EverydaySpy Podcast - Uncovering the Untold Story: CIA Insights on Union Strikes | EverydaySpy Podcast Ep. 24

Episode Date: October 23, 2023

Hundreds of thousands of Americans are on strike, in industries from automotive to entertainment. But the history of strikes in America goes back much further than most people realize. And there's a logical reason for why strikes are successful, popular, and on the rise, even though the number of unions in the United States has decreased by almost 300%. Join me and Jihi as we walk through one of the most contentious issues facing America today and what it means for the future of your career, your family, and our economy. Find your Spy Superpower: https://everydayspy.com/spyquiz Learn more from Andy: https://everydayspy.com/ Join the SpyTribe: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EverydaySpy/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everydayspy/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/EverydaySpy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At the peak of September, almost 200,000 Americans were on strike. Isn't that incredible? 200,000 Americans were on strike. And why? And why? When I started doing research into it, there's only 6% of privatized professionals who are unionized. That's interesting. 6%.

That's much smaller than I would have expected. It's a tiny amount. And yet we are seeing inside that 6% they have the ability to make massive impact, whether it's Amazon or the entire. scripted world in Hollywood. They've been brought to their knees, essentially, because of union strikes. So we've been putting a lot of effort recently into structuring and preparing our business for the next year. And really, this is the first time that we've really focused on not just the next year, but like we're looking at the next potentially 10 years. We're setting like one year

goals, three year goals and 10 year goals. It's kind of an exciting, super nerdy experience for me to be doing all of this planning. And a big part of that has been like defining core values, defining our purpose, our core purpose, our core vision. And it's daunting. Like it's really actually daunting to be doing that kind of heavy lifting for what was originally a small business because I'm realizing that our 10 year goal is to have this small business actually be a large business. Yeah. I mean, I am so, stoked because all the process stuff we've been doing lately is right in my wheelhouse. The way that entrepreneurial businesses begin where it's just everything's on fire and going

and moving and like you're, you know, throwing spaghetti against the wall, seeing what sticks. All of that is completely anti the way Jehebhi works. Anti-Ghi. I would agree. It makes me 100% nuts. So now that we are like defining. core values, defining core purpose, putting processes in place, you know, to really ultimately better serve those that we are trying to serve.

Yeah. Even defining who we're trying to serve. Right. Like defining them more than just a customer, but defining them actually as a mission. Yes, which, you know, in your heart, it's always what you've talked about, right? It's always the way we have moved forward. But because it was never defined, it was so easy to get distracted by all. opportunity, right? Because once you start putting yourself out there, more opportunities start coming your way. And, you know, which ones do you take? Which ones do you turn down? You know, you're building. And so you don't really want to turn any of them down, but they can be a distraction from your core purpose. I really like that term that distracted by opportunity because that is exactly

what I am realizing now after doing, I mean, we've been to work probably for the better part of six weeks. Yeah. Getting to the place where we can define these cores. Yeah. And now it's, you know, early October, we have defined our cores and we're still giving ourselves like two-ish weeks to test drive them. Like, is this our core purpose? Are these our core values?

Is this our core, you know, business need? Yeah. And it's really interesting to me to go through that process. And I'll be honest with you, one of the things that is the most daunting to me is that the team that we have built to bring us to this point, and we are a million dollar company now. Yeah. Like we're beyond a million dollars in valuation and we're closing in on a million dollars in current annual revenue. Yeah.

We have exceeded a million dollars in lifetime revenue like months ago. There's only 9% of businesses in the entire United States that make more than $1 million in annual revenue. Like we are in the top 9% of businesses. The thing that makes me sad is that the team that got us here is unlikely to be the team that gets us to the next level. Yeah. The people that we've worked with, the contractors that we've hired, the people that we've hired

who have helped us to build up to one million, they have to choose whether or not they want to continue being part of the team that goes to 3 million, 5 million, 50 million, whatever comes down the road, right? Right. And that's scary to me because I care about them. Yeah. And I'm also realizing that I care about my people because I'm still kind of an immature CEO. Mature CEOs understand you have to separate caring for the people from caring for the business.

Right. And that's been a huge learning point for me is I need to start seeing the business as an asset. not as like a little child. Right. And there's all this growth in the process. And it's been an exciting period of growth. And it's been an exciting opportunity for me to grow as a business owner and a business leader. But it's also like, it's sad, man.

Yeah. It's people are going to get fired. People are going to quit. Other people are going to get hired. And I may never really know their names. Yeah. Like it's kind of wild to think. that there's going to be people who work in our company in the future who I may

only cross paths with once or twice a year and they may never meet the threshold to be like remembered right director CIA well there was one reason that the director of CIA knew me and it had nothing to do with my skill on a job but the director of CIA doesn't know most of the people that work for him yeah right the director of when we worked at CBS Health the CEO of CBS held me no idea who we were. Right. Right. So there's no responsibility on the part of the leader to know the people, but the people all have a responsibility to know the leader. And it's just, it's really kind of, it's a hard transition for me. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it really is like watching your children

grow, right? I mean, what your kids need when they're five is not what they need when they're 15. And a business is just like that where when you get to a certain point, your business needs something very different than what it needed to get to that point. So when you make all the adjustments that need to be made to grow beyond the $1 million mark, you know, people, it's not going to be the same business that they were originally working in. And maybe they're really excited about that. Like, I'm really excited about all the structure and the professionalization. And, you know, that gets me going. But, you know, other people might not like that. Or once you have, you know, further narrowed and defines what your core purposes, maybe, you know, they're not really

interested in that anymore. And that's okay, right? Because there's, they'll find other opportunities that are better fits for them. And then the company itself will find the people that are right for the company to really take it to that next level and to really serve, you know, whoever it is that they're trying to serve in the best capacity, right? Yeah, you know, what we're talking about really, I think, is the challenge of affluence, right? The challenge of wealth, the challenge of success. And lots of people, lots of people know this challenge. We know what it's like to grow up poor and then get to the place where you're earning more money than your parents ever made. What it's like to go to school with people who, when you check back in with them as an adult,

you have wealth, you have assets, you have status that they still don't have because they never progressed to the point of success or affluence that you, you have. you have. And when you come to realize that you as an adult and a success story and a hardworking whatever, business owner, entrepreneur, executive, career-minded individual, academic, whatever, when you realize that you have left behind the people that you started with, it's sad, it's hard. Yeah. I left behind the people that I went to high school with. I left behind the people I went to college with. I left behind the people that I started the job with. And now, you're, you're affluent, you're successful, you've got responsibilities that they don't have, you have a

completely different set of values now. You have a completely different perspective. You have a completely different... Mindset. Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, one of the challenges as you grow like that is that, like you were saying, you know, the CEO of CVS has zero idea of who we are.

But, you know, on his, whether or not he knows all the people doing the work on the bottom, bottom, he still has to keep in mind the balance between the happiness and productivity of those people and the value that they bring to the company. And that's a balance that you, you know, even as you get further away from the people doing the work, you know, or doing like the day-to-day work, you have to keep in mind how to how do you balance, you know, keeping them with you, right, with what the business actually needs from them. I think this is going to be an awesome conversation. And I'm super excited because to talk about this with someone who grew up in the world of

social work. Oh, yeah. And for somebody who grew up very left-leaning liberal, I am very excited to kind of get your thoughts on business and growing a business and employ relations and balancing profit against purpose and moral compass, right? and really diving into what it's been like for you to go from a poor liberal household to an affluent household that we have brought more center with projections of the kind of affluence that we have in the future, right?

Because we are very much projecting an incredible amount of wealth for us and for our family and for our business as we move forward. But before we jump into that conversation, I want to take just a moment to thank the sponsor for today's episode. Our sponsor today is ORA. ORA is a cybersecurity company for the everyday person. And I'll tell you what right now, that the everyday person might not really feel like cybersecurity is of value to them,

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And that's why we are happy to sponsor the product and have them have their support for conversations like this. So if you want to, just click down in the description below, you'll find a link to that free two-week trial offer at aura.com forward slash everyday spy, or you can visit that in your own web browser anywhere you choose. ora.com forward slash everyday spy, and you'll get an opportunity to sign up for your own complimentary two-week trial offer

and take ORA for a test drive for yourself so that you can see how much satisfaction and peace of mind comes from really understanding who has your digital data and who doesn't. Now, we are talking about affluence and we're talking about wealth and we're talking about growing both through our business. How does that feel to you? Because from the time that you were a little girl, your parents always raised you to kind of see the world very sacrificial. officially very much where like you have to you almost define your success by your level of poverty.

I mean, yeah, it's a, I grew up in a very traditional, you know, my mom was born in the early 50s. My grandmother was born in the early 30s, a very traditional household of, you know, you work your way up, you check all the boxes, you know, do the right thing and you work your way up the ladder and you work for one company, you know, your whole life. And I remember what a big deal it was when like who moved my cheese came out because it was so so applicable to my parents who, you know, were let go from a number of jobs, you know. And so it's definitely been a mindset shift for me and a journey for me as we became entrepreneurs because it's not something I ever, ever thought I would do. And so I've done.

I've read a lot of books. We've had, you know, I make sure that I sit in on meetings with, you know, other entrepreneurs and other wealthy people and I take in their ideas and I ask questions because the truth is, you know, I grew up with a poverty mindset and everything was from the perspective of if I do the right thing, if I just bide my time, somebody's going to notice me, I will climb up the ladder, this is the process. And I was always afraid of, because my parents. parents are this way, afraid of losing, right? I was never confident that every next step I took

was going to be successful. And if it wasn't successful, that's okay because there's another opportunity waiting. It was, I'm going to do this thing. It's going to work. And if it doesn't work, I'm royally fucked, right? And what am I going to do? So I'm just going to be afraid of it and I'm going to just tow the line. You know, it's really interesting because, you know, your parents, I don't think they intentionally built that mindset into you. No. Because I remember, I know talking to them, they were very focused on kind of having you make none of the mistakes they made. Yes. So they wanted you to go to law school.

They wanted you to have a good steady job. They wanted you to invest in your career and your future, right? That they wanted the best for you all the time. Yeah. And I don't think they realized that in encouraging you down that road, the other thing that they built into your psyche was this idea that you had to earn someone else's approval. Right. In order to be a success. You needed to meet the qualifications to graduate college.

You needed to meet the qualifications to get a law degree. You had to meet the qualifications to get a bar. Right. Right. And then even through that whole process, even while you were going through all of these loops, and let's be honest, you graduated high school at 16. Yeah. I mean, my love, you're kind of freakishly smart.

It's very sexy to me, but you're kind of weird. You graduated high school at 16. had your first undergrad degree by 19? No, I 16 and then the summer I turned 21. So I graduated when I was 20. Yeah. You graduated college when you were 20. Yeah. And you had a bachelor's degree. Yeah. And then you went on to get two master's degrees. Yeah. And you had all of this education done before. I even met you at CIA when you were 27 years old. So somehow between, between high school, and 27, you had accumulated four degrees, including a law degree. My love, I barely had an undergraduate degree by the time I was 27 years old.

Yeah. But what's interesting about you is that for me, the idea of trying and failing was not supported. There was no try something, and if you feel it's okay, just try something again. And it was, Don't try anything that. It was, this is the path. You do these things and you will succeed, right? Where for you, I feel like you started on, this is the path, do these things, you will succeed. But very quickly, you were like, this isn't right.

And so you already had this. I mean, I think by the time you were 19, you were like, this is a bunch of bull. people are being fed. At least what I was being fed. And I'm just going to forge my own path. And I'm, you know, you were at the Air Force Academy already. So you had to kind of follow that route. But you were like, I'm going to make the most of it while I'm in it.

And then I'm going to learn my lessons. And then when I get out, I'm going to try what I want to try. And if I fail, that's okay because there's always another opportunity for me. And that took me until like last year to learn. And it's only after reading like five books. you recommended and like, you know, talking to a coach and whatever. I do feel lucky that I did kind of, I adapted to the fear of failure because it's still scary, but I adapted that fear fairly early on.

And I'm not the only one. There's a lot of folks out there who are not afraid to fail. And I love meeting those people and I love talking to those people. And the only thing that ever makes me sad about those folks is when they're somehow convinced that they're wrong. Yeah. Because the whole world tries to convince them their parents, their spouse, their employer, right? Even like the freaking the system.

The system of economics in the United States tries to convince you that if you are willing to take risks and fail, you're not healthy. There's something wrong with you where that's just not true. Our whole country was built on the backs of people who were willing to take risks and fail. Think about the first crazy sons of bitches who crossed the ocean to come here. I know. That, holy shit. Yeah. That was like how crazy, how desperate, how risk tolerant must you have been to get on a ship with your family?

Yeah. And cross in a wooden boat with sails across the ocean. Yeah. To come here. Yeah. To an unknown place. Completely unknown. Unddeveloped with no infrastructure.

And then like you're going to get off the boat and guess what you're going to do. Frickin hour one. Mm-hmm. Get your ass to work. Yeah. Building shelter, planting a farm. Holy smokes, dude. Yeah.

Terrifying. Yeah. But what's, what I have always felt that I find interesting, too, is we need the people who want to tow the line, right? The country, yes, the country was built and new innovation is built on the backs of people who have these big ideas, who aren't afraid to fail. Crazy sons of bitches. Crazy sons of bitches. But those crazy sons of bitches need people who are very practical and very level-headed

and they want to learn that thing that you want to do and do a good job and just do that job. And that's totally okay. And we actually need them. Right? So for every CEO out there, for every business owner, they have to have people under them who want to do the job every day. And then they have to consider what do those. people need to be able to continue to do that job well. So right away, my brain goes to the fact that at the peak of September, just a month ago, at the peak of September, almost 200,000 Americans were on

strike. Isn't that incredible? 200,000 Americans were on strike. And why? And why? And you know what's interesting is, you know, you and I have, we have multiple media projects, television, film, book, our own business is in many ways of publishing business. So we have been impacted by the strike that was happening by the Writers Guild in L.A. So the writers were on strike. I think that they just lifted that strike at the beginning of October. But they've been on strike for, I think, four months or six months. It was a long time. Much longer than any strike in the past. So most Americans are aware that there was this giant strike that was affecting streaming television. What people don't realize is that the Screen Actors Guild is also on strike. I think they might

still be on strike. I don't know if that one's been lifted. And then on top of that, like there's the threat of strikes coming from Union Auto Workers. Well, yeah, there are strikes and threats of more strikes. Exactly. But then like there are strikes that people don't even real. Like Starbucks employees within certain states went on strike. Amazon warehouse employees within certain states have been on strike. Hotel cleaning staff have been on strike. Like there are all these strikes happening. The health care workers. The health care workers right now at Kaiser Permanente are on strike. There are like hundreds of thousands of Americans on strike. And I think what blows my mind is a couple things. So first, as I,

When I start reading about that, the idea of group negotiation, right, there's a term for that. What do the unions call that? Collective bargaining. The idea of collective bargaining is a challenging idea, especially in 2023 for a lot of us to wrap our minds around. But the other thing is that when I started doing research into it, there's only 6% of professionals, like, privatized professionals who are unionized. That's interesting. Six percent.

That's much smaller than I would have expected. It's a tiny amount. Yeah. Right. So of all the private employees, private means not public, so we're not talking about school teachers or state employees. Government employees, yeah. Right?

We're talking about private citizens who work in companies. Only 6% are unionized at all. Yeah. And yet we are seeing that inside that 6% they have the ability to make massive impact, right? Yeah. Like, whether it's Amazon or Starbucks or the entire, you know, scripted world in Hollywood, they've been brought to their knees, essentially, because of union strikes. Right.

Which is the whole point of a union. What's the Y question that comes up for me is that companies who hire workers who belong to a union take on a known risk, right? The whole point of a union is for this collective bargaining power, right? So when you hire them, you know that this is a risk for your company that if they are unhappy, they can strike and then they are negotiating something from you. So why do the strikes ever happen is my question, right? What there is a tipping point, obviously, that happens where people are like, you're really just not doing right by us, so we're going to strike. So how does the company, you know, miss the assessment or they're making the assessment,

and they're just kind of letting it get to that tipping point where they're like, you know what, we can handle a strike and we'll just see how far we can get. Like what's happening there is the why that I want to know. Yeah. And what's interesting to me now that like we started this conversation talking about our own business growth. Right. And as we continue to hire people in the future, we actually have to consider what states are we hiring in. Yeah.

What industries are we hiring from? Like are we going to run into this union question ourselves? And, you know, it's made me ask myself some. hard questions and I think that you're going to be surprised when I tell you some of my conclusions. So first, I think it's important to note that not all strikes are successful. For example, the Starbucks employees who are striking, I'm almost certain that corporate Starbucks has told them to piss off. Yeah.

That they're like, we're not coming to work. And Starbucks corporate is like, okay, then you're not getting paid. Right. Because it's only in a few states where they even have the ability to strike. And the only reason Starbucks went into those states was because they wanted to have a certain market saturation. Right. So now that those employees in those states are striking, Starbucks is like, well, you know what? We're diversified.

Yeah. We've got coffee on the shelves at convenience stores. We've got coffee that people can order. We've got coffee in 49 other states that are doing fine. So you don't want a job, you go figure it out, right? and oh by the way don't call us to be your reference for your next job so it's really interesting because sometimes the collective bargaining power isn't really bargaining power at all right but then on the other side you do have situations like what we have in in Hollywood with the screenwriters right or with

the writers guilds because now they have successfully collectively bargained increased wages and protection and you know long-term revenue for the things that they create they've stifled the use of AI and controlled the use of AI. So there's some benefits there that they've been able to use collectively bargaining. And arguably, the industry as a whole will benefit from it, arguably. But what I landed on that's interesting to me is I would have never thought that I would have said that unions are a good thing. But I think now that I think about unions as a business owner, I think they are a good thing.

I think they are a good thing. And the reason they're a good thing is not, I think, why you think. Uh-huh. I'm so interested to hear. I think unions are a good thing because unions ensure that single-skilled or unskilled workers, and I know that's going to piss people off when I call them single or unskilled, unions ensure that single-skilled or unskilled workers make the most money they can possibly make. which means the tax base for the United States is always growing because that tax base is those

skilled workers. The federal government knows that the business owners who make millions of dollars a year are using and stashing their income into securities and savings accounts and investment accounts where they'll get taxed at circa 12%, 14% overall. And it'll be a long-term tax. So for a millionaire, they might only pay 12 cents on the dollar in taxes. And they might not pay that until 15 or 30 years from now. Whereas your average automotive worker who makes $110,000 right now, because they're a trade technician in an automotive factory, that person will pay 19% tax right now. So anything the federal government can do to maximize the amount of money that man makes or that woman makes means that the federal government will tax. them at the maximum amount every single year. Whereas if it was left to the business owner,

that person would make less money so they might pay less taxes. So I think that the reason unions are a good thing. And my opinion, the reason that Biden is such a strong supporter of unions is because he understands this from his long term in office. That's really interesting. Because if you think about it, when Biden started as a politician, and the reason I'm bringing up Biden is because everybody knows he's pro-union. Biden started as a politician in the 1970s. Guess how much of the private population, the private career population, guess how many people were unionized in 1970? Was it more or less than now? 30%. Yeah, it was more, right? 30%. Yeah, unions have been in decline. Yeah. Unions have been in decline, but 30% of the population was unionized in 1970. So whenever

30% of the population got a 5% pay increase, the benefits for the U.S. tax, space for the federal government to tax all of these people. Yeah. Right? They got more money faster at a higher rate. And they did it by penalizing the CEOs, not the people. So then unions started driving this engine where they claim to be helping the people, and arguably they are helping the people.

Except for the fact that when unions unionize and people get paid more, the cost of goods goes up. So now every car that you buy is more expensive because they're not. the union workers are making more money and everybody's paying more taxes on both the car and the union. So the federal government makes out with more money because they're the only, the federal government is the only government, is the only entity in this that can't generate their own revenue. The only way they make more money is by making more money from taxes. What an interesting perspective I'd never considered before. Yeah. I had always viewed unions

as a very much, you know, they're good for the workers so long. as you have somebody intelligent at the helm negotiating because a union can tank a company, right? We've all heard the stories when you don't have intelligent negotiations happening. So yeah, so that is a fascinating perspective that I have never heard before. Because when I'm being frank, as a business owner in the future, what I want to hire, I want to hire people who produce at the highest levels, who I can pay at the lowest reasonable levels so that I can incentivize them with a bonus structure to overperform.

So then if I have 100 employees, I pay a minimal amount for all 100, but for the highest performing 50, I pay them enough or more than enough so that they're incentivized to stay. Right. Where the lowest performing 50 are incentivized to leave. Because I don't want them. What I want is a team full of high performers, even if everybody who's a high performer makes a big bonus.

Remember when we were with CBS Health, they gave us a bonus structure. Yeah. We didn't even think about leaving CVS Health until their bonus structure stopped delivering. Yeah. Because we were working our butts off. Yeah. And then one year we made a $4,000 annual bonus, which isn't much. Now that I'm a business owner, I realize how that's not much.

We had a $4,000 bonus one year and a $2,000 bonus the next year, even though we worked hard and overachieved our goals. And that was when I was like, I am not doing this for a little. living. Like, this is some bullshit. Yeah. And the company was like, oh, we're growing and this and that and the other thing. So you're going to see it in your bonus. No, it's not how it works for me. So now as a business owner, I'm like, you know what? If my people want to unionize so that everybody makes more money, I'm totally fine with that because I'm understanding that I'm still only paying taxes on my income. And the way that I is an affluent, wealthy person and dispersing my income is through tax-incentivized vehicles because I'm saving my money. I'm investing my money.

All the things that the federal economy wants me to do as a wealthy person, it wants me to buy stocks and bonds and invest and grow my business. So I'm incentivized by getting less tax burden. But the average cog, you were saying like the people who just do the work, we need those people. We need cogs, right? We need people who are happy to do their job. The federal government needs them too because they're just going to sign off and pay whatever taxes rate they have to pay because they are literally not thinking of the future. They are only thinking of the next paycheck. Right. Well, I mean, that is the future they're thinking of. Right. And we need that. We do. We need that. And what I'm saying is I didn't even realize we need it for more than one

reason. Right. We don't just need it because we're business owners. We need it because our federal budget. Yeah. The way that presidents can promise not to raise tax. or the way the presidents can secretly raise taxes without people realizing it's being raised is when they keep the tax levels the same but they increase the payment to people. Right. Because now instead of making 12 cents on the dollar for everybody who's working because they make less than $60,000 a year, once they make $65,000 a year, you can tax them all for 14 cents on every dollar.

And when you're talking about 100 million people paying $0,000,000,000. two cents extra every single paycheck, that becomes significant. Right. So that's what I'm realizing. That's the engine that grows our economic base. And I can support that. Yeah. So yeah.

Very interesting. So all that to say, I'm shocked to say that I support unions.