Chapo Trap House - Bonus: Teamsters Deliver The Goods 2

Episode Date: October 16, 2021

Amber welcomes back Rhode Island teamster Matt Maini for some union talk. They discuss union internal politics, rank and file leadership, the value of strikes, and organizing Amazon. Check out the TDU GoFundMe here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/transforming-the-teamsters-from-the-bottom-up

All right, welcome Choppa listeners, Amber here, and we are joined today by a very special guest and audience favorite, Matt Maney, a teamster of Local 251 in Providence, Rhode Island. So, welcome back, Matt. Thank you for coming again. So the elections are coming up, the teamster elections. We're going to talk a lot about that, but you're a huge audience favorite. So people have spoken and they'd love to hear about your experience in your local, how you

became a teamster, what your workplace experience was like and how it's changed and what it's been like organizing in your local. So I started out in the teamsters in 1993. I was all over the place until I made the seniority list at UPS. From there, I got introduced to socialist politics, which brought me into union activity through the ISO at the time. And from there, myself and Mr. Tabie, we engaged in union activity, ran for steward, became steward of my shift, organized companies, got involved with organizing, started salting

companies. That's where you go in with the intent to apply for a non-union job with the intent to organize them. I did a few of those. I've been on picket lines, I've been arrested, and it just went from there on and on and on and on. Eventually became a union rep, elected by the rank of file in 2013, took office in 2014, and been here ever since.

And it's been a long journey, but it's been a great journey where we've had a lot of ups and downs, but we're happy now. Our slate teams is united, what Matthew Tabie's on is about ballots are out in the mail now, and he's about to get, he's about to be elected as vice president of the international for the East. And from there, our saga continues, helping rank of file power, building socialist agenda, building rank and file committees that build real true union activity, that bring rank and file as an empower them because that's the base of our union, that is our engine,

that's what makes us float, that's what makes us both work, and taking our fight all the way to the street, if need be, our big campaign coming up as UPS, their contracts about to expire, and we'll embark on that after this election, and we're going to get ready to rumble. Awesome. So I assume that when you started your local, it wasn't easy getting everyone on board with the other rank and file movement, I'm guessing that was a little bit of an uphill battle, do you want to talk a little bit about that?

Sure. So for many years, it was myself, Mr. Tabie, another gentleman named Jim Jacobs, who's now retired, but for many, many years, it was just us outside telling socialist worker at union meetings, trying to attend those meetings and basically network rank and file members who would want to get involved in our politics. And for many, many years, we were the outcast, many, many years, nobody really wanted us around, they would kind of red bash us, but we hung tough and stick to it through TDU, which was a big part of that, what gave us a voice and educated us and got us down the

right road to becoming union officials. Yeah, I think a lot of people sort of start out salting with this idea that they're going to like, they're like, well, I know how this stuff works, and all I have to do is tell everyone and they'll be like, yeah, totally. And they'll jump in, right. So TDU, Teams just for a Democratic Union, we'll talk a little more about them later. They really gave you a leg up. How did you hook up with them?

I hooked up with them through the ISO with Mr. Tabie, where we had our first meetings as small rank and file groups, they would have what they call educational seminars where they would travel around small groups, maybe six people. And that's how I first got introduced to TDU. I instantly fell in love with the process of TDU, which is Teams for a Democratic Union. It's transparency, it's rank and file power, it's empowering rank and filers to run for office and educate them on how this works in the process of which it means to be a union rep, because the easiest part is winning the election, the hard part is after that.

That's what they really teach you how to run a local and change the dynamics of where you came from. We came from a very corrupt local. Providence Rhode Island had 45 years of the same regime, it was mobbed up. There was a lot of bad people that ran our union here, and we had a big task in front of us when we took office, and we took that on. And we've really have changed the dynamics of what goes on here in Providence. We have election committees, we don't increase our salaries unless the rank and file is vote

for approval, total transparency, we sold all the union cards, we got rid of all the union credit cards, we went more to a socialist platform where it's about rank and file power and bringing teamsters and union people, and that's within our community, as fighting as a group for our political agenda. Right, and it's just the sort of thing you really can't do from the outside. It does seem that people, they take these legalistic approaches, they're like, well, we'll pass a labor law, and we'll do this, and labor laws are great, but if you don't have the muscle to enforce them, UPS doesn't really care what the law is.

Right, right. UPS is probably one of the most egregious employers that we deal with, and it's a daily battle every day there. Great, so I think that's a good segue to talking about UPS. So there's going to be a negotiation coming up, but I think a good place to start, I mean, we can't start from the very beginning because teamsters history is huge, but the very last UPS contract was a huge event, and it seemed like, you know, talk about there being sort of like low turnout for teamsters elections, and it's kind of like low turnout for any

election. Well, people haven't really had anyone to vote for for a while, and the union really hasn't done much for them for a while, so they're disengaged. But this latest UPS contract was so egregious that it seems like it really activated a lot of people. Do you want to talk a little bit about that, maybe the, was the vote no campaign? Sure. So UPS traditionally was the best contract in North America.

It was the leading contract that other contracts expired to be. What they did, the Hoffa regime under Dennis Taylor, Ken Hall, and Jimmy Hoffa, they took the best contract in North America, and they effectively ruined it. And they created a second tier. They call those those drivers hybrid drivers. And this caused a huge ruckus into the union where it energized people to want it. They were so angry and so upset with the fact that the IBT was the one that proposed the language to actually create the second tier.

It re-energized everybody to get involved and start actually stepping up and remembering the importance that elections do have consequences and that you have to exercise your democratic right to vote. We have 330,000 employees at UPS, right? I think we may be at 127,000 people vote if we were lucky. So this outcome now, because of the second tier, and basically the sham contract that the Hoffa administration placed onto the rank and file, and then basically crammed it down on our throats, even though majority of that number voted it down, they still implemented

an old rule of which we just got rid of, the two-thirds majority, they still implemented that contract. It just re-energized the whole entire rank and file to get involved and to be more receptive and listen to people who have a different plan, a different vision, which is democracy, which is transparency, which is having rank and file is at the table with us when we do this contract, making sure that everybody is on the same page and not hiding behind some two-thirds rule that basically crammed down a contract on somebody's throat that they don't want.

We want people to be empowered, we want people to stand up, we want people to take on corporate greed, and we want people to fight back and understand the issues within that, which is health care, which is pensions, which is critical in this country at this point. A living wage, we see it now, how important this is, and our IVT prior to this just dropped that ball. Sean O'Brien and Matt Tabie have picked up that ball, and now they're leading that fight, and they're fighting the fight that workers need to hear, which is, hey, you do matter. You have rights, organize, join a union, get out there and fight back and take on that

corporate greed and stand up as one and fight for health care for all. Health care is not a privilege, it's a right, and this is the type of dialogue that we're hearing more and more from our members, which is empower them, and that empowers us, and it keeps this whole fight going. It's really solid, and it's a wonderful thing to watch. I've been privileged to be part of it, and I'm blessed in that aspect. It seems like, I mean, my understanding from it, I had only read a little bit about it, it seemed like everyone who voted, who was aware of this contract, voted don't immediately.

I mean, before, when it was just in talks, there was already a Vote No campaign, and so the majority won, they voted against it, and they, like, IBT found a loophole, like this weird little two-thirds loophole, like, well, not enough people voted for it to matter. It's like, of course not enough people voted, you aren't telling people that there's a vote going on. Right, right. And it really angered people, because it was a rule that was placed, I think, from 1932 into our bylaws, it had never really been executed, and...

Just like small print bullshit. Right, exactly. You know, you bought it and didn't read it, because you didn't see it. So, you know, it just enraged people, it empowered them to say, hey, that's it, I've had enough shit, I'm going to stand up, and I'm doing something, and I want to hear about the other side, and that's what empowered people like us, because we've always been out there broadcasting this, but now it's on more of a national level. And this is the first time in my lifetime, and I've been doing this 31 years, that people

are very receptive to medicine for all, a living wage, a real minimum wage of $22, $23 an hour in America, you know, paid family medical leave, paternity maternity leave, same-sex rights for all on the job. I mean, these things are crucial, and it just needs to happen, and now there's more people beating that drum because of what happened with that contract, and it just brings, opens dialogue to it all. Well, the Teamsters are, I mean, you can't outsource those jobs. It's a very useful, and I mean, out of the Teamsters, yeah, there's, it's like 1.4 million

members in the U.S. and Canada, and like a quarter of those are UPS, I mean, these are people who even more than before, like, now keep the world going, keep, I mean, like, we're now hearing about supply chains being a major issue, because, well, we don't have a lot of domestic production in this country, and it has to come from other places, so people are just stuck on boats. The only sort of network we have are the people who drive those trucks. Yes, that's true, and I mean, that domestic supply chain that you see the issue is that that's corporations running away from paying a living wage and dealing with unions, so

they took all their production, moved it to foreign countries, and now we're in this situation that we're in. That's a whole other argument, but yes, truck drivers are the link to keeping America moving. Most recently, just today, the President came out and said, you know, the Teamster Union is going to, we're going to waive a lot of the DOT regulations. We're going to allow them to work 24-7, so they don't have the seven-day roll-off so that we can move good, and I just hope that Americans see that these union men and women are sacrificing their lives, their families, their time at home, where some people may

be able to have that time. These men and women don't. They're behind a wheel making sure you're getting your goods, making sure that the economy doesn't collapse, and not that I'm big capitalist because I'm not, but we need the supply chain to continue, but these men and women have dedicated their lives to making sure that that doesn't happen, and they also delivered you your vaccines. They went to work when they were sick doing that. I mean, it just keeps proving time and time again that workers of the world are the might.

We are the engine of the world. It's not the rich. It's not the 1%. It's workers. So I was wondering if you could talk a little bit. I mean, there's quite a few egregious, like the working hours have become insane. There's some, a lot of people are complaining about give back, so I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that, and about the two-tier worker system, because these

are the big ones, correct? Yeah. So the working hours at UPS are horrendous. They're currently 60, but now they're going to go to 70 because of what, with the supply chain. Well, they could hire more people. They are trying, but there's not a lot of people that want to drive trucks anymore. Sure.

It's become increasingly more difficult to find help. And the other reason is COVID. A lot of people do not want to take that chance and work in those kind of environments and maybe get COVID. Granted the vaccines are up, so that's going to be hopefully changing soon. But the two-tier was a bad deal. It's effectively the same driver as an RPCD, which is a regular package car driver. That would be me, to a hybrid who works Tuesday through Saturday, he or she makes $6 less

than an hour than the RPCD. He gets the same health and welfare and pension, but he has no $9.5 or $8 request rights. So they can work that person unlimited. That person has no say, can't file agreements on that, can't raise their hand and say, I don't want to go on the excessive overtime list, none of that. So there's big differences there. And now you're seeing the corporation basically just using them to plug all the holes and working them to the point where many of them get hurt or they're out of work because they

can't work because they work so much that they got hurt. It's just become a never-ending brutal cycle from UPS onto the second tier that I've never seen anything like it. And it's really the union's fault. The union should have never agreed with it. The only person that I know that has a plan to take this on is Sean O'Brien and Fred Zuckerman. And they really are going to take this on with Matt Tabie and people like me that are going to be willing to get those ranking files out to fight back.

And that will happen next year. Okay. So another thing here that I just think is really strange, I had to bring up the surveillance and personal vehicle usage that is making its way into UPS jobs. It's like they're becoming like Uber drivers. Yes. It's terrible. So we saw it in some of our other supplements, mostly in the South, where they allowed dash

cams effectively to go into the trucks and videotape the driver while driving. And then they put surveillance cameras in the back while the driver selects packages. This is a total violation of everything that a union member would ever vote for or believe in. This is a harassing tool. This is nothing more than to demoralize people, to push them to get more production out of them. It's just, it's like, we're seeing things because their ultimate goal is to basically

have autonomous trucks. That's really what they want. They want the truck to be able to drive itself and then have a person deliver the packages. At some point, they want a robot eventually, that's years down the road, delivering the packages. Is that possible? That could happen? Yes, it's possible.

We see more and more autonomous trucks developing, more and more states agreeing to it, more and more states giving dedicated lanes of travel for these trucks. Very, very nerve wracking, because it seems like the technology is not there, is not safe. Yeah, and the only one that ever said take that on was Bernie Sanders, and he said, tax the robots. And he was 100. And that will stop them from replacing our jobs. So, let's talk a little bit about the election.

So, well, last election we should point out was incredibly close between the reform candidate. It was like 49 to 51, basically, which was this huge, huge upset where the TDU candidate against sort of the, you know, the Hoffa regime, it came really, really close. So why, I mean, why do you think there was this huge shift in, and I mean, there wasn't a huge spike in voting, I don't think. Do you think people are just seeing which way the wind is blowing, or do you think they're just like finally getting fed up, or you know, what's it like on the ground in your experience? I just think that, you know, last time out, it was close.

We pushed, we, you know, a lot of people say, oh, Canada was the big reason why, no. We lost because we didn't pick up enough votes in the United States domestically to overcome the 5,000 difference. Is that going to happen this time? I don't foresee that, because we're going to end up getting most of the East, if not all of it. We're going to get all the central states, so, and there's more voter turnout. We already know that as of today, there's been massive amount of ballots coming back

a lot more than last time, this time, so by checking in with the election officers, we know these things. So, we know there's more participation this time, there's more, more, more ballots in quicker this time, which means people are holding their ballots, they're getting them, they're voting, and they're sending it back, doing exactly what we wanted them to do, not sit on it, not forget about it, leave it on a coffee table, they're getting it back, which is a good deal for us. Right.

It does seem like, I don't know anything about how the election process developed internally, but it's like a six-week period, which does seem to be, I mean, when people are working 60 hours a week, it seems like something, people go, I'll do that later, and then they forget about it, like, it doesn't seem like the ideal way to, you know, solicit a high voter turnout. No, it's not, but I mean, it's a secret ballot, I mean, these men and women are working 60-70 hours a week, but that should tell you something, that a lot of them are so angered by the way their union has accepted concessions, hasn't led that fight.

The teamsters are the leaders and taken on corporate America. We always have had that history of going to war and battling, and we have lost that history over the 22-year span that Hoffer has run it, and we're fighting to get our existence back, which is to get back to that core union act, to that Eugene Debs type of unionism, where we're fighting and we're empowering people and we're educating them about our politics. So we see that in this campaign with Teamsters United, because people are so angered by what's happened, they want their voice to be heard that they're not happy, and we're more willing to accommodate that.

We want to fight and we want to do our jobs, we want to clean up this union and turn it back over to the rank of file, and we will leave this union better than we found it. So, you know, cautiously optimistic, but with the gains you've been making over the years and how close it was last time, I don't know if we're going to win, but we should talk a little bit about the candidates. So there's O'Brien and Zuckerman, who are the Teamsters United Slates, and then there's Verma and Herrera on the Teamster Power Slates. So Verma is essentially Hoffa's heir apparent, he got the Hoffa endorsement, Jim Hoffa's

retiring finally. I do think it's very funny that during the debate, O'Brien pointed out that Verma was Hoffa's third choice, which is a great little jab there, but they, I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about their varying platforms. I mean, there are a lot of things they agree on, I mean, at least on paper, but there are some very distinct differences, and when people argue that O'Brien is more militant, I think they're not sure exactly what that means. So do you want to go over that?

Sure. So if you know Sean, like we do, we have the privilege of being in the Joint Council, 10 in New England with him, Sean, Sean brings union activity to a different level. Sean is relentless, Sean will not back down, even if he's going to lose that fight, and he'll continue to fight. He has a motto that we live by, which is, it's okay to get in trouble. What does that mean? It means go out and be the agitator that you're paid to be.

Push the envelope, get people empowered, let them join the union. Whether we succeed or fail in that process, we're still in that fight, and that fight continues on a daily basis. That's the key difference between what you have on the other slate, which is it's more of a unionist capitalist behavior, where, well, we're more structured about due revenue, we're administrators of health care, we don't always want to ruffle the employer's feathers. We kind of just want to get along to get along with them, so they continue to pay the pension and the health and welfare, and we should all be happy about that.

No, Sean's in a different spectrum than that. Sean believes that union is a way of life, and when you're an agent and you represent that union, that's your life, and that means getting up every day, putting your shoes on and going to battle every day, day in and day out, and empowering your members and leading them. So, there's big differences when it comes to those two slates like that. Yeah, so it's interesting, both Sean and Verma had been under the Hoff administration. This is Sean got fired for ruffling feathers over email, too, by the way, so it's worth

actually going in and watching the debates. I think they're on the Teamsters' websites, very interesting, because Verma's criticism is that Sean has been in trouble before, and he's like, yeah, I have, like, you've never been in trouble because you don't do anything. There's many instances that we can look at, but we currently have a 22-week strike going on right now at Johnson Brothers Distributors in Rhode Island, they're a liquor distributor. We've reached out numerous times to the beverage division, who's currently run by the Hoff regime, which is the next group of guys who are running right now at Herrera.

No help. They don't understand networking and what it means to build a campaign, fight as a group, get together, build a union from within out. They don't get that concept, whereas Sean, he does. He understands that completely, and yeah, he's been in trouble. He's had his beef. They fired him as the possible guy when he was doing that contract, and he realized at the end of that last election, wait a minute, we got a problem in this union, we're divided.

We need to work together, reunify us, and then take on the company because we can't win divided. It doesn't work that way. There's a reason why we go by divided, we beg, united, we bargain, divided, we beg, and he's a leading example of how that works. Unified us in New England, unified everybody on the East, gets people behind them, and he wants to fight and lead the way, and that's what this team's the union needs. Right.

You talk about the relationship between the local and the national, and it's all over the place. It's really interesting that in the last election, the people that really came out for Hoffa were not the people who had their contracts negotiated under the national. They were the people who had decent, or maybe it wasn't decent, but their contracts were negotiated locally. They had the least contact with Hoffa, but their officers were like to go out and vote for Hoffa.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of UPS and I think the airline and a few others were just like, no, because they were the ones who had the most direct contact with his policies. Now it seems like it's worth pointing out the different ways that Verma and O'Brien's locals have functioned. Another thing they brought up, I'm not trying to tell tales out of school, but O'Brien said they called Verma's local the can-do local. They run it as a testing ground, basically. Whenever they wanted to try something, like two-tier things or surveillance or whatever,

they would go to Verma's local, go to Denver, and be like, hey, we want to see if this works. He played ball with that, correct? That is correct. Yeah. That gets back to the point where I was talking that it's a get along to do along with the employer, so we're still getting our contributions. It's that mentality. It's very passive.

We don't want to make waves. We appreciate the good wage. We appreciate where we live right now, and we don't want to bang heads with you. So yes, in many instances, that's what was happening. That became a test area where it was kind of, yeah, just bring it here. We'll try it here. Yeah, bring that here. We'll try that here.

That is not the case with Sean. It's night and day. Sean will argue and stand up and fight for his members and not accept any kind of concession. He will fight to the bitter end. I've seen it. And it seems very much like, I also love that he says, you've only gone on strike six times, and Verma's like, yeah, that's because I'm good. We're ready for Trump being like, of course, I don't pay taxes.

I'm smart. Right. Yeah. And just for the record, and just for the record, striking is a good thing. Yes. That's right. Striking is a good thing. It builds community involvement.

It shows the community that the union is there to fight and represent all workers because workers are all the same. Yeah. I mean, I think a good rule of thumb is if there's a decrease in strikes and a decrease in worker pay, working conditions, then striking more strikes is the way to go. You should see it increase in strikes. Now, maybe you don't see strikes for a while when things are doing great, but if you look at the decline of the work in UPS in particular, it's like, well, if you only went on strike

six times, you're clearly not trying to do anything to prevent this. I mean, my principal office has been on strike more than that, and he's been in office less time. So, you know, we're not afraid of exercising that muscle. We pride ourselves on that because striking is the ultimate tool that a worker has to withhold his or her labor to the employer and demand more is a very powerful tool, and it's a very powerful thing, and it should be respected. But you need to exercise that and show other employers you mess with us.

This is what you're going to get. So think twice. Yeah. At the very least, the employers, you know, it should be a threat. They should know. It doesn't mean you have to go on strike all the time, but they should know, well, if we do this, they will stop working, and we will not make profits. Right.

And don't you think that's a problem, though, when you're a union rep and you're running for general president of the greatest union in the world, and you're talking about how little times you've been on strike. That to me, and you've got the biggest contract up next year in the world. It's the biggest contract in the world. Yeah. And you're boasting about how you don't have to strike. That's a problem for me, and it should be a problem for the rank and file.

Right. So another major difference between them, I noticed, so when they talked about sort of, you know, increasing like the union power, Fermi has this like goal for like, you know, 10 to 15% increase of membership. He wants to join the AFL-CIO, which O'Brien is like, I don't know, maybe I'll figure out whether it benefits us or not. And O'Brien focuses more on getting the house in order, like internally, like making it a union that people want to join rather than just expand membership into a meaningless union.

What you see a lot with, I mean, like I'm technically a member of United Auto Workers is what I taught as an adjunct teacher, but it's like, it's because they're really desperate and they have to bring in new people. I'm like, sure, I'll pay dues, you know, the healthcare and everything, but it's no replacement for solidifying, you know, a militant union. It seems like there's kind of a cart and horse thing going on. It's like, do we grow or do we, you know, do we solidify internally? And O'Brien seems to be like, well, we need to be, we are the international brotherhood

of Teamsters. And it's all completely localized. Like these things all operate like independent nodes. I mean, so that's, you know, because there's no like federal labor law, it's all state-based or whatever. But if that's going to change, it will require an international union movement. So what is this like, what is a local autonomy that O'Brien is obsessed with in terms of the locals?

He's like, we always respect local autonomy. That seems like a very coded word. Well, it's under the bylaws. It's in our constitution. Each local has its own autonomy. So in Rhode Island, the rank and file Teamsters in Rhode Island elected us to run their local and represent their interest and advocate for them. We have our own autonomy to run that local the way we choose to run it.

What our policies are going to be, what our platform is going to be, that's us. And that's a very important thing because not all issues are the same. Your issues in California may or may not be the same as the issues of Rhode Island. So that's why the autonomy comes in. So each area has the ability to address or agitate in those areas the way they need to based off of the area they're in. And that's very important. And you know, it gets back to my point with the other slate where they want to just build

the union and grow the union through attrition or collapsing other locals into them. And it's basically not really organizing. You're just taking some other union and make calling them Teamsters and now you're getting due revenue. And that's what it's all about with those guys is when they figure, well, if we grow the due revenue, then we've effectively grown the union. No, you can't grow the union until your own house is united and in order and working together to grow that union.

And when you do do that, and we did it here in 251, the union will attract people to join you. When we came into office, we built over a three-year span. We changed the books. We were militant. We were out on the street. All the non-union workers saw that and started calling us to get organized and be part of that.

And that's exactly what Sean means. Right. You want a union that's worth joining before you, you know, you're going to grow it if it sucks. It does seem like the local autonomy thing is very interesting because it's like, well, obviously, on the one hand, you have a completely different, you have different supply chains and stuff that you're working with, different rural areas, but there must seems to think that this means that different locals can accept different standards of work.

So like you can try out a new surveillance thing in this local. I mean, in terms of like transparency, in terms of like setting a basic standard, like how possible is that if you would get, if you would get, let's say you would get the most, you know, militant teamster leadership, how would a process like that work? I mean, you got to be, you got to be peeking over somebody's shoulder to some degree, right? Yeah. And that's exactly what would happen. I mean, those, those instances with the dash cams were introduced into his local.

That's because the IBT, meaning Hoffa, went to him and said, hey, I need you to try this out in your local, and he went along with it. That's where Sean comes in. Nothing like that's going to ever happen with Sean, because that's number one, a concession. And number two, why would we ever give up our rights and allow them to harass us any more than they harass us for production standards? So that's not even going to come from the IBT, which effectively would eliminate that. And that's the key to having good leadership on these national contracts is that you have

somebody there who's willing to take a stand, fight back, do the right thing with the rank and file, and not necessarily be about, well, we just need to do revenue. Let's just get along to be, you know, be friends and you keep making the contributions. That's, we don't want that. We want somebody who wants to lead, fight and steer the boat in the right direction. Right. Right. So, another thing I just noticed, they tend to be talking a lot about diversity right

now. That's a huge discussion on the slates. Verba kind of stepped it in it in the first, in the first debate, where he said, my, the people of color and the women on my slate are not tokens, which is like, whoa, nobody said they were, but also the insinuation is that, well, if you're saying they're not, you are at the very least saying that, you know, the people of color and the women on O'Brien's slate are tokens, the implication thing. So I was wondering if that, does that have any sort of residence on the ground or is

that like, you know, to people talking? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That had a lot. I don't tell you. It rattled a lot of the rank and file because that just told me that they were in tune and they were listening and that was, that was good.

A lot of people were very angered by that because obviously when he changed it around and said, well, he basically made it sound like the women that we had were tokens on our slate and it just, it just made rank and filers very upset. This is a very diverse union. We have, you know, we have gay caucus. We have a black caucus, a Latino caucus just in my local. I mean, we have all these different caucuses in all welcome. We don't care about your sexual orientation.

We don't care about any of that. We only care about workers' rights, workers' justice. You want to do that? Bring it here. And you can help. Everybody can bring something to the table. And it really showed that Verma and Herrera don't really have a lot to bring to the table and not really in tune with their new membership, their Latinos that are, you know, joining this

union rapidly. A lot of me, huge numbers, blacks in our union, they don't really talk about the BLM movement within the Teamsters and how much we support that. So it really drew a shot, it shined a light on that. And you basically had what you had in the old days with the Teamsters, white Irish men. And they kind of brought that whole era back to life, it seemed like, when he made those comments, it just rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Right.

I could understand why. It's pretty weird. And also, it just sort of betrays, you know, like a cynicism about this sort of thing. Like, you know, the Hoffa sort of protégés are pretty savvy. And if they want to, you know, join the AFL-CIO and these other groups, they know that they have to at least play some degree of lip service to kind of like liberal identity politics. But also, they clearly don't give a shit if they're talking about it that way. Right.

And some of my strongest union brothers insist is, you know, they come from diverse backgrounds and they have everything to offer this great union. And let me tell you, we need more of them. We certainly, especially the Teamsters, they need more Latinos, they need more blacks, they need the gay population to get more involved. It's critical to our existence in the future to have these populations in this union and fighting with us in leadership roles is ultimately what those, we established those caucuses in our local to find leaders because we want Latinos, blacks, and the gay population to

be in leadership role at some point. We need that. I mean, we won't survive as a union if we don't have that. Right. So this is the endless thing that I'm sure you're sick of talking about. Everyone is obsessed with Amazon right now. Obviously, it's like a huge, I mean, it's a huge workforce and it's an increasing workforce. There've been like failures to unionize, I think, for just strategic reasons, like not

everything was in place yet, civilian effort or whatever. But it seems like if they're just because of the way the supply chain works, even though Amazon is providing sort of a competitor to UPS, it seems like the people who would be in the best situation in terms of just being the largest logistics company maybe in the world would be like Teamsters. What is the relationship? Is there an antagonistic thing? Obviously, I think everyone agrees on every side that Amazon needs to be organized.

But obviously, there are competing interests here and there. I mean, what's your take on that? What do you think? I mean, I don't think anyone has any immediate answers or whatever and there's no game plan. Well, I mean, first and foremost, any worker who joins any union, whether the Teamsters or UAW, IRT, you name it, that's their step in the right direction, period and the story. Do I believe the Teamsters can represent Amazon work as the best? Yes.

And I believe that because that's a core industry of the Teamsters, warehouse, logistical shipping. That's what we do. That's our forte. I mean, that's who we are. With that being said, you're dealing with a corporation who is stouched anti-union, hates any kind of worker organization that develops to fight back and have a voice. We saw that in Alabama. You're dealing with a corporation that makes billions of dollars, most recently flying

their CEO to space on a weekly basis while we have people sleeping on the street. Yeah. While we have people sleeping on the street and can't get health care. I mean, this is what we're dealing with. And we're going to take a serious look at this with Sean and his plan. And it's going to involve legislative activity from the government to step in and do something. And that starts with us mobilizing our core as a union so they understand that elections have consequences.

Don't go out and vote Donald Trump because he doesn't represent your interests. You need to vote for people who do, people who are going to make Amazon on the same playing field so that we can organize them and we can build that network against Amazon. And that will happen. I believe that will happen in my heart, otherwise all else is lost. But I truly believe, I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not a big Joe Biden guy, but I am seeing the Marty Walsh who's showing up there now and he's still got AOC trapping in there and there's still some positive things happening there.

And I like the direction that I'm seeing. And I believe between Sean's plan and some of those legislators, we're going to be able to get something done with Amazon. And it has to be done because Amazon is an egregious employer who does not play by the same rules as UPS or FedEx and they have third-party contracting, no healthcare, $12 an hour in our area, it's terrible. And it needs to be addressed soon. Yeah, they're logistical sweatshops.

It's insane. It's like we've gone back a hundred years. And I think also people are broadly outraged about that too, which is a good sign. I mean, the fact that people are like, hey, you know, I'm getting a bladder infection because they won't let me pee. Like it's really egregious and I think people know that like this is not sustainable. I think Amazon sure as hell knows it's not sustainable, which is why they're trying to like, you know, plug up whatever leaks they think they have when it's not, when it's actually

just like a huge unhappy workforce. So what are your feelings on the Pro Act, which it's, who knows, who knows. It does seem to indicate that Biden is at least not hostile to, you know, which is kind of better than most, right? Right, right. Well, you know, obviously my feeling is, please God let it pass. I pray to the labor gods every night. And that would be a tremendous asset for any union to be able to have that in place, to

be able to organize and get people into the union. We might come out of that 9%, 8% threshold for we're up, you know, unionized population to maybe a 40, 50, 60%. Do I believe it's going to pass? Absolutely not. And the reason why I believe it is because we have what we call deadbeat Democrats who don't get me wrong, I'm not a Democrat, but they just don't represent workers' interests. The dimensions of the world where they just get up there and they're anti whatever the

progressives bring because that's what they do. They have no reason why they're being anti. It's just, that's what we're going to do. So if we have people like that in office where they continue to have a voice, we're never going to get that passed. But there are better days to come. I see more people saying like, why can't I get health care? Why can't I have paid family medical leave where I can stay home and take care of my

baby or stay home and take care of my husband when he or she is sick? You know what I mean? It's like, people want that and it's going to happen. It's just a question. Does the next generation below us, you know, the 20 to 30, that's where the key is, man. My daughter's eight, she's 26, she's, you know, stouts to the left. She's, you know, we raised it the right way. So she's out there hitting the street and she's doing her thing.

And you see that movement being built with this younger generation. They don't want to tolerate that. They don't care about some never ending war in Afghanistan or some bullshit politician who's just telling you what you want to hear. They want results. They want medical. They want a pension, a defined real pension. That's some bullshit social security plan.

So it will happen in the future. It will happen. I mean, hopefully I'm here to see it and maybe I won't be, but either way it will happen. Well, thanks very, very much. That's I'm actually very hopeful. It's looking good for teams is United. I'm going to keep, keep a big eye on that one and we'll definitely have a follow up. So I'm just going to end here with a little plug for TDU.

There is a GoFundMe. We'll have a description for the fundraiser or we'll have a link for the fundraiser in the episode description. So funds from non-teamsters are not used in union election campaigns. Sorry, we can't do that. I would love to. But they support education and legal defense programs to protect workers rights. So TDU has been doing an insane amount of work without any like glorious results for

a while now and, you know, knock on wood. It sounds like their work's going to pay off this election. And then of course the real work begins. But even if it doesn't, they are there doing education, legal defense and helping build networks between teamsters. So please dig deep. This is not, you know, we all love charity. We're all good people.

This is not charity. This is an investment in the workers movement. And so goes the teamsters. So goes everyone. I mean, it really is a rising tide lifts all boats. I'm really, really, really, really ruined for you. Fingers crossed. It's looking good.

I can't thank you enough for anybody who gives anything to TDU. Please remember, TDU is a rank and file movement built by rank and fileers to support other rank and fileers and educate them. Please do that. Please give. I give. I give every year. All of us do.

And it's a great resource. I can't thank you enough, enough, Amber, for allowing me to come on and speak with you about it. Of course, always. And we will check in at the end of this election, too, to see how everything's going. All right. Thanks so much, Matt Manie. We will talk to you later.

Bye. Yep. Thank you. You