Some More News - SMN: Unions Make Things Better (Even If You're Not In One)

Episode Date: May 24, 2023

Hi. In today's episode, we look at the current union "boom" and how unions improve pay and conditions for workers, non-union workers, and even non-workers. Sources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15UlKT4S_j8Kq6bw_g9HRGsbDGT6Gjud8onMlndZiRZ0/edit?usp=sharing Support us on our PATREON: http://patreon.com/somemorenews  Check out our MERCH STORE: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/somemorenews?ref_id=9949  SUBSCRIBE to SOME MORE NEWS: https://tinyurl.com/ybfx89rh    Subscribe to the Even More News and SMN audio podcasts here: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/some-more-news/id1364825229  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ebqegozpFt9hY2WJ7TDiA?si=5keGjCe5SxejFN1XkQlZ3w&dl_branch=1  Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/even-more-news   Follow us on social media: Twitter: https://twitter.com/SomeMoreNews  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/SomeMoreNews/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SomeMoreNews/  TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@somemorenews  If you want to take ownership of your health, today is a good time to start. Athletic Greens is giving you a FREE 1-year supply of Vitamin D AND 5 free travel packs with your first purchase. Go to https://athleticgreens.com/MORENEWS.

Hey Newsies, Xtree Xtree, ready to sling some papes for Mr. Pulitzer until you've saved up enough wooden subway tokens or whatever the heck to go to Santa Fe? Are you there? Of course I'm talking about the classic Disney musical Newsies, for some reason. Probably because I too am a Newsie. You know, a newsboy grown through the spring of my youth into a newsman here with the news at a penny a pape, which is short for paper, which the news is decreasingly printed on. But here, some of that news is, which news-wise is, I promise I'm a newsman. It's unions.

We're talking about unions today. And unions are pretty good, as evidenced by the classic Disney musical Newsies. You see, unions are the reason we don't still have child wage slaves working themselves to death on street corners. So that's good. It's good for unions to matter, not just in fake musical plots either. For example, you might've heard that the movie Newsies was written by writers to be very specific. Like the WGA writers currently on strike and making wild demands like,

it's a livable wage, a reasonable piece of the streaming revenue, and to not be replaced by an AOL chat bot. How dare they? We're probably going to circle back to the WGA in this and later episodes, because Hollywood is messed up in several unique and exciting ways, some of which we've already discussed.

But for this day, it's all about them unions. Unions that, if I may be so bold, have made the entire world much better for literally everyone. Hence this title. Why Unions Make the World Better for Literally Everyone. Good work, title. You did it.

So for decades now, unions in America have been on a pretty alarming and steady decline, perhaps coincidentally correlating with a decline in wages despite a rise in productivity. Lately, they are often associated with entitled and lazy workers who want to do less and make more. They're depicted as corrupt and surly cigar chewers. And now, some of the most powerful groups

that once protected American workers are mere shells of their former selves, having been gradually dismantled by draconian regulation, hostile lawmakers, and a decades long propaganda campaign depicting them as useless or worse, lazy. For example, back in the 60s and 70s, the United Farm Workers had around 60,000 members and led groundbreaking reforms for the people who, you know, feed all of us.

That included important victories like raises for grape pickers, the first official recognition for farm unions from major corporations, and even the right to collective bargaining for all farm workers in the state of California. That's huge. Compare that to today,

where the UFW has only around 5,500 members, or less than 2% of California's total agricultural workforce. This has a real and immediately negative impact for workers on the ground. And not just because they're not getting invited to pool parties at Big Jimmy's house. Jimmy is the name I've assigned

their hypothetical union rep. It's got a good union rep ring to it, you know? They should be happy with Jimmy. According to labor organizer and non-Jimmy, Veronica Mota, bosses on non-union farms frequently ignore dangerous conditions and safety concerns while threatening to cut employee hours whenever they need additional leverage. Jimmy would never allow that. But despite dire situations like these,

unions appear to be in the midst of a slight resurgence, with more Americans viewing them favorably than at any other point since the 1960s. They're coming back, like vintage vinyl, or this satanic panic panic or reefer madness. More than two thirds of Americans now say they approve of unions. And last year was considered a union boom by the media.

But the key word from before is appear. Because despite this popularity, union membership is at a record low. How could this be? Are we in one of them Escher drawings where up is down and B be left and right be up again? Maybe, I could just am drunk. But in this case, one left-leaning think tank

has pointed out that union membership has actually increased by 200,000, but non-union jobs have increased even more, hence the low percentage. And this makes sense when you think about the biggest job creators and their open animosity towards unions. Many high-profile employers such as Amazon, Starbucks, Apple,

and this extremely divorced emerald-coated spaceman with a salamander's face are firmly against unions. Unions make it more difficult for them to exploit their workers, you see. That's a pickle for them. A pickle Rick, right? You love that. But despite hurting the poor weirdo billionaires, unions are generally a net good. They're the reason we have weekends. And I may just be a humble newsy turned fully grown adult news professori, but the inventor of eat cereal in my pajamas

and watch cartoons day, gets the showdy support any day of the week. But especially that day. That day actually being, it's Tuesday for me. I work weird hours, but you get it. Episodes are only filmed on full moons. Right, that's how I get my beard. Half werewolves, NBT.

So anyway, labor unions have existed in America pretty much since its inception. The first organized group of American workers was probably the Federal Society of Journeyman Cord Wainers of Philadelphia, who united in 1794 to demand higher wages. After all, those cords don't wane themselves, do they? But amazingly, the courts decided that organizing workers to demand higher wages was a criminal conspiracy.

Let me hit that a bit harder. Maybe I'll try a weird face or something. The courts originally decided that organizing workers to demand higher wages was a criminal conspiracy. As a result, the practice was outlawed for many years until they were once again legalized by a Massachusetts court in 1842. Pretty cool for a state that looks like an alien's genitals.

Later, the first National Labor Union was formed in 1866, shortly after the close of the Civil War. The stage was then set for a string of massive victories for workers throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries that are collectively responsible for enshrining a lot of standard employment practices that we still follow to this day.

Victories like the 1913 formation of the U.S. Department of Labor, which gave workers their own representative in the president's cabinet. The Norris-LaGuardia Act of 1932, which prevented federal courts from issuing injunctions that stopped strikes. The National Labor Relations

Act of 1935, which guaranteed the rights of private sector workers to unionize and engage in collective bargaining. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which gave workers the right to a minimum wage along with overtime pay if they exceed 40 hours a week and also prohibited, and I quote, oppressive child labor. You could still put kids to work, of course, but they'd better enjoy it. Not all of the victories achieved by labor unions during this period and afterward were permanent or even long lasting, but they collectively succeeded

in raising American standard of living for a while until we started to roll them back or get rid of them entirely and continue to try it seems as we really like the idea of child labor again. I mean, I get it, you know, did you see how smoothly that snow piercer ran? That is the magic of tiny little hands. Anywho, it turns out that when American workers

have more collective power, they earn more money. It's so weird. And you might have already noticed that you don't have to be in a union for these benefits to reach you. Circling back to the WGA, a good example is the minimum wages they set for union writers and how non-union writers can negotiate using those minimums. In other words, this union sets the standard for the rest of the industry and therefore helps all writers regardless of if they're a member or not. But when you chip away at these union-created rules and regulations that protect these workers from exploitation,

you actually increase poverty and misery in a real and measurable way. Take, for example, the country of, ah, Almar, Almarigo, Almarigo, it's blank again, America. While certainly not struggling as bad as a lot of other places, these United States of the Americas have had pretty much the same poverty rate since the 1970s.

Yes, it fluctuates, but compare it to the decades before that where it was going down steadily. So why did it stop lowering? There's no natural level for poverty. It's not like the fractal fur patterns on a camel's balls, which might exist. Poverty is artificial is my point. Like the fractal felt pattern on a robot camel's balls, which might exist. Poverty is artificial is my point.

Like the fractal felt pattern on a robot camel's balls, which definitely exist. And so predictably enough, this poverty stagnation corresponds with wages because of course it does. Wages stagnated starting in the 70s. And when you look at the minimum wage and adjust for inflation,

the highest it's actually ever been was back in 1968. Interesting thing about that graph is that it goes up steadily until the 1980s and then starts bottoming out for decades at a time. How odd! Did anything significant happen in the 1980s that we should know about? It is for this reason that I must tell those

who failed to report for duty this morning, they are in violation of the law. And if they do not report for work within 48 hours, they have forfeited their jobs and will be terminated. Ah, yeah, there he is. He's like Thanos. You knew you were gonna see him at least in a post-credits scene, a POTUS credits scene.

There were a lot of reasons why unions began to decline in the 1980s, but a large part of it was a shift in economic policy that directly challenged unions and pushed deregulation and the lowering of taxes as a solution to poverty, as opposed to other wild ideas like wage increases. I think it's safe to say that this technique did not work. And since Reagan, a lot of other things happened

that have contributed to the wage problem, not just in the States, but everywhere. But at least other countries didn't also dismantle their unions. Today, nearly all private sector employees in the US, around 94%, have no union. But in the 50s and 60s, nearly a third of all US workers were members.

In just the year 1970 alone, 3 million American union members participated in work stoppages and strikes. And a lot of the data suggests that the benefits earned by these striking workers not only paid off for the union members themselves, but their non-union counterparts. But we got rid of them.

We threw them to the curb like old basement porn. And in fact, America is now no more or less productive than other countries who have strong unions. The only difference is that we aren't getting paid enough. Relative to other wealthy nations, the U.S. is now offering workers some of the lowest wages in the entire industrialized world. 23% of Americans earn what's officially deemed low pay, that is less than two-thirds of the median wage, compared to 17% in Britain, 11% in Japan, and just 5% in Italy. Those are, of course, countries with more people in unions than us. But this isn't the only evidence that

unions make everyone's wages higher. This 2021 paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that union membership has varied inversely with income inequality since the 1930s. In other words, as union membership goes up, income inequality goes down. Across the board for everyone. This makes practical sense when you think about it. Just by threatening a strike, a union can often compel companies to increase compensation or benefits for all workers. union can often compel companies to increase compensation or benefits for all workers. And in a healthy, functioning labor market, this makes hiring in that category more competitive and pushes other companies to increase their wages accordingly. A 2016 study by the Economic

Policy Institute suggested that today's non-union wages would be around 5% higher on average if union membership overall had remained at its 1979 level. For non-union workers without bachelor's degrees, that figure is even higher, around 8% on average. But as union membership significantly declined in the Reagan 80s, these groups had a lot less leverage, which in turn increased wage inequality among all workers. Boy, that Reagan fellow sure sucks a bunch. It's almost as if we shouldn't use his policies

as any kind of guide for how to run a government and perhaps look back to the eras before he took influence over the Republican party. Hand rubbing beard emoji. Beyond just wages, there are other positive effects to having a significant chunk of a workforce unionized. Workplace conditions come to mind. When unions fight to make improvements,

everyone who works in the same space benefits. It would be weird if they made separate and more dangerous areas for non-union employees, you know? For this reason, the American Public Health Association supports union membership without even bringing up money specifically. According to a 2016 paper in the American Journal for Public Health, unions promote healthy working conditions, vital health and safety

programs, health insurance, and democratic participation in workplace-related decisions. The authors of the paper argue that the decline in union membership undermines public health in the United States. It's literally a health issue to not have unions. Then there are things like disciplinary due process and grievance procedures, which are often set in place by unions, but serve to protect all workers

if they're under investigation or facing an accusation or registering a formal complaint. Unions also serve to reduce all workers if they're under investigation or facing an accusation or registering a formal complaint. Unions also serve to reduce racial and gender disparities in the workplace in a number of ways. According to the Center for American Progress, unions not only increase wealth for all workers, but they narrow the overall racial wealth gap. Among all US families, membership in a union

reduces the likelihood of having negative wealth, which is when your total debt exceeds your savings and assets. But this effect is even greater for Black families. Additionally, median household wealth for white union members is 1.8 times higher than non-union members. But for Black union members, it's 3.5 times higher. And for Hispanic union members, it's 3.5 times higher. And for Hispanic union members, it's 5.2 times higher. To be clear, unions aren't perfect when it comes to racism, which is a very gentle way to phrase that.

But by their nature, unions strive to serve groups that have been historically exploited and that need to join forces in order to balance out the existing power dynamic. Unions also disproportionately represent blue collar workers over white collar workers, and lower wage earners over higher wage earners. So they're systemically helping to balance these figures

behind the scenes. You don't need a ton of statistics to understand why this is important. But it's still nice to have the statistics, especially if you're one of those statistic perverts who jerks at the pie graphs. Oh yeah, yeah, you show me the percentage of therapists by race, you dirty, dirty graph.

But maybe you, I don't know, hate workers. Weird stance to have. But maybe you don't care that unions make the lives of all workers better everywhere. So after the break, I will magically explain to you why unions make lives better for non-workers as well. So like children and cats, and rich people, sounds fun.

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damn people in that dimension! So clearly the work done to represent unionized employees also, intentionally or otherwise, ends up benefiting all the other people who work in that industry as well. And that's all well and good, you might be saying. But how does it affect me, average Joe nobody? I totally get it. That's usually the first follow-up question I ask any time I learn a new piece of information. Whether it be facts about the Magna Carta, or the recommended tire pressure for a Subaru Outback, that's the car Crocodile done D-drives, and other people. So just for starters, unions are among the most effective ways we can push for much needed safety reforms. The recent Ohio train derailment provided

a particularly devastating example of this. For years, members of Railroad Workers United had been pressing their employers for changes that potentially could have prevented the accident. But that is sadly just the most famous and devastating recent example of many. If only out of a sense of self-preservation, the Teamsters Union frequently aligns

with public safety groups like advocates for highway and auto safety to push back against new rules and regulations that could make roads more deadly. Take this new proposal introduced to Congress in January called the Safer Highways and Increased Performance for Interstate Trucking Act or SHIP IT Act, not to be confused with the Bop It or Pull It or Twist It Act.

The SHIP IT Act is aimed at untangling supply chain issues by creating recruitment and worker retention perks. Except their solutions are barely about the actual working conditions and seem more about helping the companies themselves. One of their grand ideas is to allow special permits for overweight vehicles and other trucks trying to get around certain kinds

of preexisting regulations. That's not really a worker perk, which is probably why the bill is backed by industry groups like the Shippers Coalition, the International Dairy Foods Association, and the National Milk Producers, but it's opposed by highway safety groups and truckers themselves.

But hey, you know, at least they're also offering, and this is true, lower cost parking spots as a way to encourage more people to become truckers. That'll do it. So generally speaking, if employers are overwhelmingly for something that workers are overwhelmingly against, that thing stands a good chance of sucking ass, but not in the fun way that an ass might perhaps be sucked, like with a crazy straw or in a sex way. Point is, the Ship It Act doesn't just fail to address the issue with retaining drivers,

but also endangers everyone by finding regulation loopholes. Teamsters General President Sean M. O'Brien has been pointing this out, that the law is just going to make highways less safe for everyone, truckers and regular drivers and passengers alike, by allowing heavier and more dangerous trucks

that are more prone to devastating crashes. And folks, Sean is going hard for our safety and the rights of the people he represents. And no, don't tell me I'm out of line. Don't tell me I'm out of line. Well, you frame the statement. You're going to tell me to shut my mouth? Yes, I did. Hold it. Hold it. Tough guy. I'm not afraid of physical. Hold it. Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry. Jerry? Jerry? Jerry.

Anywho, speaking of a workforce the entire nation depends on but gets paid less than carnival rats, teachers. When teachers unions led the fight for smaller class sizes, obviously one intended result was to make classes more manageable. But smaller class sizes also benefit young learners, especially the students most in need of direct help and supervision. And students, as it turns out,

are the very people schools exist to serve. A 2014 study from Northwestern found that class size is a significant determinant of student outcomes, and that smaller classes disproportionately benefit low-income and minority students, and that increasing classroom populations lowers test scores and even diminishes the students' future earning potential. Smaller classes provide teachers the ability to give students more individually specific feedback and more hands-on assignments. It makes sense. How do you expect anyone to heroically inspire kids

to stand on their desks if there's like 200 goddamn desks? That's a logistical nightmare and a safety hazard. Nurses are another group of frontline workers we all rely on. National Nurses United have come out in favor of Medicare for All, not necessarily because it improves their working conditions, but rather because they believe it is better for patients

and people seeking care, the people they're meant to help, the you people. There's certainly a chance that additional funding flowing directly into healthcare services would improve working conditions for nurses, but there's no guarantee. In fact, traditionally, major overhauls like moving from a private insurance-based system

to single payer have had a negative effect on the individual earnings of staffers who rely on big organizations and employers like hospitals for their pay. So this is a case of nurses advocating for something that might not even benefit them specifically, at least in the short term, because it benefits everyone else.

They're just being nice, because they're nice and cool people who have easy access to drugs and perhaps want to hang out. And as this, the New York Times editorial speculates, this might simply be because they're on the front lines of today's healthcare system and see how poorly it functions for everyone. I can and will keep going about how unions

make the quality of life better for everyone. And this includes the writers of the WGA who work very hard to write good stories. After all, there is nothing more powerful in the world than a good story. And who has a better story than Bran the Broken? Oof! Why? Why, oh why would I show that clip from the very angering final episode of Game of Thrones? Remember that show and how its enraged fandom fell off the face of the earth? Or heck, remember Questworld,

another HBO show that started strong and just faded away like a fart in a room full of other equally bad farts? Or Hecaru, do you recall that time when somehow Palpatine returned? Are you mad when movies and shows are bad and happy when they're good? Well, that very often has nothing to do

with the actual writers, but rather the studios devaluing the presence of writers. The original Star Wars were all written by the same three people, Lawrence Kasdan, Lee Brackett, and the one George, George Lucas, I guess, apparently. The new Star Wars have seven different writers between them, nearly every film involving an entirely new group of people.

It's not the writer's fault that blockbusters seem more hollow and often very bad these days. It's the studio's dismissiveness of the process and a power dynamic that makes writers more expendable than the expendables. This is a similar dynamic for actors and directors, with studio executives now running the creative decisions way more than they should. Going back to Game of Thrones and Westworld,

both of those shows suffered showrunner problems. Despite what some people believe, showrunning is a very specific and logistical job that oversees every aspect of production, including writing. It often falls on the creator or prominent writer of a show. And currently we are suffering a show running shortage. This is in part because the job itself has been misconstrued as an all powerful creative

force. And also because there's less opportunity for apprenticeships, especially with the streaming model. I bring this up because part of the WGA's demands is to require shows to keep writers on during production. And while that sounds weird if you don't know how TV works, it would not only allow for potentially better rewrites on set, but it would also solve the showrunning problem by having writers training on set for the position. So yeah, besides just wanting to pay writers what they deserve, the WGA strike and supporting it also supports making the shows and movies you love better in quality.

You know, if that's something you're into as opposed to this AI written comedy scene that doesn't have any jokes. Look, we will do future episodes on the WGA and AI and you know, probably Star Wars too, but you get the point. Along with making our throne games more gooder, unions also work to protect whistleblowers,

as in people who call out exploitative and flat out illegal practices of their employers. Although I'm sure there's a union for slide whistle clowns considering how big and powerful that industry is. But these non-clown whistleblowers aren't only at risk of losing their jobs, but retaliation from some of the most powerful people and corporate entities on earth.

Although according to American law, corporate entities are people because that allows them to make more money. Public and private unions are the first lines of defense for people who take these kinds of public risks, not only on their own behalf, that allows them to make more money. Public and private unions are the first lines of defense for people who take these kinds of public risks, not only on their own behalf, but to benefit and inform us all. They're like the Unsullied, except, you know, not unceremoniously killed off. God, they really fucked that up. A local San Francisco labor union filed a lawsuit against the city and county

of San Francisco today. They allege retali the city and county of San Francisco today. They allege retaliation for whistleblowing related to public corruption. That's from last year, when a San Francisco labor union alleged that the city retaliated against a female employee who complained about not having access to a restroom or hand-washing facilities, and claimed gender discrimination in how bathrooms were organized. According to the filing, the city responded to the 2019 complaint with both retaliation and intimidation

against a woman who wanted to use the bathroom. The city's Department of Public Works is denying the allegations, probably because it would look bad if they said, "'Our policy is piss yourself, time is money.' Only slightly worse than Amazon's "'Piss in a bottle, time is money. Only slightly worse than Amazon's piss in a bottle, time is money.

So just to recap, we've talked about how unions are a net good and how the existence of unions leads to higher wages, better working conditions, and more advantageous and helpful social programs for everyone. We've talked about how they just generally make the world better quality.

Sex feels better when you're in a union, perhaps. I don't have any steaming hot statistics backing that one up, but yes. And so we also need to note that unions have a positive political power that stands to benefit us all. They're better than either political party, but of course, labor unions make any movement on progressive causes far more possible, particularly at the federal level, where there's some of the very few groups with enough organization numbers and funding to actually take on corporate power and have any shot of victory. Since they're also composed of working class people, unions are

more trusted in red states and majority Republican areas than the Democratic Party itself. Democratic Kentucky Governor, Andy Beshear, owes his position in large part to support from his state's public school teachers, while union backed get out the vote campaigns in swing states likely help to turn the 2022 midterms in the Democrats' favor.

In other words, if Democrats want to help steer the political conversation away from bug-shit weirdos hooting about critical race theory and the woke mind virus, well, then they should probably think about aggressively courting unions. After all, unions spent $169 million in 2018 on federal elections, mostly on behalf of Democrats. Democratic candidates won among union members by a 59 to 39% margin in 2018. And unions currently have around 68% favorability ratings across the entire United States,

making them more trusted than most politicians. In other words, unions overwhelmingly favor Democratic candidates, and they're seen as more trustworthy by the American people. They could even help Hogwarts' oldest gym teacher, Joe Biden, get reelected if he can stop busting railroad strikes for a goddamn minute or two. The bill I'm about to sign ends a difficult rail dispute and helps our nation avoid what, without a doubt, would have been an economic catastrophe at a very bad time. Yeah, bro, that's why they were striking. Strikes don't happen at good times. This is the entire point. We will circle back to Raisin Joe and the choo-choo fight later. But the point here is that unions have always been

extremely important for America's health. But politically speaking, they're especially important now. The pandemic, its associated great resignation, and a dropping unemployment rate have at least temporarily shifted some power back to workers. Inflation coupled with the flat wages we mentioned means that paychecks aren't going quite as far. Families that could afford three eggs last year are now

down to just two gross eggs, which makes collective bargaining for higher pay suddenly more appealing. So of course, union membership is up nationwide, like we said before. According to the National Labor Relations Board, petitions for union representation rose by 57% between October 2022 and March 2023. Even the cast of Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament has had enough, and they get to ride horses and sword fight at work. But unfortunately, unions are still facing a number of challenges that are preventing them from making the country a better place for literally everyone except a few hundred white men who stand to become slightly less wealthy.

And we're going to dig more into those challenges after we journey back into the ad break dimension to avenge the fallen. Hey, look over here, it's K Stoll. You know, people are always asking me, Katie, what does the K in KSTOL stand for? And every time I tell them, that's my little secret. But it can be your secret, too, if you go to Patreon.com slash SomeMoreNews and help support this video you're currently watching.

We have so many rewards on there, including advanced and commercial free videos and podcasts. on there, including advanced and commercial-free videos and podcasts, your name in the credits, and even an online hangout with the Some More News team where I, Katie Stoll, will reveal what the K in K-Stoll stands for. So check it out with your hands and your eyes. That's patreon.com slash some more news. Your support is seriously vital to what we do here and we really, really, really appreciate it. That's a Kay Stoll promise from me, Katie Stoll. No joke, we are back from ads. We lost the ad dimension of war. Many have died. But I'm here. I survived. I mean, I'll never be the same again, but it's fine. It's fine. It's fine. So we talked about how labor unions make work better for all workers and also

just make things better for everyone. Unions and the push for labor rights seem to be coming back as well. And so naturally the GOP is not a fan. Republicans are trying to squash this newfound resurgence so they can focus on other ways to represent the working class, such as blaming trans people for spree shootings and getting into legal fights with Disney about gay pecs on the cheek. Super helpful stuff.

Seems like actually helping the working class is one of those things they struggle with because while they often talk about the need for conservatives to reach out to the blue collar worker, kinda seems like they don't have a practical solution, perhaps because they get a lot of money from corporate interests just spit balling their patooey, patooey on them actually.

But that hasn't stopped them from pretending to be concerned about the issue. During his inaugural address attended by the largest crowd in all of crowd history, Donald liable for sexual abuse Trump said, "'For too long, a small group in our nation's capital "'has reaped the rewards of government, while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished, but the people did not share in its

wealth. Politicians prospered, but the jobs left and the factories closed. The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country. Those words are, in a vacuum, correct. In a not vacuum, however, those words would have been way more correct had Trump not spent his presidency fucking over workers. And now in 2023, it's getting increasingly difficult to even envision what a pro-business conservative who prioritizes the needs of both workers and their corporate masters might look like.

After all, this is the political party that's actively attempting to roll back protections against child labor nationwide. One Iowa bill would allow kids as young as 14 to do previously banned dangerous jobs, provided the work is classified as part of a learning program. kids as young as 14 to do previously banned dangerous jobs, provided the work is classified as part of a learning program.

While education in trades and skills is important, the goal should be education, not cheap labor. The bill also strips these same jobs of workers' compensation rights. Republicans in Ohio and Minnesota both recently introduced new legislation that would lengthen the permissible workday for teens. Wisconsin's legislature passed a similar bill, but the state's Democratic governor vetoed it. A think tank from former Mitt Romney advisor Oren Cass has dedicated itself to outlining a vision for pro-worker conservatism.

But so far, their big proposal has been company unions, which are jointly owned by employees and management, which kind of defeats the entire purpose of having a union, which is to bargain with management. It's a type of inexplicable compromise that seems designed not to work, even if Republicans actually had any interest in giving workers more leverage, which they probably do not.

But in their defense, these company unions would encompass all people as they define it. One time trick corporation. Ah, Mitt, your name is sports equipment. But it doesn't stop there. There are a number of proven effective ways to weaken and shut down unions. And American corporations and right-wing politicians

are down for all of them. One recent example was the Supreme Court's 2018 Janus v. the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Council decision, which overturned 41 years of precedent by declaring that the First Amendment protects public employees from having to pay union dues or fees. All four liberal justices dissented to the decision, which dealt two

simultaneous blows to public sector unions, cutting their overall membership while also denying them a major source of funding. The anti-union National Right to Work Foundation estimated that 5 million public employees would likely skip supporting their unions moving forward. Unions, of course, only function properly when all the employees are united is the word. That's the whole concept behind collective bargaining.

Individual bargaining is just one person asking really nicely for a raise, and it's way less effective than you and all of your coworkers threatening to strike. So this move seems fundamentally designed to fracture unions and reduce their power. This of course, isn't the only anti-union response from the GOP.

After taking control of the house in 2022, Republicans immediately made attacks on the labor movement a top priority. Even their rules package included some light union busting as a fun little treat. It attempted to eliminate labor unions for actual staffers within the House of Representatives, which is fucking ice cold.

Like they work with those people. They take dumps in stalls next to them taking dumps. Luckily or hilariously, there's some debate about whether or not the language they used actually does anything to nullify House Stafford's efforts to unionize. But no one's saying these people know what they're doing, just that they're trying to do bad things

to whoever they can, like a drunk circus ape lusting for vengeance. That's the takeaway here. The bills the GOP House are currently proposing have no chance of becoming law with a Democratic Senate and president, but they're the sort of proposals that will likely gain ground the instant that's not the case.

All someone has to do is open the doors for them like I did with that ape. The proposals include the Protecting American Jobs Act, which would prevent the NLRB from prosecuting employers accused of unfair labor practices, and the Truth in Employment Act, which allows employers to discriminate against job applicants who are likely

to have pro-union views. So cool. You might've noticed that these laws come with very pro-worker or positive phrases with them. That's called irony. Just like how the Protecting American Jobs Act doesn't protect jobs and the Truth in Employment Act

doesn't have anything to do with telling the truth, this isn't really about helping the workers. The term right to work specifically has to do with opting out of being a union member if you work a union job. The ultimate goal of which is to make unions weaker as opposed to protecting worker freedom. And perhaps the reason why is because the GOP knows that attacking unions is good for

their party. Research has shown that these laws reduce democratic vote share in elections along with turnout, while also dampening labor contributions to democratic candidates and moving overall state policy in a more conservative direction. They're also just bad for workers, associated not just with lower rates of unionization, but lower wages altogether. In other words, conservatives would rather fuck over

the working class if it makes their party stronger. Virginia, for example, is a right to work state that offers few protections for workers under state law. And in 2019, they were rated the worst state to work in the US by Oxfam America. Virginia is for lovers of fucking over workers. In a lot of other cases, the blatant anti-union sentiment is a lot more obvious.

Florida, for example, has of course led the way in the right to work front. One bill seeks to expand the Janus decision by barring public employee union members from having their fees automatically deducted from their paychecks. Under this rule, designed exclusively to serve as a hassle and extra step to frustrate people

into not paying their dues, members would have to pay their dues separately. Another bill now passed by Governor Wokeness makes it harder for teachers to form and maintain their union by raising the percentage of dues paying members they need to recruit in order to avoid decertification. That rule wouldn't apply to police or firefighter unions, by the way, which both endorsed defingers in 2022 and typically support Republican candidates. No, this rule just impacts teachers because the best laws are always made

to attack specific people you perceive as political enemies. Anyway, congratulations, Ron, for successfully using your political power to attack teachers. You absolute leech on America. Meanwhile, similar measures are also being knocked around in Pennsylvania. Future presidential loser vying for VP, Nikki Haley,

has made fighting unions a cornerstone of her entire political career, even suggesting back when she was South Carolina's governor that she'd keep jobs out of the state as a way to prevent unions from moving in. You gotta hand it to her. That's a bold platform. At a Tea Party convention in 2012, you remember those? They seem almost quaint now. Anyway, at the piss party, Haley boasted about being a union buster, claiming that it was a boon to South Carolina's economy. That state now has the lowest union membership rate

in the entire country at just 1.7%. Incidentally, it also ranks among the nation's highest poverty rates and highest rates of evictions. But I'm sure that's just a coincidence and South Carolina's terrible economy is due to some other bad thing the GOP leadership there has done, I guess. So yes, yes indeed.

Color me Shocktober orange. The current GOP really hates workers' rights. That's not an opinion, but a conclusion based on the evidence we have. But at least we have the Democrats on our side who have responded to the sudden and unexpected rise of unions with a passionate and committed, yeah, sure.

I mean, they don't hate it. They're certainly better than the alternative. Just last month, the Michigan Senate repealed that state's right to work law in a huge boost to public unions. Great stuff. It's also a major victory for Michigan Democrats who control the state Senate, House, and governorship

for the first time in 40 years. And of course, there's this guy. I see from Pennsylvania and Delaware, Wall Street didn't build this country, working people built the country, the middle class built the country, and unions built the middle class. On the eve of his big election,

Joe Big Nuts Biden promised to be the most pro-union president you've ever seen, Jack. And there has actually been some real follow through on this front. His 2021 $1.9 trillion stimulus package included $86 billion in aid for 185 collapsing union pension plans, covering about 10.7 million active and retiring workers. A 2022 executive order now requires labor agreements as part of any federal construction project valued at over $35 million. Last year's Inflation Reduction Act also incentivized new clean energy projects to

pay union rates. AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler told the New York Times that Biden genuinely has been a more pro-union president than his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, for whom she says labor was often an afterthought. Too busy with those playlists, I guess. Biden has also made a number of pro-labor appointments to agencies like the National Labor Relations Board. They're newly empowered to go after big companies like Starbucks and Amazon

for unfair practices and violations. But as with so many Biden administration policies, it's pretty good sometimes, but not all the time. Maybe he could use a nap. As we skillfully foreshadowed earlier, Biden signed legislation forcibly ending a railroad strike, even though the striking workers didn't get a lot of their demands, some of which were fundamental requests most workers take for granted, like sick leave. So while it's true that railroads are vital

to our supply chain, and it's disruptive to have the workers on strike, maybe that's a very good reason to give them days off when they're fucking sick. Especially when we're in the middle of a pandemic, because I don't know, it seems like train operations are something you want people to be healthy for, you know, because they can crash and spill chemicals.

Or at times release dangerous, but possibly innocent fugitives. Love that movie. Thanks writers. Hope you get paid. Railroad workers were like, we're on strike. And Biden, like so many Lee Joneses before him said, I don't care, like from the movie.

Now listen, while appealing, we're not saying there's some glorious worker revolution that's just over the horizon. I feel like we made it pretty clear that this is an uphill battle. Decades of rhetoric about lazy teamsters and greedy teachers alongside targeted and specific anti-unionization efforts

by many of the nation's largest employers led to the widespread image of organized labor as irrelevant, unnecessary, or worse. Unless you're cops, apparently. Then they're good, and in some cases, smuggle fentanyl into the country. But it seems like this anti-union sentiment is possibly starting to actually change. The more people become familiar with unions,

and more importantly, the more access to joining unions they get, the more power the American working class will have to fight for a better, more equitable life for themselves and, as we've been pointing out, all of us. And the first step here is messaging, which is why, as we've been screaming during this episode,

even if you aren't in a union, you should still be thankful for unions and want to support them. Unions make it possible for people to earn living wages and help keep those wages rising alongside production instead of dwindling. They give us weekends. They make our schools better. They make hospitals and healthcare better. They protect us from retaliation, exploitation, and abuse at the hands of corporations. Unions are one of our best bets

at eliminating poverty in this country by fighting for legislation that guarantees everyone is equitably compensated for their labor. And they are constantly under attack by the most powerful people in the history of the world because of the threat that they pose to endless profits. We shouldn't even have to make an episode pointing this out. It's absolutely nutter butters and cream that we have to fight for something that would make all of our lives better. But we do.

So here we are explaining all of that and urging you to support the WGA by contributing to their strike fund in the comments below. Opening the gates and seizing the day for workers and society. And also, so the next season of Stranger Things doesn't feature a bunch of 40 year olds pretending to be in middle school.

I mean, those kids are already like 35 probably. At this point, they can probably just beat up the mind flayer with their big adult fists, which wouldn't be necessary at all if they had a union like those Newsy kids. Seriously, is forcing a bunch of kids to fight monsters not child labor? Seriously, I am asking,

because I have some pretty neat plans later, actually. I'm gonna break back into the ad dimension and right our wrongs, lead an army of children and destroy the monsters and... Skillshare? I don't know. Welcome to the end of the end of the video where I say thank you for watching. Thank you for subscribing.

Thank you for commenting something nice. Three things that you did, plus watching it. So four things. Anyway, hi, we've got a patreon.com slash some more news. You can listen to our podcast called Even More News on podcast places.

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