- [34:25]
A
All right. Yeah. I've been listening to scrappy Labor Day.
- [34:27]
B
Wait, I. I want to say one other thing, and this is just kind of a pitch, dude. The other day, Scott had family obligations, so I interviewed Jody Evans of Code Pink. And I don't know if we've mentioned this. I think we may have, but there was like two or three weeks ago, an ugly. Yeah, we did talk about this. An ugly New York Times headpiece. You know, really boilerplate McCarthy idea piece on Jody and her husband. Is it Neville Roy Singer, I believe is his name. And groups like no Cold War and Code Pink, obviously, and Tri Continental and BJ Prashad. And. And. And what's chilling about this is that this is kind of what liberals do, right. They did throughout the Cold War in the New York Times, that it's full of innuendo. They create these, like, links. These are kind of conspiratorial winks. Like, they. So it's kind of like what you hear from, like, the JFK people or Q1, right? So. And so did this. And so. And so did this. And therefore. So anyway, check that out. But even more importantly, like, you know, try to show them some support because we're all, you know, kind of vulnerable to that, to these kinds of attacks where. And this is America, like, right? We live in this kind of society now where one person could complain or snitch and, you know, somebody can say, I don't like that book, and they pull it out for the whole state or something like that. So this interview with Jody Evans was really great. And, you know, these groups do good work. And what they're doing is they're speaking out for peace. No war with China, you know, negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. They defend the Cuban revolution. And so, you know, I think it's really important to kind of understand what these groups do. And, you know, you don't have to like everything they do. I mean, Scott and I don't agree with everything they say and do either, but, you know, they're. They're on the side of the good guys, you know, and the left should not be supporting McCarthyite attacks. The left should not be participating in these attacks against groups like Code pink and no Cold War and tri continental.
- [36:21]
A
And shouldn't be supporting things like conflict in Ukraine or.
- [36:25]
B
Exactly. Yeah. Anti imperialism has to once again become a core value of what we do. It's the other side of the coin with you have class struggle at home, anti imperialism and they work together. Right. Because the more money you're spending abroad, the more you're doing in Ukraine or wherever. That's stuff you're not doing in Hawaii. Other than a one time 101 times $700 fee, the average rent, monthly rent in Hawaii is like over $2,500 I think or something like that. So you go 700 fee.
- [36:52]
A
Just also to bring it back around to Labor Day is people, people are, I mean I know that, you know that unemployment is low and supposedly wages are good but like we have a lot of people who are still living in hand to mouth, a lot of people who can't make the rent or can't even afford food and yet we're, you know, definitely there's huge amounts of medical debt going on in the world. People run GoFundMes to be able to like, you know, cover their, their medical bills and, and like yeah, we're spending billions on, you know, war in Ukraine, we're spending billions on maintaining 200 plus spaces to contain China in, in the Asia Pacific. And it's just, it's, it's, there's, it's just like, you know, labor needs to be stronger. Like Bob said, auto workers used to be a million workers, now they're 150,000. But you know, and so they don't have the power that they used to. And we just need to be making trouble everywhere we can.
- [37:43]
B
Yeah.
- [37:44]
A
And not supporting huge amounts of money going into like war abroad.
- [37:48]
B
Exactly. If you're supporting a war in Ukraine, if you're supporting the defense budget like the squad votes were right then that's, that's attention and money. That's not going to Hawaii, not going to East Palestine, not going to Flint. I go to Detroit, not going to Jackson, not going to healthcare, not going to. Right. So yeah, if, if you want to consider yourself like you know, having decent politics, being a good human and all that kind of stuff, then you have to be anti imperialist. You know and the idea, I mean Russia's imperialist, sure, but so is the United States, so China, I mean that you know, to kind of create some kind of moral, you know, division here between the United States and Russia is like ridiculous. Right. I mean, you know, in, in the same world, you know, Putin and Biden and Zelensky would probably be sharing a docket, you know, together. So anyway, keep that in mind too on this Labor Day that it extends. We need to support working people all over and just, you know, people who are struggling all over. So fight power and, you know, take care of each other. Remember what Shay said at the, at the thought of seeming ridiculous. The true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love, 100%.
- [39:00]
A
If, if you, if you like what you, you're hearing, check us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. If you're not subscribed, hit subscribe on YouTube. And if you like what we do a lot, then become a donor@green red podcast.org and hit that support button or become a patron@patreon.com Green Red podcast and if you listen to our audio platform, definitely give us a rate review because that helps us with the algorithms. And like Bob said, vivace and misbehave and make a lot of trouble and enjoy your scrappy Labor Day.
- [39:36]
C
Long haired preachers come out every night I try to tell you what's wrong and what's right. But when asked about something to eat they will answer in voices so sweet ye will eat, ye will eat, fly and find in that glorious land in the sky Way up high, work and pray, live on hay you hit fly in the sky when you die. That's the lie the starvation army they play and they shout and they clap and they pray. But when they got all your coins on the drum I say will tell you when you're on the farm you will eat, you will eat by and by in that glorious land in the sky where high work and praise I live on hay you get fly in the sky when you die. That's a lie. Holy rowers and jumpers come out and they roll and they jump and they shout. Touching your money to Jesus they say can you lead on that glorious day you will hear you lead by and by in that glory of land. Land in the sky whereby work and praise live on hay you get pie in the sky when you die.
- [41:13]
B
That's right.
- [41:14]
C
Working folks of all countries unite Side by side we for freedom we'll fight when this world and its wealth we have gained. After the characters we'll sing, let's refrain when you learn how to cook and how to fry I chop some wood, do you good and you eat in that sweet pie and pie that's all.