3564 - Texas Democrats Put Up A Fight; Trump Laps Reagan's Anti-Union Extremism w/ Julie Su

Summary

The Majority Report with Sam Seder

Episode 3564 - Texas Democrats Put Up A Fight; Trump Laps Reagan's Anti-Union Extremism w/ Julie Su
Date: August 20, 2025
Host: Emma Vigeland (in for Sam Seder)
Guest: Julie Su, former acting U.S. Labor Secretary

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Episode Overview

This episode focuses on two major themes:

• The intensifying fight over gerrymandering and democracy in Texas, as state Republicans push through Trump-mandated redistricting while Texas Democrats engage in high-profile resistance.
• A deep dive with former acting Labor Secretary Julie Su on the Trump administration’s broad anti-labor agenda—contrasting Trump's radical anti-union actions with historic precedents and the policies of recent Democratic governance.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Texas Gerrymandering: Democrats' Resistance and National Implications

(00:19–18:51)

• Current Event: Texas is voting on aggressive gerrymandering plans demanded by the Trump administration, which would subtract five Democratic congressional seats.
  • “Texas has 38 congressional districts and it's already heavily gerrymandered. ...This would make it more extreme.” — Emma Vigeland [04:14]
• Background: Texas districts are already skewed two-thirds Republican, significantly misrepresenting the electorate.
• Democratic Resistance: Dozens of Texas Democrats previously fled the state to deny a quorum and delay vote; some returned to face new obstacles:
  • Republican speaker required returning Democrats to sign "permission slips" allowing state police to track and arrest them if they left—an “extremely illegal” move.
  • Notably, Rep. Nicole Collier refused to sign, spending the night at the State House in protest.
    • “We got to start and we got to stop and we got to push back.” — Rep. Nicole Collier [11:58]
• National Strategy: Some optimism that carve-outs in Texas and a parallel redistricting plan in California (backed by Gov. Newsom) might rebalance Democratic representation, but the imbalance remains severe.
• Material Realities: Democrats in Texas face unique personal and financial strains due to low pay and legal threats, making prolonged resistance harder.
• Partisanship Encouraged: Emma underscores that fighting back hard—rather than sticking to ‘the high road’—is needed in the current climate.
  • “That high road has crumbled. We're on a dirt road...and we're going to meet them on that dirt road.” — Nicole Collier [12:31]

2. Interview: Julie Su on Trump's Radical Anti-Union Turn

(24:48–52:46)

A. Trump’s Escalation Beyond Reagan-Era Union Busting

• Historical Comparison: Reagan’s firing of air traffic controllers in 1981 is considered a watershed anti-union moment. Su argues Trump’s program far exceeds it.
  • “Donald Trump has taken that 1980s playbook and completely radicalized it, modernized it for his particular brand of war on workers.” — Julie Su [27:02]
• Federal Employee Attacks: Trump has ripped up union contracts, fired tens of thousands (especially probationary employees), and stripped 400,000 federal workers of union protections.

B. Impact on Labor Law and Precarity of Worker Protections

• Open Lawlessness: Many of these actions are of questionable legality, but with courts proving “an inadequate check,” the administration proceeds largely unimpeded.
  • “...the president has been very clear he's not going to comply with what courts say. ...you really have a lawless situation.” — Julie Su [33:57]
• Dismantling of Labor Institutions: The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is paralyzed (no quorum after Trump fired Gwen Wilcox), meaning that unfair labor practice claims by unions are frozen:
  • “Donald Trump has basically unilaterally rescinded the NLRA by not having a quorum on the National Labor Relations Board.” — Julie Su [38:58]
• Chilling Effect: This makes union organizing in both public and private sectors far more perilous—private employers openly dodge contract bargaining, excusing inaction by the NLRB’s collapse.

C. Broader Economic Implications

• Rise of Precarious and Gig Work: A growing underemployment crisis is fueled by gig-economy jobs lacking basic protections. Decades of bipartisan policy equating prosperity with low consumer prices (while allowing wage suppression) have enabled this.
  • “This has resulted in a whole sector...of insecure work. ...People working full time year round but cannot afford the basics.” — Julie Su [44:44]
• Biden Administration’s Contrasts: Su highlights the importance of policies like stricter enforcement of wage laws, raising contractor wages, and antitrust action as positive departures from decades of wage suppression and anti-union regulation.

D. Wage Theft: An Overlooked Crime

• Magnitude: Wage theft is the largest single category of theft in America, dwarfing conventional crime.
  • “There's all this talk about crime ...when the real crime, working people not getting what they're supposed to be paid, ...is very real.” — Julie Su [49:50]
• Enforcement Cuts: Trump’s 20% cut to the Department of Labor budget severely limits the federal government’s ability to inspect, investigate, and penalize wage theft.
• Mobilizing Worker Power: Su urges greater collective action, emphasizing workers’ courage and the need for political leaders and the public to support organizing.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Gerrymandering:
  • “If we continue to let them take our freedoms, we won't have any to protect, we won't have any to defend.”
    — Rep. Nicole Collier [12:05]
• On Texas Democrats' Resistance:
  • “We're on a dirt road, and we're going to meet them on that dirt road and get down and dirty just like they are.”
    — Rep. Nicole Collier [12:36]
• Comparing Trump to Reagan on Unions:
  • “Donald Trump has taken that 1980s playbook and completely radicalized it, modernized it for his particular brand of war on workers.”
    — Julie Su [27:02]
• On the Collapse of the NLRB:
  • “There are no rules anymore that protect workers from the federal government's perspective.”
    — Julie Su [37:10]
• On Wage Theft:
  • “The real crime, [is] working people not getting what they're supposed to be paid, not getting a justice pay for their day's work.”
    — Julie Su [49:54]
• On Worker Courage:
  • “In my experience, working people have always been more willing to fight than those of us in positions of power… It's been our own [fear holding everyone back].”
    — Julie Su [51:40]

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Important Segment Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment/Topic | |--------------|--------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:19–05:00 | Show introduction, headlines (Texas, California, labor news) | | 05:03–18:51 | Texas gerrymandering: Rep. Nicole Collier interview, analysis, Dem resistance tactics | | 24:48–52:46 | Interview with Julie Su: Trump anti-labor program, parallels with Reagan, labor law crisis, NLRB, wage theft | | 49:50–51:40 | Wage theft as central issue for workers, federal response | | 52:45–54:00 | Outro, guest thank you, transition to “fun half” |

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Episode Tone and Language

The discussion is deeply critical, urgent, and partisan—speakers use direct language to describe political actors and policies (e.g., “King Trump,” “war on workers,” “open season,” “bust unions”). Emma Vigeland and Julie Su both express frustration at the willingness of the right to engage in anti-democratic or anti-worker actions, and impatience with milder approaches from Democrats. There is also a strong undercurrent of solidarity with rank-and-file workers and political organizers showing resistance at personal and professional cost.

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Summary

This episode delivers a comprehensive critique of current Republican anti-democratic and anti-worker tactics at both the state and federal levels. It offers an inside perspective on the ongoing erosion of labor protections under Trump, drawing stark lines to historic anti-union moments and warning of even deeper threats to organizing and democracy. Guests urge sustained and creative resistance, emphasizing the essential role of worker solidarity and organizing in pushing back against systematic attacks.

Transcript

[Emma Vigeland]

You are listening to a free version of Majority Report with Sam Steater. To support this show and get another.

[Julie Su]

15 minutes of daily program, go to Majority FM please.

[Sam Cedar]

The Majority Report with Sam Cedar.

[Emma Vigeland]

It is Wednesday, August 20, 2025. My name is Emma Vigeland and for Sam Cedar and this is the five time award winning Majority Report. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, Downtown Brooklyn, USA. On the program today, Julie Hsu, former acting U.S. labor Secretary under the Biden administration, will be with us to talk about Donald Trump's war on workers. Also on the program, Texas votes today on Trump's mandated gerrymandering plan. Got to appease the king. Meanwhile, Newsom's proposition to redraw California's congressional maps has a 22 point advantage in polling in the state. Cuomo denies collaborating with Trump. Sure, buddy, sure. Politico just made that up or what? Didn't he say it at the fundraiser?

[David]

Yeah, yeah. Fake news, fake news.

[Emma Vigeland]

Corporate America says the price increase dam is about to break due to Trump's tariffs. Three more Palestinians starve to death as Israel escalates its bombing campaign in Gaza City City and calls up 50,000 reservists for a ground invasion. Catherine Clark, the number two House Democrat, walks back her comments calling Israel's slaughter a genocide. Primary Amal folks. Dozens of Microsoft employees walk off the job in protest of the company's surveillance of Palestinians. Elon Musk walks back his third party plans and reportedly comes crawling back to J.D. vance. Trump targets the Smithsonian museum again because he's pissy that it focuses too much on slavery being bad. The Lost cause presidency. Trump's also threatening to kill funding for Virginia schools because the state is resisting the administration's war on transgender kids. A fifth person dies of Legionnaires disease in Harlem as cases rise to north of 100. This is also amidst a Covid surge in the country. And lastly, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu refuses to comply with the Trump administration's demands to roll back its sanctuary city policies. All this and more on today's Majority Report. Welcome to the show, everybody. It's an AM Majority Report Wednesday. What? It's hump day. It's hump day. I wish I had that kaching on my on my soundboard so people would know when my royalties are coming. We have a great show. Really looking forward to talking to Julie Hsu about Trump's war on workers. There were many, many aspects of the Biden administration that we heavily criticized, specifically his foreign policy. But things like Lina Khan's stewardship of the ftc, Jonathan Kantor's work at the doj, and Julie Hsu's work as labor secretary. Really strong stuff. So it's going to be a good conversation with her reflecting on the past nine months of this administration. But the big story in the news today is obviously that Texas is voting on the gerrymandering demands of King Trump today. He wants to either rig the midterms in his favor or, if he loses, create some sort of excuse embedded in it. This effort by Texas Republicans would subtract five Democratic seats in the state. Texas has 38 congressional districts and it's already heavily gerrymandered. It's something like two thirds of those districts are gerrymandered in favor of Republicans already. This would make it more extreme. That's not reflective of Texas because, yeah, blue Texas is still a mirage every election cycle, but they do get into the 40 percentage points that doesn't match with the 1/3 of the representation in the state.

[David]

And in Greg Cassar's district, one of the better reps whose district will be implicated by this gerrymandering. But his current district already stretches from Austin to San Antonio.

[Emma Vigeland]

I mean, is it just like a lot? They make it really thin in between. It's like the mythical bridge in between. Show this district, actually. I mean, this is what it like. You can just get a sense they are, they want that as thin of a connection between the two urban centers as possible in order to make it so that these voters, particularly voters of color, are concentrated in those districts and they're trying to make this, they're stretching it to the limit. The upside is, is that I think we anticipate, frankly, that there's not going to be the same level of enthusiasm for Donald Trump in the midterms. I don't want to put the cart before the horse. I'm not saying that the Democrats overwhelmingly win because there's a piece by Ken Vogel in the New York Times today about how they are lagging behind in voter registration, which speaks to the weakness of the party, not to the weakness of Donald Trump. But if this goes through, and it looks like it will, these districts are going to be more pink as opposed to deeper red, which means that if there isn't the level of turnout that Trump experienced in 2024, and this would match with the three other previous elections, presidential elections that he's run in, where Republicans can't generate the same enthusiasm with him, not at the top of the ticket, then this could put some of Those pinker districts in peril for Republicans in Texas because. But still, this is like a rosier. Not to continue with the pink color vision here, but this is a bit of a, that's like a glass half full interpretation of this because Brennan center did an analysis prior to the election last year. And really the margins in the House are very similar. So you can take these numbers, I think, and carry them into this year that Republicans have 16 seats where they have an advantage due to gerrymandering in the south and in the Midwest, the biggest gains are in the more populous states like Florida and Texas. So Democrats have been at a disadvantage on this front for decades. And Republicans in this effort in Texas, it was so outrageous that dozens of Democrats fled to Texas or fled to Illinois, I should say, to try to deny the ability of Republicans to vote on these maps. And we ran into some of those staffers in Chicago. People should check out Matt and David's interview on Left Reckoning with.

[David]

Yeah, we had Gene Wu and Ramirez Ramos on and they at that point, Jin Woo kind of said that they wanted to run out the clock on that special session. And, you know, there's a little bit of dissension with some reps wanting to run the clock out through the possibility of doing this at all this year, which would have required them, frankly fleeing. You know, who knows if the FBI was going to get involved, if Trump was going to lean on the FBI to say, hey, can you track these state reps down? Pretty insane situation. But it's unfortunate because I feel like this is starting to race to the bottom when it comes to gerrymandering.

[Emma Vigeland]

And the upside, though is, is that Democrats haven't engaged in that race at all and Republicans are closer to the bottom. So this is like, I think it seems like a bit of a split between some of the Texas Democrats that are coordinating with the party nationally because this California plan is coming, and then some of the Texas Democrats that they're worried, of course, about representation of their state from a state level. But you, you already see like Texas, the state representatives in Texas, they make just like hundreds of dollars for their work. They have made it so difficult to be a Democratic representative, small D in that state that everybody else has side jobs. And some of these representatives were like, my kids are starting school and we're getting hit with hundreds of dollars of.

[David]

Fines in the best of times. It's a huge pressure on representatives to have some sort of benefactor who is willing to pay for you. And with these representatives and is Anna Maria Rodriguez Ramos And Jean Wu, who we spoke to specifically. But they, you know, they came to us. Their staffers weren't there. They are up in the area. But, like, it's a very lean operation because of it's going to cost a lot.

[Emma Vigeland]

Right.

[David]

And Beto o' Rourke was trying to raise money for them. And Abbott threat. Threatened him with jail, like, literally threatened him with saying that was a crime to raise money for these folks to sustain themselves through this, which is, you know, I mean, a type of insanity.

[Emma Vigeland]

I think it's why we support raising pay for members of Congress.

[David]

Absolutely. I mean, this is something that I think even. I think Robert Carroll gets into in the LBJ books about how you need a modern government. It requires not only the representatives to be paid in a way that they can be independent from outside financial pressures, but also staffers.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yep. It makes it so they're less likely to be corrupted. So that's what. How the Texas government is set up. But there have been still acts of resistance here. Once the Democrat, many of those Democrats returned. The Republican speaker down in Texas said when they returned that they needed to sign permission slips to consent to a public safety officer in the state following them around. And the form would force them to consent to being arrested if they left town. And this is extremely illegal. The Republican speaker does not have that capacity to restrict the. The movement of the representatives outside of them. I don't know, going through some sort of legal process where they would have had to be charged with a crime first. So Texas Representative Nicole Collier decided to kind of stage a protest here. She refused to sign the permission slip and stayed overnight in the Texas State House. Here she is on with MSNBC yesterday explaining her decision.

[Nicole Collier]

You've been there now almost 24 hours. You posted a photo of yourself trying to sleep at your desk. How long are you going to stay? As long as it takes. I mean, you know, this is the fight that all of us have in resisting, you know, the end of our democracy, basically. I mean, if we continue to let them take our freedoms, we won't have any to protect, we won't have any to defend. So we got to start and we got to stop and we got to push back.

[Julie Su]

When you talk about the pushback, this.

[Nicole Collier]

All comes after Democrats, including you, pushed back by leaving the state during the first special session to stop the Republican redistricting plan. What made Democrats decide to come back and what was earned by slowing this process down, given that the maps are now on a glide path in this second session, sure. You know, about two weeks ago, no one knew the word gerrymandering. But because of the work of the Texas House Democrats, gerrymandering is a household name. We have been able to stop this first special session, and now we're continuing to fight through a legal battle on the floor. But in that process, we have seen Governor Newsom take action in California to neutralize the maps that are being proposed in Texas. So they are fighting fire with fire. You know, what's different now is that, you know, typically they say, take that high road. Well, you know, that high road has crumbled. We're on a dirt road, and we're going to meet them on that dirt road and get down and dirty just like they are. And so my fellow Democrats are ready to continue the fight with the grit that is necessary to challenge the oppressor. And yet these newly drawn congressional maps.

[Emma Vigeland]

I like that phrase about the dirt road. And this is what needs to be done. Like the. The partisan fight is really key here. We are having our own battles within the Democratic Party that are really existential about rooting out AIPAC money, rooting out supporters of genocide who are always, more often than not, the same folks that are not going to oppose legalization or not legalization legislation. I should say that is more robust things like Medicare for all, childcare for all. Because if you can be bought on the issue of genocide, you can be bought on every other issues. Those are the battles we're waging. But the stuff that we should be encouraging within the party is partisanship like this. Now, Matt's point is well taken. There's this weighing of how are we going to support the Texas citizens versus how much are we going to coordinate with the national party? Because they're probably returning with the understanding that this California redistricting effort has legs. So. But. But still, calling attention to the corruption here is key. This was another moment down in Texas where some of the other representatives, in solidarity with Collier, ripped up the permission slips that they were handed by the Republican speaker, John Lewis, when he crossed the Edmund Paris Bridge.

[Julie Su]

He said, I am smiling in my mug shot because I know I'm on the right side of history. Then he said something else. He said, you two must find a way to get in the way. Collier got in the way. And today a lot of her colleagues are joining her.

[Emma Vigeland]

Who's ready to tear up this split. Never let them forget that. That's Representative Mihaila Plesa. So that's good stuff. We'll see. I mean, the vote's gonna go through.

[David]

I mean, I Certainly like the posture and the willingness to mix it up. Unfortunately, you know, what was said in the clip, in the MSNBC clip of we're back for another session and now we're going to fight the legal battle on the floor. Well, that's lost.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah. And I mean, it was lost the moment they return.

[David]

That's right.

[Emma Vigeland]

But the pressure's on them. I mean, they don't.

[David]

So what's happening is an attempt to salvage a fighting spirit from what is kind of a route. And there is a consolation to balancing this reps out with California reps. But that's not. Doesn't do a super abundance for the folks in Texas who are going to lose their representative.

[Emma Vigeland]

Right.

[David]

Oh, what doesn't do a great deal.

[Emma Vigeland]

For the folks that word is ruined.

[David]

Who are going to lose their reps. Right. Like, you know, if we have to lose Doggett or Casar, that's a loss.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah.

[David]

And it's nice to have, you know, new reps in California, but what does that mean for democracy in Texas? It's a way to salvage maybe and maintain a fighting spirit, but in what is ultimately a loss.

[Emma Vigeland]

That's true. It would be nice if national Democrats who also don't have power had this same fight. Like, that's the lesson for me here is, is that what Collier said in the interview is true in the sense that they are at the very least making it a national conversation. And when you don't have power, that's oftentimes the best you can do. However, I understand maybe there being some disappointment on this front. They also, when Crockett was a rep, they did this in 2021 and they stayed for longer, did they not to object to a decision. And so at the very least, we have some fight, some life in the party. I'm trying to be optimistic.

[David]

There's at least a response Wednesday.

[Emma Vigeland]

Right.

[David]

It is an insane power grab. And to hear people criticize like it's insane for Trump to say, hey, go in the middle of the period of gerrymandering when we're not supposed to be doing it for another five years. Give me some more seats that he literally just said that.

[Emma Vigeland]

Right.

[David]

I would have, you know, we started the show off yesterday with that union rep in Canada saying, I'm willing to go to jail. I kind of think we do need to get to a point where those bluffs are called when it comes to saying, okay, maybe we do stay out for the rest of this session and for a few months. So this, these we're not, they're not able to steal representatives from us.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yep, in a moment we're going to be talking to Julie Hsu. But first a word from some of our sponsors. I mean, this is one of my favorite sponsors. This podcast is sponsored by Naked Wines. Naked is a wine club that directly connects you to the world's best independent winemaker. So you can get a get world class wine delivered straight to your door. Use our code Majority for the code and password@naked wines.com and get six bottles for just 39. 99 now. Naked wines it's quickly becoming one of my favorite sponsors. I am a somebody that enjoys a good glass or two or three of wine on occasion. I really recently loved this Naked Wines bottle that I got that was a Syrah. The reds that I've had from there are just phenomenal and you get it for a fraction of the price if you're going to the store around the corner. I love cracking open a bottle of wine, putting away my phone, being present with my family, with my friends or with myself in my television show. Naked Wines helps me unwind with all the political news being what it is. Naked brings you amazing wine straight from the winery at up to 60% less than what you would pay in store. By cutting out extra costs like middlemen markups, winemakers can pass those savings on to you without skimping on quality. Naked Wines. The wine is amazing. I gotta start getting some new whites. Try out some whites there. Expand my palette on that front. But the reds that I've been having and ordering from there so far have been awesome. Naked Wines has been around for over 15 years and backs over 90 independent winemakers around the world. To make the wine you love to drink. Now is the time to join the Naked Wines community. Head to nakedwines.com majority, click enter voucher and put in our code Majority for both the code and password for six bottles of wine for just $39.99 with shipping included. That's $100 off your first six [e-mail] majority and use the code and password majority for six bottles of wine for $39.99. We will put a link below in the show notes and in the description for six bottles of wine for $39.99. Head to nakedwines.com majority and use code Majority for both the code and password. And lastly, this is a product that I started using before I even joined the show, before I even knew that Deleteme was a sponsor. Delete me is essential for my privacy as somebody that does this show and has my name out there? I've got to protect my loved ones, my personal information. And Deleteme makes it easy, quick and safe to remove your personal data online. At a time where surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable, data brokers make a profit off your data. Your data is a commodity. Anyone on the web can buy your private details. This can lead to identity theft, phishing attempts, harassment, and more. But now you can protect your privacy with Deleteme. What do data brokers do? Well, your name, your contact information, your Social Security number, your address, even information about your family members could all be compiled by these brokers and sold online. That's dangerous and it's easier for them to do than you think. But Deleteme can help you with that. And thank you, Delete Me for sponsoring the Majority report. Again, I don't know what I would do without Deleteme. It alleviates so much of the anxiety that some of my personal information is going to be on the Internet. And basically they send you these reports about all the data that they've culled and all the protection that they have provided. And it just makes me feel a lot safer. So I recommend Deleteme highly take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Deleteme now at a special discount for our listeners. Get 20% off your delete me plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com Majority and use promo code Majority at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to DeleteMe.com Majority and enter code Majority at checkout. That's JoinDeleteMe.com Majority Codemajority. Again, below in the description, you'll be able to find this link to get 20% off your delete me plan when you go to joindeleteme.com majority and use promo code Majority at checkout. All right, folks, quick break and when we come back, we'll be joined by Julie Su.

[Sam Cedar]

It's.

[Emma Vigeland]

We are back. And we are joined now by Julie Hsu, who served as acting U.S. labor Secretary in the Biden administration and is currently a senior fellow at the Century Foundation. Her latest piece in the American Prospect is entitled Union Buster in Chief. Julie, thanks so much for coming on the show today.

[Julie Su]

Thank you. It's so good to be here with you.

[Emma Vigeland]

So good for you to be with us. This is an important conversation because prior to the election there was a lot of branding by the Republicans and their efforts to make it seem like they could be Pro worker in at least a second aesthetic. And there's this talk about right wing populism. You don't really see that reflected in their labor policies, do you?

[Julie Su]

I mean, you see the exact opposite. Right. Which I suppose is not surprising given that everything they've said is, you know, they're doing something different to hurt every sector of our communities. But on workers, it's so clear that they've launched a full on war on workers. And in many ways, the federal government employees have had to, you know, sort of born the borne the brunt of that because this president has both sort of modeled the worst kind of behaviors of an employer and then said to everyone across the country, you know, this is the way that we're allowed to treat people. And it's been the exact opposite of a pro worker administration.

[Emma Vigeland]

You mentioned there his targeting of federal workers. And early on in your piece in the American Prospect, you draw a comparison to Ronald Reagan firing the striking air traffic controllers during his administration. Can you speak about that parallel and why it's so troubling that Trump seems to be expanding upon it?

[Julie Su]

Yeah, so in 1981, right. Ronald Reagan basically replaced striking air traffic control workers and essentially gut the union and sent a very clear message to those workers that they were fully expendable. And this not only was a massive attack on those workers rights, it also really catalyzed decades of union busting activity by private sector employers too. And so for many of us who care about workers rights, that's been an example of how government abuse of power can really undermine workers and worker organizing in dramatic ways. The contrast to that is what President Biden did, which was recognize that what presidents say matters, what the federal government does matters, and be very explicitly pro union and pro worker. And we saw the effect of that too. Federal government unions grew dramatically under the Biden administration. And so I draw the parallel because Donald Trump has taken that 1980s playbook and completely radicalized it, modernized it for his particular brand of war on workers. And at every single turn, he has ripped up union contracts, he's got closed down entire agencies, he has cut, you know, anywhere he can. He has found a way to pull the rug out from underworking people. And it is going to be devastating for decades to come in all kinds of ways unless we put a stop to it.

[Emma Vigeland]

Now is the precedent of targeting a public sector union. The is important to understanding this dynamic here because, I mean, I guess that's immediately under, you know, his direct control and the umbrella of, you know, the federal government. So that's the first place I guess you would start. But I wonder what that means even more than just it's his war on the federal workforce.

[Julie Su]

That's right. So the problem here with everything that's happening is that it's both Donald Trump and the federal government as employer. Right. And the federal government is much more highly unionized than the private sector. The private sector is just under just around 10%, and the federal government is over 30. And so it has long been a place where people trade in much higher paying jobs for public service and for the good things that come with a union. Job security, decent wages, benefits, a good retirement, things that everybody should have but are not required by law. You get them because you have a union. And so the attacks are both an employer saying that I'm just unilaterally not going to respect that contract, longstanding contracts in this situation, but also the President of the United States saying it's open season on workers and on unions in workplaces. And we've already started to see that. Right. The ways that this president has eliminated the ability of. It's really hard to join a union in this country. It's really, really hard. Once you want one, to actually get one. There's a lot of hurdles you have to get through. And when you eliminate the institutions that are in place to help make that happen, it just becomes harder and harder for workers to get what they're legally entitled to and what they want. And the president's latest actions and another way of sending a clear message that you are not entitled to a union, you are not entitled to organized, you are not going to get those kinds of protections.

[Emma Vigeland]

Can you take us through the firings of this administration and the DOGE attacks? It was around 150,000 workers who were fired under DOGE. They were utilizing loopholes about protections, or lack of protections rather for probationary employees to achieve that. But he's now stripped 400,000 federal workers of union protection. So this is a dramatic escalation. If you just don't mind laying out the timeline of this assault.

[Julie Su]

So let's be very clear that this administration from day one has been built on hypocrisy about, you know, we're going to care about workers, but we're going to do everything we can to undermine our own workers rights. So from the very beginning, it was about insulting them, you know, saying that they're not really working right, calling them the deep state. It's all these things that setting the groundwork for being able to do whatever you can and Then. And let's also be clear that these actions are actually not legal. Right. There's no backstop at this point to this administration's activities. Now, there have been lawsuits filed, and those have helped us slow, but slow the attacks. But what we see is a constant, as you put it, escalation. So from the very beginning, it was undermining and discrediting federal employees. And then it was a whole battery of firing probationary employees en masse. Now, again, those actions have been slowed, but it has not stopped this administration. Because the other thing you can do if you're a bad employer is just make work so miserable that people are put in a really terrible position having to decide to stay because they care about the mission, stay because they want to do their jobs, and leave because they have become. The job has become untenable. And that is something else that the president has done so giving these ridiculous astine assignments, you know, essentially tearing away the mission of organizations again on a daily basis. All kinds of seemingly small ways of making work miserable. So, you know, you walk away from your desk and you don't know if you're going to get escorted out the building. Right. There's all kinds of stories of the misery that workers have had to put up with. And so then many of them ended up leaving, you know, basically being forced out because they could no longer do their jobs in a way that was consistent with their mission. Right. Being told that your job is the exact opposite of what you're supposed to be doing. Right. Instead of enforcing labor laws, you're supposed to be helping to round up immigrants, for example. It's just. It's the jobs untenable. And now this latest move of just saying we're not going to respect the unions at all is a way of telling their workers that they're alone. Right. There's no one to protect them. They're basically at will employees now, they can be fired for anything. And that the unions themselves will be weakened by not having enough members, which takes away one of the most important things that have always stood against autocracies and dictators, which are unions fighting against their abuse of power.

[Emma Vigeland]

You mentioned this is illegal. How is it legal for the President to unilaterally tear up what is the. It's a collective bargaining agreement.

[Julie Su]

Exactly. I mean, it's not legal. The problem is that the courts have proven to be an inadequate check on power, even though there are victories that take place at certain stages right there. But the president has been very clear he's not going to comply with what courts say. And so that's part of the problem, right. When you have a person in power who is enabled by others who ratify and magnify the lies and the abuse, and then you don't have a backstop, you really have a lawless situation. And so the actions are not legal. Now. Now, challenging them in court is an important step, but it's really not enough. And I think where the real power comes from is where it's always come from, which is working people who are willing to say, no, not on my watch. And all of us need to support the efforts of those workers who are having to draw on courage that they never knew that they would have to use.

[Emma Vigeland]

Is it your opinion that this unprecedented attack on what should be a legally protected collective bargaining agreement is a canary in the coal mine for this to spread into the private sector? Because this is something we can also touch on. Trump has gutted the National Labor Relations Board, and they can't reach quorum. So. So this, if this goes on longer, this means that basically any deliberations about unionization are frozen.

[Julie Su]

That's right. I think what's clear is that all of the rules that we've been relying on to protect workers, protect the right to organize, as inadequate as those rules were to date, all of that is, you know, it's a whole new. It's a whole new world in which none of those rules matter. And so, again, the analogy to Reagan is apt because when Ronald Reagan did that, it really opened up a. You know, I call it open season, because it really was a declaration of war on workers and on unions that private sector employers picked up their weapons and continued to fight. And that resulted in a large decline in unionization. Right. It really, you know, we see the effects of it today. And so this president is doing it again, but with absolutely no hold barred. And so, you know, taking away the institutions that protect workers rights to organize. But also the message, right. There's all kinds of ways that employers bust unions but hide it under the guise of, you know, they were fired for different reasons. We actually had to make cuts there because we, you know. Right. Like it was a cost cutting effort. It wasn't about busting the union. All kinds of things are perfectly legal, like captive audience meetings that actually end up targeting union organizers and hurting workers. You asked me about what the difference is in leadership. When Joe Biden was in office, he not only made very clear to workers who were organizing that the right to form or choose a union is yours and yours alone. We had the strongest agencies across the federal government, protecting workers, rights to organize in, enforcing labor laws, enforcing against wage theft and health and safety violations, all part and parcel of making workers vulnerable. Right. When you don't have those things in place, and ensuring that workers got fair contracts, now all of that has been reversed. And so I think, you know, the rules. There are no rules anymore for that. Protect workers from the federal government's perspective.

[Emma Vigeland]

And the federal government here. Just if I could ask you to expand on the status of the National Labor Relations Board and the firing of Glenn Wilcox. Where are we at there? And are you already hearing reports of this having, like, chilling effects on unionization efforts? I mean, there's important stuff right now happening down in the South. The UAW is leading drives down there to get these Southern states that have very disadvantageous environments to unionize in. They're trying to get over that hump. But my fear is, of course, there's no board to hear some of these disputes that are definitely going to come. And as we know, it's completely disproportionate when the employer has all these resources and the union doesn't.

[Julie Su]

Yeah, absolutely. So, again, Donald Trump has basically unilaterally rescinded the NLRA by not having a quorum on the National Labor Relations Board. Right. So he fired Gwen Wilcox. A court initially said that she should be reinstated, and now that has been put on hold. So she's also fighting her legal battle. The other problem, of course, we need to fight in the courts, but those battles take a long time, and they're not adequate for the urgency of the moment that we have. So there's no quorum at the nlrb, which means that when there are unfair labor practices that are brought forward, the board really cannot act. And that is to your point. There are difficult organizing drives being taken on by incredible unions with incredible leadership. Right. Going into some of the hardest places to organize and saying, these workers deserve better. And that when those workers want to say, we get to stay in our wages, we should be able to come home healthy and safe. At the end of the day, we should have benefits like union workers across the rest of the country that those workers are unable to get an election. Right. To have the unfair labor practices heard. And that's also extremely devastating. The other thing, just kind of connecting all the threads of a president who will declare open season on his own workers and its impact on the private sector is we've already seen that sometimes when workers win their initial right to have a union, that private employers are using the Lack of an LRB to not negotiate a first contract. Right. They're saying there is no nlrb. That that's absurd. There's completely no bar to that. Right. Negotiating good faith is the employer's obligation. But to your point, the fact that all of these laws and rules and bodies that are supposed to protect workers are being systematically dismantled is allowing employers who would bust their unions to do so, to use that as an excuse.

[Emma Vigeland]

To do so, Are there? No. What is the recourse in the courts outside of the National Relations Board? Is there? I'm ignorant, ignorant about like the statute here, if you don't mind explaining.

[Julie Su]

Well, right. So I mean a little bit this is kind of untested, right? Because the NLRB is the board that's supposed to hear unfair labor practice claims. And now without one, it's, you know, it is sort of this, this wild wild west of exactly what, what are workers entitled to? Especially because, you know, if you, the reason why the NLRB exists is that you have real experts there who understand the National Labor Relations act. Right. Who understand what an unfair labor practice is, who can adjudicate those claims in a more expedited manner. When you rip that away, you really leave workers with very little recourse. So workers are finding their way, they're testing, going to court. There's other states are trying to step into the breach. Right. So states like California and Massachusetts have proposals before them that would say in the absence of a federal National Labor Relations act, we should be able to protect the right to organize. Right. Normally that's covered entirely by federal law. And so I think there are people who are stepping into the breach and trying to do creative things. But the reality is that is really dismantling the a decades long system that has not been enough, but has been one way that it's been a really important way that workers have been able to exercise their right to join a union. And this is the fact that it's being dismantled by a president who said that he was going to stand for workers is truly outrageous.

[Emma Vigeland]

Well, I mean no taxes on tips is what I guess basically comes out of that. Which is just obviously says nothing about, I mean, the right to organize. That I guess brings me to expanding our conversation slightly because we're in the middle, I think of a really turbulent time in our economy and the Biden administration was plagued by accusations of inflation when we know that in part greedflation was driving much of this with corporations having record profits but prices still being high after the naturally occurring bottlenecks From COVID they extended that and capitalized on it and took home record profits. And that persists through the Trump administration. But the other piece in our economy that I don't think is getting talked about enough is the underemployment crisis of folks who are working multiple jobs at very low wages, including the burgeoning gig economy, which is reliant on many of these workers to be profitable. And they functionally have very little protections. As someone who works in the administration and works on a lot of these matters, what is your perspective on what that means for workers rights in the economy if these kinds of jobs continue to be some of the only things that are available to folks?

[Julie Su]

Yeah, great. So just to break that down for one moment, right. Part of the answer to that is that we recently saw in the latest jobs report that job growth is slowing under this president's chaotic and damaging economic policies. So you have, you know, slowing growth. That means fewer job opportunities for people who are looking. Unemployment is going up. That's, that's real life suffering for people who are just trying to make a decent living. Then you have what you said, which is this growing gigafication of the economy and a century's worth of labor protections, including the minimum wage, overtime, and the right to unionize attached to workers who are employees. You get those protections if you are an employee. If you're not, that you don't. And so there's been this also decades long effort to undermine worker protections by calling your employees something else, calling them independent contractor, calling them a gig worker, and then saying they're not entitled to rights. And so that's been damaging for organizing, right? Workers have a harder time organizing if they're, if they're nominally cut out from the National Labor Relations Act. It also means that workers don't feel like they have rights, right? They feel like they can't. They're not entitled to overtime because they're not called an employee. And to your point, this has resulted in a whole sector of really of insecure work. Right. Of working people who are working full time year round but cannot afford the basics, who cannot get by, who cannot build toward a more secure life. And so those are also choices that corporations have made that industry industries have created that have really sort of weakened labor law protections, but also been big contributors to poverty wages and poor working conditions.

[Emma Vigeland]

And for my, in my analysis of it, this was only made possible really in a bipartisan manner in, over the course of, I don't know, 30 years where the focus on consumer prices being low was always kind of the driver of economic policy really across administrations for a while. Now we have Trump who is obsessed with tariffs and wants to actively raise prices. It's not quite clear if he even understands what he's doing, which is a great sign for us. But like, I mean, just what was encouraging about your work in the administration was that it was yours and Jonathan Cancers, Lena Khan, et cetera. Like it was a departure from some of that consumer focus. Can you zoom out and talk about that dynamic a bit? And if you feel that there's a growing kind of like intellectual community on your guys side of things that is going to be more Keynesian maybe?

[Julie Su]

Yeah. I mean we understood and understand that consumers and workers are the same people and that when we talk about how the prices of things are too high and the need to address affordability, of course that's true, that is 100% right. But the price of things is only one half of that equation. The other part is what people make. Right. The other part is how good your wages are, how much you have in your pocket at the end of a workday in order to afford the necessities of life. And the more you undercut workers, the more you undercut enforcement and allow wage theft to run rampant, the less people feel secure, the less people can afford also because their jobs just aren't enough for them to get by anymore. And that is something that we fought against in the Biden administration. We fought against it by increasing enforcement. We fought by doing everything we could in the executive's power to increase wages. Right. Including the wages of federal government contractors and to fight monopolies that engage in the kind of behavior that's harmful to both workers and to consumers. And so both sides of that equation really matter. And that's why the attacks on workers are ultimately also attacks on a whole, a vision of an economy in which everyday people can actually have some say, can have some ability to make choices about their lives. And a good job is really fundamental to that.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah, very much so. Lastly, you mentioned wage theft. For all the talk about crime running rampant all across the country, very little discussion about the number one form of theft in this country, which is wage theft. Can you give our audience a sense of first your work on this in the administration and secondly also the scale of this level of theft and how pervasive this problem is in the U.S. yeah.

[Julie Su]

So wage theft is essentially stealing wages out of workers pockets and it's 100% right. What you said that there's all this talk about crime that is intended to vilify certain communities. Right. It's a focus on really a non existent crime problem in order to create the ability for this administration to exercise a whole bunch of police power in horrific ways on communities when the real crime, working people not getting what they're supposed to be paid, not getting a justice pay for their day's work is very real. And this administration has completely decided that they don't care about that, that they're going to come down on the side of the billionaire corporations who have essentially driven a lot of the practices we just talked about, right. Driven the gigification, driven the subcontracting, driven the things that have torn away labor protections, wage and hour protections for workers. You know, there is a response the federal government can give to that and that is to enforce the labor laws. But this administration has also cut the Department of labor by 20%. And so, you know, the whole thing about, you know, no tax on overtime, no tax on tips, those things don't help anybody if people don't have a job to begin with, if they're not getting paid overtime.

[Sam Cedar]

Right.

[Julie Su]

Which this administration has also refused to, you know, adopt our expansion of overtime pay to workers. And so we are in a situation now where, you know, for working people, it's really dire. The upside is that working people see it, right. I've always said this, that in government or anywhere else, people say, well, workers are too vulnerable to do this thing, right? Workers are too scared to organize, to stand up, to fight back. In my experience, working people have always been more willing to fight than those of us in positions of power. It's not been that their fear that's held everybody back. It's been our own. And that's definitely. This is why it's a moment for us to lean into the strength and the courage of workers who are organizing against really great odds, who are standing up against a horrific attack on their rights and their livelihoods, including to go back to the beginning, federal employees, well beyond that, that and recognize that call out this administration for the pure hypocrisy of what they're doing to working people.

[Emma Vigeland]

Well, Julie Hsu, I really appreciate your time. Julie served as acting U.S. labor Secretary under the Biden administration, currently a senior fellow at the Century Foundation. You can also read her latest piece in the American Prospect entitled Union Buster in she Chief, thanks so much for your time today. I really appreciate it.

[Julie Su]

Thank you.

[Emma Vigeland]

Thank you with that, folks. Look at that. I think we're gonna go under an hour both days just to shuffle you all into the fun half.

[David]

I thought you were gonna say shut.

[Emma Vigeland]

Sam up just to. Yeah, right, that too. We will head into the fun half where we'll take your calls and read your IMs and do some clips and all of that. Yeah, Matt left reckoning last night. Matt left reckoning.

[David]

We went into sort of the fall of Evo Morales in Bolivia. Kind of a sad story. Inability to figure out how to sustain a movement that's frankly been in power for two decades in MoS and the movement towards socialism. And we also had Kelsey Bond who's running for city council in Atlanta as a DSA member. People tap in on that and also two NPC members who won getting on the national political committee with dsa. So a little DSA wrap up and David gave his take, which is informed mine, frankly about these Texas state reps. And so we talked about that. Patreon.com leftdruck and we are closing in on 50,000 subs on YouTube. So go subscribe to us.

[Emma Vigeland]

Go subscribe. Get them to 50k folks. All right, we will head into the fun half. See you on the other side.

[Julie Su]

You are in for it.

[Sam Cedar]

All right folks. 646-257-3920. See you in the fun half. Are you ready?

[Emma Vigeland]

Who sent us this?

[Sam Cedar]

Alpha male are back and the alpha males are back, back Just as delicious as you could imagine the alpha males are back, back, back, back, back and the alpha males are back, back, back Just want to degrade the white man Alpha males are back, back I take all of it. Alpha males are back, back, back, back, back Snowflake says what? The alpha males are. You are a madman. And the alpha males are back, back.

[Emma Vigeland]

Oh, no.

[Sam Cedar]

Sam Cedar. What a w. What a nightmare.

[Emma Vigeland]

Yeah, or a couple of them.

[Sam Cedar]

Just put them in rotation.

[Julie Su]

DJ dinner.

[David]

Well, the problem with those is they're like 45 seconds long, so I don't know if they're enough breaks.

[Emma Vigeland]

That's nonsense.

[Sam Cedar]

You see white people doing drugs. They look worse than normal white people. And all white people look disgusting. And the alpha males psych them. Snowflake says, what? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? Lot of bank. Hell of a lot of bank. A hell of a lot of bank. Okay, I'm making stupid money. Hell of. Hell of a lot of bank A hell of a lot of bank. All lives matter.

[David]

Have you tried doing an impression on a college campus?

[Sam Cedar]

I. I think that there's no reason why reasonable people across the divide can't all agree with this psych. And the alpha males are back, back, back, back, back, back? And the Africans are black, black, black, black, black, African? And the alpha males are black, black, black, black, black, black? And the Africans are back, back, back, back. See Donald Trump out there. Doesn't a little part of you think that America deserves to be taken over by jihadists? Keeping it 100. Can't knock the hustle. Come on. Them. Them things I do for the bigger game plan. By the way, it's my birthday. My birthday. Happy birthday to me, Jew boy. I have a thought experiment for you. And the alpha males are back, back. Africa are black, black. Alpha male of black, black Africans are back, back. Come on, come on, come on. Someone needs to pay the price of blasphemy around here. I am.