This Past Weekend - E536 Teamsters President Sean O'Brien

Episode Date: October 7, 2024

Sean O’Brien is the General President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and a 4th generation Teamster himself. He is originally from Medford, Massachusetts.  Sean O’Brien joins Theo to chat about his job representing the Teamsters and supporting unions in America, why they made the controversial choice to not endorse a presidential candidate this year, and what led up to his viral standoff with Senator Markwayne Mullin.  Sean O’Brien: https://x.com/teamstersob?lang=en  ------------------------------------------------ Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com ------------------------------------------------- Sponsored By: ExpressVPN: Go to http://expressvpn.com/theo to get 3 extra months free with a 12-month plan. Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code WEEKEND for $20 off your first purchase. BetterHelp: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp — go to http://betterhelp.com/theo to get 10% off your first month. SimpliSafe: Go to http://simplisafe.com/theo to protect your home with 50% off a new SimpliSafe system, plus a free indoor security camera, when you sign up for Fast Protect Monitoring. ------------------------------------------------- Music: “Shine” by Bishop Gunn Bishop Gunn - Shine ------------------------------------------------ Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to: [e-mail] Hit the Hotline: [phone] Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: https://www.theovon.com/fan-upload Send mail to: This Past Weekend 1906 Glen Echo Rd PO Box #159359 Nashville, TN 37215 ------------------------------------------------ Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoVonClips Shorts Channel: https://bit.ly/3ClUj8z ------------------------------------------------ Producer: Zach https://www.instagram.com/zachdpowers Producer: Nick https://www.instagram.com/realnickdavis/ Producer: Trevyn https://www.instagram.com/trevyn.s/  Producer: Colin https://instagram.com/colin_reiner Producer: Cam https://www.instagram.com/cam__george/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I have some new tour dates to tell you about. This week I'll be in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, La Crosse, Wisconsin, Green Bay, Wisconsin, and Moline, Illinois, Colorado Springs, Casper, Wyoming, Billings, Montana, Missoula, Montana, Bloomington, Indiana, Columbus, Ohio, Champaign, Grand Rapids, Lafayette, Louisiana, and Beaumont, Texas, all tickets through thetheovon.com slash T O U R. And thank you for your support. Today's guest is the president of the international brotherhood of Teamsters. He's a fourth generation Teamster himself, and he's from Boston.

generation Teamster himself and he's from Boston. I'm really excited about spending time today with Mr. Sean O'Brien. I've never been in a union. I don't think. What about sag after you did some acting? Oh yeah. That's right. I had to get in sag after one time. Yeah. So I guess I was in a union, I don't think. What about SAG-AFTRA? You did some acting. Oh yeah, that's right. I had to get in SAG-AFTRA one time. Yeah, so I guess I was in that union. We tried to, I used to work at a pizza joint

and one guy was getting fired and we're like, you can't fire, if you fire him, you gotta fire all of us, you know? That's what it's all about. And the guy, he just fired all of us. And he was right, actually, Mr. Wayne, he was the owner and he was right, that we were horrible workers,

we was drinking and just deep frying everything in there. Anyway. That shouldn't be a terminable offense. I like that dude, we needed you. Sean O'Brien, you're president of the Teamsters Union, right? Yes sir. Is that the term?

Yes, it's International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Okay, and what is a Teamster? Well, Teamsters started out traditional trucking, truck drivers. They were horse and buggies back in the day and then evolved into trucking and then we've evolved into, we represent everybody from airline pilots to zookeepers and everybody in between so it's not just a trucking union. Our largest employer is United Parcel Service represent three hundred forty thousand Teamsters nationwide. United Parcel Service, represented 340,000 Teamsters nationwide. United Parcel Service?

Yeah, UPS. OK, UPS. And then we provide all the transportation needs for motion pictures, trade shows, public sector. We're pretty diverse in large union, 1.3 million members nationwide and in Canada. In the Teamsters Union? Yes, sir.

And so it was a team of horses. That's why the name is. Yeah, Horses and Buggies, yeah. Yeah? Yeah, they had teams pulling horses and buggies. We've been around since 1903. OK. So you can see how transportation has changed over the years.

But it's a great organization. I'm fourth generation Teamster. Yeah. Oh, so you're, and are you the first president of your family that was ever in? Yeah, yeah. All my family members, just rank and file members, went to work every day.

I started out in a construction yard in Boston, a rigging company hauling cranes around, and I just moved up the ladder, became a shop steward, then became a business agent for Local 25 in Boston, and just kept moving along. Nice, dude. And a union is what? A union is, we represent working people.

We collectively bargain for our members. We make certain that we protect them in the workplace, process all their grievances, but more importantly, organize workers throughout the country that wanna be unionized. And we've been very successful doing that. And we just wanna represent working people. We know 1.3 million right now,

hopefully we'll be 2 million in the near future. Amen. And yeah, cause I know unions are responsible for the work week, right? Right. So unions based 40 hour work week. Look, the unions have set the bar. Even non-union people benefit when you organize.

And we've organized in every industry, but we're responsible for over time, we're responsible for the 40 hour work week, we're responsible for the weekend. A lot of people don't know that. So, you know. God, thank you. Well.

But if we do have to work the weekend, we're gonna get double time. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. Well. But if we do have to work the weekend, we're gonna get double time. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, and now, didn't they just make a law that it's gonna be over, it won't get taxed? Well, that's a campaign promise from President Trump, I believe.

Oh, so it's just, it's not a definite. So, you know, as you know, promises sometimes don't come to fruition, so. Yeah. But it is recorded, so we'll use it against whoever said it. How pivotal is our unions in the American industry? Look, we built the middle class, we built America. Unfortunately, as you know, once big business gets involved,

private equity of the world, or there's big money to be made, everybody forgets, they get amnesia on who actually is responsible. And there was such a decline in the 80s because politicians put in some bad regulation. I mean, I can speak for the teams as they passed trucking deregulation. And if I put the numbers to it, we had 400,000 members alone just in the freight industry. And when they passed trucking deregulation, we lost 400,000 members. Companies went bankrupt and pension funds took a hit.

So. What happened, though? Like, when they say deregulation, what do you mean by it? Well, you know, the whole industry was regulated. So every company had rates that they had to adhere to. OK, had to follow a certain set of rules. And then once deregulation passed,

it was a race to the bottom. And, you know, unfortunately, that hurt us over three or four decades. And now there's such an opportunity because there's so much corporate greed out there, where these white collar crime syndicates, known as corporate America, all they care about is the bottom line of their balance sheet.

And we've been fighting hard for the last four or five years to expose how greedy these CEOs, these corporations are, but also how corruptible the political system is. It's funny, before you always had Democrats fighting for working people and Republicans. Now we kind of see a switch where working people feel like, number one, they've been left behind by the Democratic Party.

Two, the Republicans say they want to be working class, represent the working class. They have an opportunity to do it. But you know, I think we've got a huge opportunity to organize and we've been exposing them and we've been fighting and you know, our biggest, our biggest opponent right now is Amazon and we're going to crush them. Oh, because Amazon, my mom drives from, is an Amazon worker. Is she?

Yeah. So she's an independent contractor, she drives for them. Yeah, yeah, she delivers stuff for Amazon, so. So I'll tell you the difference, right? Okay. You look at our UPS drivers, we just negotiated the largest collective bargaining agreement. UPS is the largest teams to contract in the country, and they're a very difficult company to deal with. However, our drivers are direct employees.

Our members are direct employees at UPS. And once you're through a four year progression as a driver, you're making almost $50 an hour, free full medical and a pension that you could actually retire off of. And Amazon hides behind an independent contractor model where they pay their drivers about $19.50 to $20 per hour. That's the difference.

So what we're doing, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, as she should. She brought her ass into this world. You know what I mean? You gotta pay the tariff. Yeah, and you don't wanna piss your mother off. Believe me, I got a strong Irish Catholic mother who brought up her three younger brothers

in a housing project in Boston, and she had three just like me. And, uh, you know, she's the toughest, toughest one I know. And that's the only person I'm afraid of. Or really be honest with you. Really in Boston? Yeah. It's like, oh, some of the women in Boston.

Dude, I got a, yeah. But my mother's like petting a Python. You know, you give a moment, she's going to squeeze a life out of it, but I love and respect her and she's the best. And if a mouse goes missing around her. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, you know, you get the head nod, the problem, you know, you get the head nod from my mother, it's like, she, she'll go, oh, nice. Head nod. Done. You're done. That's it. You're done.

Yeah. It's like someone put a hit on you. Yeah. My mother, uh, yeah, she delivers for Amazon. Yeah. I don't know how many hours a week she works, but she delivers for Amazon. How hard is it to get a group of workers to unionize

like at a company that's already like pre-existing like that? Well, we're doing it right now. Like, so Amazon hides behind this bullshit independent contractor model. So they'll third party leasing arrangement with a company, probably what your mom's working for. And they try and say that they're not employees. We just want a big case in California where it's called joint employer, where it's a masquerade, where Amazon controls the other company, Amazon

dictates the rules, Amazon dictates where you buy your vehicles and everything else, but they don't take any responsibility when the shit hits the fan. So we actually won that case recently. And we're organizing all over the place, but what we're doing is we're striking for recognition. We're going in there, getting the majority of authorization cards signed by folks like your mom. And then we just strike them and hold them out.

And it's working. We've got, because of that victory we had with exposing Amazon with the independent contract to scam, we get the potential to organize your mom and 300,000 other people. Wow. So we've allocated tremendous funding to do this and look, Amazon, the one thing about

the Teamsters union and us, we're not good looking clearly, right? Well. But you know, we don't, we don't have the deep. In some cultures. We don't have, yeah, we don't have the deep pockets, but we got, we've got, you know, fight, we've got intestinal fortitude and

we're not afraid, we're not afraid to lose. Cause we're supposed to lose anyways, right? When you're not afraid to lose. Yeah, you got nothing to lose. Nothing to lose. Yeah. And it's important because we set these industry standards negotiating these contracts.

So people like your mother, people that aren't organized will see the value of becoming a union member. And look, there's always people that have something to say no matter what. You know, you're doing great. You have a great show. You've made tremendous success. There's going to be someone that is jealous

and doesn't just want to attack you. Yeah. And we're trying to change that philosophy. We're trying to change that image. And look, we're out, just wants to attack you. And we're trying to change that philosophy. We're trying to change that image. And look, we're out there just wanna help people. We wanna take on schoolyard bullies and we wanna put them on their knees, you know? Oh, I hope you take the kneecaps off

some of these perverts, dude. You know, that's how I really feel. And also a lot of these, like a lot of the tech industry came along and just because they're an app or they're a website, they act like they're not an employer, I guess. Oh, that's the biggest scam in the world. You got Uber, you got Lyft, you've got Google,

you've got all these tech companies. And the sad part is, you know, these politicians that claim to be out there fighting for work and people are bought and fucking sold by these companies. Oh, it's crazy. It's disgusting. I love it because it, my job is, and again, I'm wearing the shirt, right? Mm-hmm. Because we are fucking fighting with everybody. Yeah.

And we have to because, you know, these, we have to be someone's conscience and that's, we're going to be their conscience. These big tech companies. Yeah. How does the teamsters afford attorneys and stuff to be able to fight those battles? Like, well, we, you know, we have members pay dues. Okay. So, you know, the dues, the dues money, obviously, uh, uh, finance is a whole operation and you know, we are financially secure. We have $400 million in a strike and defense fund, uh, which means that we can strike and, you know, we can support a long-term strike,

but also defend against any threat to the organization. That all comes from dues money. Hell yeah. And that's how we afford it. It's like newsies, you ever seen newsies? Yeah. I won't tell anybody. Don't tell anybody we saw it, but we saw it.

But it was about a strike. I just don't want to admit it. Yeah, lucky. It's like a couple of those ABC after know, ABC after school specials you watch, but you don't want to admit you watched and liked them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, oh yeah, go Pat. We're supposed to have a big,

tough attitude as teamsters, so. Oh, for sure, dude. Speaking of strikes and stuff, recently they have, so right now they are, the Longshoremen are striking, right? They are from the top of Maine, I think to the foothold in Texas. Okay. And what is that about?

It's about, you know, it's like anything else. You know, the Longshoremen provide goods and services. So imports and exports coming in, they work in the ports. They work on the docks. They work in the ports in the docks. Like James J. Braddock, like that. Absolutely. And, you know, they work, their contract expired the other night.

But they've, their last contract was settled in October of 2018. So, you know, they worked through the pandemic. There's longshoremen that lost their lives. There's longshoremen that, you know, can never go back to work because of the ill effects of COVID, but they were out there in the trenches, you know, providing goods and service when

supply chain was basically almost coming to a stop and all these shipping lines, like all these big corporations benefited tremendously. Benefited off them being there. Yeah, and it's like, let's reward the people that made us a success. Let's reward the people that provided goods and services country.

Let's reward the people that risked their lives and the safety of their families to go to work so that we all have everything. And now it's their time. Their contract expired. These shipping lines are making, you know, gazillions of dollars and, you know, they want what's due to them.

And you know, it's funny, you see this criticism online and, you know, social media is great, but it's all, it's just a lot of fake shits on there. And it's, I'm reading it this morning and looking at it this morning and, um, you know, they're attacking the longshoremen for striking. People are saying, well, they're going to drive up inflation.

They're going to cause all the supply chain problems. They are, but do you want these greedy corporations to keep making millions upon millions of dollars? But the biggest threat right now is artificial intelligence to the Longshoremen. If you look what they're doing in the ports in China, everything is automated everything's automated. There's no jobs. These are these are semi-automated. Yes. These are legacy, legacy industries that, you know, provide their 130 year industry would provide middle-class jobs to people. And, you know, they're getting attacked because people are

getting a little inconvenienced. Well, you know what a little inconvenience, maybe, maybe it'll give some support to these workers and, you know and hold the people accountable that caused this strike. Everybody says, oh, the ILA is striking. No, the shipping lines that don't want to protect their jobs, that don't want to reward these people that made them a success, chose to strike themselves. Right, right, they chose it. They could have made a, yeah,

everybody says they're the ones striking. No, it's this other group that's not choosing to pay, not choosing to come to the table, not choosing to share. Um, like the, like, yeah, like you said, not choosing to share with the people that have made, made it happen, you know, they're making billions upon billions of dollars, you know? So, I mean, it's like, you know, there's not, not a whole lot of sympathy from us. Yeah.

As far as corporations and these shipping lines go. And so is that a lot of what the ILA strike is over? It's obviously the fears of automation, you know? It's fears of automation is everywhere. I mean, that's a huge, huge threat to the ILA. But also, I mean, look, everybody's saying, there's people criticisms online. And oh, that Longshore will make $140,000 a year.

That might be true. But when you start out, you start out $20 per hour, right? And you look at $20 an hour today, would that get you? That's nothing. And then if they're making $140,000, they're working 70, 80 hours per week. So there's not a whole lot of quality time at home with your family.

They have to work. And $140,000 is a great income. But you put two kids you get college You've got a mortgage. It doesn't go a long way So, you know, it's time that you know, we close that gap between you know The CEOs pay and in this case the longshoremen's pay. Yeah. Yeah I think because what I don't understand is at what point is tech valued, valuable to us as a society? It's like, do you want, like, I don't want to be a society

that there's 11 people watching some robots do stuff. That's what it feels like we're headed towards. It feels like at a certain point, you would stop some technology because it doesn't, it kills your society. It kills like the part of you that goes to work, the part of you that comes back that supports your family, that gives inspiration to your kids

because they see their parents working. It's almost crazy to me sometimes how we keep pushing our society towards advancement if it's not, if we'll no longer be a society then. Does that make any sense? Yeah, it's a society of convenience. That's the problem. You know, and people don't realize the consequences

of technology at some times, you know? I mean, look, to your point, you know, you're a product to your environment. If you have a hard worker, mom and dad, they get up every day and go to do a middle-class job. That's what you want to do. That's what you want to aspire to do. This technology, although, you know,

we know technology is coming. We know technology is relevant. Yeah, we got enough. In certain arenas, but there's still a lot of value to the best computer in the world. That's a human's brain and you know, your instinct and you know, there's got to be an opportunity, even if technology comes into a certain extent, to create jobs as a result of technology.

Those 11 people you reference watching robots, well, at some point in time, the technology gets so good that those 11 people will be out of a job as well. So it's like, come on, let's slow this thing down. Let's figure out an opportunity to keep these jobs and give people an opportunity that may not have an opportunity to go to college, that may not have the ability to be proficient in technology,

but have a great work ethic and got a moral compass that wants to go in and give a hard day's work for a fair day's pay. So, you know, that's the stuff we've got to look at. And, you know, as a country, we're so short-sighted on the damage of technology. I mean, when you talk about autonomous vehicles, do you want a commercial vehicle, 80,000 pounds going down the street next to your family of four with no human driver present?

Yeah, some guys just, yeah, an Indy or something. He has a, a joystick. iPad or something. Yeah. He has like a Xbox controller or something. Yeah. And there's a catastrophic accident. I mean, you know, then you check the guy's browser,

you know, you, you don't really don't want to look at that. Yeah. Yeah. He's got some other windows open. You know what, you don't really don't want to look at that. Yeah. He's got some other windows open. Absolutely. He's got VR goggles on over there. Looking at past P diddy potties and stuff like that. He's over there smoking out of his own nutsack over there. A lot of perverts over there in India and all

over the globe. I'm not trying to single them out. I'm perverted, but, um, what was something I was gonna ask you about? Oh, so recently we had Bernie Sanders on and he talked about a shorter work week and about giving proceeds from automation to the workers because they're the ones who have gotten us to that point as well. Yeah, I mean, look, there's a, Bernie's the best.

I love Bernie's. I think he's a little mad at me right now. He's yelled at me in a couple Senate hearings, like, flared up. But, you know, he is truly committed to working class people. There's no doubt about it. You know, we're, as a team sort of organization organization, you know, we, we negotiate contracts based on 40 hours per week, but there are some, you know, industries that would like a 32 hour work week paid 40 hours, which, you know, that's, that's, that's going to be a, that's going to be a tough fight moving forward. Um, you know, my thing is we've got to protect, preserve and improve what

we already have right now. Right. And, um, right. Cause once you start giving away some hours, you never get it back. Right. You never get it back. Right here it says, Senator Bernie Sanders, chairman of the Senate committee on health, education, labor, and pensions announced that this Thursday he will introduce legislation to establish a standard 32 hour work week. Sanders said, moving to a 32 hour work week with no loss of pay is not a radical idea. Today, American workers are over 400% more productive than they were in the 1940s and he means that The output is because also of automation but automation is taking the people's jobs So then it's like it only makes fair sense to compensate the people who are

Whose jobs are being taken right? Yeah, and you, that's, that's obviously a great justification for it, but the reality of it is most of our members have to work 50 or 60 hours a week and have to have overtime. So, you know, that's, that's, that's an issue that I think we'll be dealing with down the road, but there is no doubt that we should be fighting to create jobs as a result of technology being implemented, not destroy

them. Yeah. Bernie's the best. I mean, he is hilarious. He's very entertaining, man. He's very entertaining. I know you had an issue with Mac Malachowski, what was that guy's name? No, Mark Wayne Mullen.

Mark Wayne Mullen, we'll get to it in a second. And we'll definitely, we'll put up a link if people wanna watch you guys fight, where people can lease it. But, and we'll give the money, we'll give the proceeds to you guys too. Yeah, we don't need that one. I'll do that one for nothing.

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Protect your home with 50% off a new SimpliSafe system. Wow! Plus a free indoor security camera when you sign up for fast protect monitoring. Just visit simplisafe.com slash t-h-e-o. That's 50% off at simply safe S I M P L I S A F E dot com slash Theo. There's no safe like simply safe. Is there anything else before we move on? Is there anything else about the longshoreman strike that we should know? Do you feel like? Yeah, I think it's important to know that it's not the long showman's fault that

they're on strike. It's the shipping company's fault. And you know, there's, there's, you know, this, the media is so out of whack at times and creating these scenarios saying that this is a political stunt, uh, versus one party, versus the other, their contract expired two days ago, it just so happens it's in an election

year. Um, and look, this strike could end real quick. If these greedy shipping lines just give the members what they deserve and what they demand and it'll be over. We also, if you think about it, it's like, you always hear like the term, the shipping heiress or the shipping heir.

You don't hear like the teamsters heiress, you know, what even fucking side are people on? Like to be on the side of just these, just people that have so much, you know? And at a point it's just obvious greed. Yeah, I don't think a team- It's unbelievable, man. And it's unbelievable that our country starts to feel like

that's the side it's on. Yeah. I mean, it really feels like even just as a regular person, like nobody is support, it's all a sham a lot of times. It feels like, I mean, everybody knows that like the lobbies are so big now that they control so much, but it's like at some point you would think there would be a break for the common man, you know?

Well, that's what we're trying to do. I mean, that's why we've been working so hard. If you see what we're doing all over the country with the UPS agreement and Heisebush, record agreements, negotiating strong contracts, we're trying to close that disparity. Right now, we got a big battle going on with United Airlines, right?

Which, you know, we're telling all these politicians, I don't know if you saw my statement the other day, stay the fuck out of our business. Let us do our thing, and I always say to people, the neighborhood I grew up in, which had a lot of conflict in it, if there were two people fighting in the middle of the street and you had nothing to do with it, keep walking.

It's gonna end some point one way or the other. And that's the struggle, but our whole focus on what we've been doing as a union, and look, I'm a fourth generation team, so I love this fucking union. It's given me everything in my entire life. The one thing that we need to do is advocate for working people.

And you know what, people say, why should I join a union? Why should you join a union? Because we're gonna get you better wages. We're gonna get you the best benefits. But more importantly, we're gonna demand respect in the workplace, and we're gonna fight for you day in and day out. And look, the United, the ILA right now, that, ILA right now, that's all they're doing.

That is all they're doing. They want respect. Yeah. And to your point, there's no Harris, Harris is however you say it. Yeah. Princess or something. Princess. Yeah.

We listen, just take a look at us, whether it's the ILA or Teamsters, you know, we're not royalty, man. Yeah. I've been to Boston. They got some definitely, you'll see abroad out there wearing a Euclid's Jersey. You know what I'm saying? Yeah.

Yeah, we've got a lot of us from Boston have fucking faces for radio. Yeah, it's definitely. Oh, you see a lot of, yeah, yeah. A lot of, yeah, a lot of fucking women that are just fucking vaping and just giving hand jobs or whatever, but it's OK. Don't forget the tube top with the C section.

Oh, yeah, brother, yeah. Oh, dude, that's the new Teamsters logo. No, golf for bid, no. Listen, the Teamsters Union, we got some of the finest, hottest working women and they're the strongest. No, I'm joking, yeah. And look, let them fucking play baseball again, dude. You know what I'm saying?

That's what I'm saying. Absolutely. I would love to see if the union had a league. Oh, it'd be nice. Wouldn't it? Do you guys have a team? A baseball team? Yeah. Well, it's called the Red Sox, but I don't know if they're any good right now. Oh yeah. They didn't even make the playoffs today. They didn't. Damn. No. But actually screw you guys. You guys have had so much luck, dude. I can't believe you make that much money selling cheese and stuff.

What all do they have over there? Craft bring it up. Craft goods. No craft actually started. It's a unionized paper company Oh it is. Yeah, so it's out of Boston or Worcester, which is you know, probably 45 miles west of Boston The crafts are actually very good in the community in Boston, but that's uh, that's not the same family Oh, it isn't no. Oh damn this every time I've that's crazy because every time I'm cheering against the Pats I'm always yelling like fuck Lunchables and shit and I didn't realize that's crustables. I Thought it was the same guy. It's no no no no no no no they're very good They're very good in the they're very good in the community. Oh, yeah, ah

Yeah, I didn't know I got a yeah, I put out some comment cards on some of these websites, too I got to, yeah, I filled out some comment cards on some of these websites too. I got to go back and take back, especially when they had Randy Moss. Yeah. I was really heavy on the keys back then. Oh, how funny was he? Yeah. Oh, he's great, dude. Dude, I went to a fishing tournament one time and I'm supposed to tell this story,

but I should, but I will. And so I went to a fishing tournament one time, Randy Moss brought on a fishing tournament. This one, he was with the Vikings. And you got put with like some fishermen and stuff and you would go out. It was in Minnetonka, Minnesota on the lake. And I stayed up all night drinking, right? And so I get out there and I'm like, I think we're going to be there for 30 minutes or whatever, you know, like I'm fishing with my grandparents or something. And they're like, yeah, it's a six hour thing.

And I'm like, oh dude. And I had like the whore, like I had to with my grandparents or something. And they're like, yeah, it's a six hour thing. And I'm like, oh dude. And I had like the whore, like I had to go to the bathroom so bad, you know? And so I, at some point they're like, we'll just pee off the side of the boat, but I didn't have to pee, you know? I had to fucking do a union job, you know? And so at some point, dude,

I just had to literally have them troll a little and just hang myself off the side of the boat and just. Did you have any dude wipes with you? Oh, no, they didn't even have dude wipes in. Oh man, that might've been awful. I just had to kind of hold my legs open and let the water go through fast. It was like a redneck bidet.

Yeah, I kinda hear ya. Oh God, but thank God, dude. And we didn't catch anything. I couldn't even pull a fish without having to go to the bat. Like the second something would tug on there, I was like, I had damn 40 in the live well, you know. Do you think it had anything to do with what you were drinking the night before?

100%. What were you drinking? Jägermeister. It was Jägermeister and it was disgusting. And it was, God, I God, I still can't believe that whoever, whatever company sentenced Jägermeister on humanity. Terrible.

That's terrorism. We don't want to say it out loud, but it's terrorism. The dock worker, who's their leader over there? Harold Daggett. Yeah, that guy's a fricking, that guy's awesome, dude. He's taking some heat. Oh yeah. He's taking some heat. Good, let him take some heat, dude. That guy's a fricking, that guy's awesome, dude. He's taking some heat. Oh, yeah. He's taking some heat. Good, let him take some heat, dude.

That guy's fucking awesome. You know the good thing about what he's- Play this video real quick, sorry to interrupt you, Sean. I just want to hear the Daggett. Welcome to Daggett's stand, dude. This guy's a gangster. It's changing into the future. They're not making millions no more.

They're making billions. And they're spending it fast as they make it. I want a piece of that for my men, because when they made their most money was during COVID. When my men had to go to work on those beers, every single day, when everybody stayed home and went to work, not my men.

They died out there with the virus. We all got sick with the virus. We kept them going. From Canada to Maine to Texas, Great Lakes, Puerto Rico, now to Bahamas, everybody went to work during COVID. Nobody stayed home. Well, I want to be compensated for that. Amen.

I'm not asking for the world. They know what I want. They know what I want. And if they don't, well, then I have to go into the street and we have to fight for what we rightfully deserve. Fuck yeah. These people today don't know what a strike is. Right. When my men hit the streets from Maine to Texas, every single port will lockdown.

You know what's going to happen? That's good. I'll tell you. And what, so yeah, when they, and when he says a lockdown, what's, that would affect everything, right? Yeah, the ports are just shut down. There's nothing coming in or out.

And you know, we represent a lot of members that, you know, we haul off the ports. We, the ports deliver to warehouses where it's separated, load on trucks, we deliver it. So it's gonna have an impact, but you know what? It's, you know, a little, it's a short-term pain for long-term game for these guys. And he's 100% accurate.

I mean, look, we get paid to fight, we get paid to fight for our members and that's what he's doing. Look, he's a character. Have you spoken to him? So I haven't, but I deal with the leadership around the country. That's the only general president I haven't met but I deal with the leadership around the country. That's the only general president I haven't met that we deal with.

I know all the other general presidents around the country from all the other respective unions. And I haven't met him. I mean, the good news is he's so public right now. It's keeping the shit away from me, to be honest with you. Yeah, huh? I've been taking a lot of it lately, but I'm good either way, you know? I'm good, but no, he's got the right fight.

Yeah, yeah, it sounds like it. It sounds like they got the right guy doing it, you know? Cast the characters, he's straight out of the Sopranos. Oh yeah, I fucking hope they find some bodies in his yard. Hopefully they don't. Yeah, yeah, you're right. And I shouldn't say that, sorry, Harold. I don't know what he's into, you know what I'm saying? But yeah, yeah, that's what I't. Yeah, yeah, you're right. And I shouldn't say that. Sorry, Harold. I don't know what he's into.

You know what I'm saying? But yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying is, dude, they got to, it's just, it's a, that's one of the things that starts to happen is it's like, if you don't think that automation, there's no, there's no effect to it, right? Then it's just, there's a human cost to that. There's a human cost to it. Look when you go to a grocery store now, right?

Everybody's running to these self checkouts. I refuse to do it. I don't. And I was actually in a local grocery store, probably about a year ago, and it was like late at night and, uh, you know, my, my, I was, I forget why I was going in there, just got off a flight and I got something real quick and there

was a, an older lady standing there at the register and I go to go to her. She was like, go over there, go to the automation, go over that one, self-checkout. And she was working. I go, listen, if I go into self-checkout, you're going to lose your job. She's like, I don't give a shit.

I don't like this fucking job anyway. So it was probably something she's doing. I'm like, listen, lady, I know you might not like it, but let's think about the fucking 30 other people that need a job that come in. If I go there, then I'm putting you out of work. I don't. I'm like, listen, lady, I know you might not like it, but let's think about the fucking 30 other people that need a job. They come in, if I go there, then I'm putting you out of work. I don't give a shit. I'm like, the problem is it's like some people.

Yeah, she's like, I'm on the only thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're not on the only thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's crazy. Elderly version. What is it? The golden bachelorette? Oh yeah. I haven't watched it, but I have a little.

Yeah. I'll confess I haven't either. Yeah. And I probably won't. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah. You know, but no, it little. I'll confess I haven't either, and I probably won't. Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah. But no, it's just people- That's a good point, you don't think about it. No, you don't, and people, a disgruntled,

or like that lady might've been having a bad night, whatever it was, but- Oh, she might've been out of Zens, too, dude. She might've been, yeah. If you're working that late shift, dude, you gotta put anything in your jaw to get you through the night. But the problem is like she was in her late seventies.

And it just goes to show you like, Hey, if you got in a union, you got a job, you got a pension, you wouldn't fucking be working at 70 years old. And it's like, yeah. And it's like, you know, you're pointing at, you're pointing for me to go to a self checkout. And I'm like, you're putting people out of work. I don't give a shit, fuck that. It's like, you know, she ran out of Paul Maul's, you know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, fuck that. Go Raiders, she starts fucking yelling, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, she probably spends all her money on fucking tattoos, you know? Yeah, like Marlboro's and fucking scratch tickets and shit, you know? Yeah, remember they used to have those miles

you would get with the Marlboro's, remember that? Oh, yeah, yeah, you'd smoke 400,000 packs of cigarettes to get a camel Joe jacket. That you got to wear to your funeral. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They put you in that thing. Oh yeah, yeah.

Yeah. You'd get like a blender that said, keep smoking on the side of the seat. I was like, I remember growing up in my neighborhood, Pepsi did this thing. And remember that story that was on fucking Netflix, the kid won a space shuttle. Yeah, the kid won a space.

So I remember there was a kid in my neighborhood that, you know, he was so, his kid's name was Mike Lozaro and he was like crazy. Like, you know, you, you peel the cap off and you'd be a prize. I swear the kid had dentures by the time he was 15, he was drinking so much Pepsi

trying to win a prize. He was just slurping them, huh? Yeah. Oh, it was crazy. Yeah, dude. This, oh, yeah. What, yeah. What prizes could you get with the Marlboro miles?

Bring up the prizes, dude. We never look at this kind of stuff and I think this is important just to know back in the day you had to smoke your way. Did they have like Marlboro running sneakers? That has unbelievable. There's no way to head that. Like a gift certificate to like a lung transplant. Swiss army knife, a neck brace. Who the fuck wants a Marlboro neck brace?

Like at that, like unbelievable hat shirt. Marlboro ventilator. Yeah. Yeah. That Marlboro thing like this. We're doing good. You know, spark those commercials are off. Bring up the guy smoking through the hole in his throat.

Huh? And this guy's obviously from, uh, yeah, this guy's obviously from Medford. Bring them up. And there he is. And that used to be a man. That's how bad smoking can get guys. I think that was my English teacher. Hey, I owe you.

Sometimes why? Dude, I didn't have a, I remember there's this kid, I used to tell this story, but there's this kid lived down the street from us, this fella Mario was his name, and he was Italian, I think, or semi-Italian, you know? And he used to, my brother, something happened, my brother had to go away for the summer.

So suddenly I was his friend, like I was, but I was younger than my brother. Did your brother go to jail? I don't know if he went to jail, but he went to a place where he couldn't come back for about four months. And so I got, so suddenly I'm friends with Mary, I would tag around with them, but I wasn't right there.

So now I'm friends with this dude and he, I don't know if it's like a union thing or not, but he would like, he used to defecate in his yard and make me bury it, right? Make me put it in the ground for him. So contracted the workout. That's why I wish I'd have known at the time because yeah, I did over probably,

I did at least 112 burials for this dude, right? Over about, over that stint, over that third of the year. probably, I did at least 112 burials for this dude, right? Over about, over that stint, over that third of the year. And then actually years later, he died. He drove a boat into an embankment and I wanted to be a pallbearer at his funeral. And I even wrote a letter to his mom and I was like, I'd love to put him in the ground

one more time, you know? Yeah, absolutely. And they wouldn't let me do. But if I was in, I'd love to put him in the ground one more time, you know? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. And they wouldn't let me, dude. But if I was in a union. Yeah. I mean, you could probably go after him for retro pay and shit. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

All the time, you know? Oh, dude, definitely. And the rosebushes in his yard? Absolutely. What are we even talking about? Prize winning, brother. Oh, Jesus Christ. They won yard of the month fucking.

You definitely needed a union back then. Bro, they won yard of the month. You definitely needed a union back then. Bro, they won yard of the month in a leap year, dude. And that's big work. And that was me doing that. Listen, you contributed to that. You should be proud. But it is true. It's gotten to the point where people don't even think about the people that are doing the jobs behind the scenes, you know? And people that are going in and clocking in day to day, you know? You look at like, so we represent UPS, which is, you know, a Fortune 500 company, 340,000 employees, very successful company, difficult company to deal with. And, you know, 53 or 54% of those work as a part-timers. You know, they work

four in the morning till eight, or noon till four, or whatever the case may be. And they load and unload these trucks. And prior to us completing successful negotiation, they were making $15 per hour nationwide. You had single mothers going to work there, risking their lives during COVID. They were the unsung heroes of keeping supply chain moving.

And, you know, it was a very, very credible argument that we had publicly. But the company recognized it. And during negotiations, I'm going to say, how embarrassing is it? They are making 100 million, 100 billion dollars with a B. And you have people that are on subsidized housing, you have people that are on welfare that work for you. And I'll be honest with you, like we push real hard and part-timers start out at $21 an hour, the long-term part-timers are being rewarded.

They get full medical, full pensions. So, you know, they recognize, you know, that they need to take care of these folks and a lot of pushing and prodding from us, but at the end of the day, they did the right thing by these part-timers. And who were the major groups that are pushing back against you guys?

Is it lobbies? Is it politicians? Is it just big business? Like. It's, it's, so I'll tell you, it's, it's a combination of corporate America and I, I refer to them all the time as fucking white call out criminals.

Yeah. Right. That all they do is care about the bottom line, the balance sheet. Money f***** I say, white collar criminals. Yeah. Right. That all they do is care about the bottom line, the balance sheet. Money. I say, dude. Right. Right.

Right. And so, you know, that we'll leave out. Yeah. And then, so, you know, that nobody, yeah. So then, I mean, fucking prostitutes. Yeah. And then you have, uh, um, you know, these politicians, both sides, Democrats and

Republicans, and I'll be honest with you, I'm a Democrat, but they have fucked us over for the last 40 years and for once. And not all of them, but for once we're standing up as a union, probably the only one right now saying, what the fuck have you done for us? Yeah.

And I'm getting attacked from the left, you know, and we've given, since I've been in office two and a half years, we've given the democratic machine, $15.7 million. We've given Republicans about 340,000, truth be told. So it's like, you know, people say the

democratic party is the party of the working people. They're bought and paid for by big tech, that big, those big tech companies. Yeah, tech is the new fossil fuel, man. That's what I say. Right. And you've got the Republicans who are now

saying, Hey, we want to be the working class party, right? And okay, you've got a great opportunity right now to do that. And the Democrats, if 60% of our members aren't supporting you, the fucking system's broken. They needed to fix it. Stop pointing fingers at Sean O'Brien, stop

pointing fingers at the Teamsters Union. Look in the mirror. I mean, I had a, I had a heated debate with heated discussion two weeks ago with Chuck Schumer and it got fucking ugly. Chuck Schumer is a piece of shit. And it got ugly because, you know, these politicians, you know, the one thing I've

learned, they fucking walk in and they tell you, I did this for you. Okay, great. Let me tell you what you haven't fucking done for us or our members. And we got into a pretty heavy and I'm like, you had no problem taking $550,000 from me three weeks prior to me going on the Republican

national convention. And then you want to be a fucking tough guy on Twitter or X or whatever it is and throw shit out there about me. Like whatever. To support their, to support the party's campaign. The team, the teamsters union has historically

endorsed a candidate, right? Right. A presidential candidate. And this is one of the first times. Two times we have in 1976, we didn't endorse in 1996, we didn't endorse. Okay. So for the first time in 30 years now that

you guys haven't done it. And again, the reason why we didn't endorse in 1996 Clinton, because we endorsed him in 92. And look, he created NAFTA and it fucked a lot of our members over and we lost jobs as a result of it. So we couldn't, we couldn't endorse him. What an asshole. And, and you know.

Why would he do it though? Why? Because who were they beholden to? Even though they say we're beholden to working people, we're beholden to middle class, we're beholden to American worker. They're beholden to look, all these, money and the next opportunity, right?

Cause you're not there a long time, right? And you know, the next opportunity, it's like, what's his name? Uh, the guy that looks like fucking Bradley Cooper, the governor of, uh, California Newsome, that guy is bought and paid for by big tech, you know, he had the opportunity to protect the general public and his

constituents from AI, from autonomous vehicles, from all this bullshit that we talked about earlier. And we, the union, union men and women actually got him to stay in office as a result of that recall, we went out and worked hard for him. And what's he do? He fucking vetoes all these protections against artificial intelligence, against

Uber, against Lyft, all these, all this bullshit. And these are the people that we were supporting, like are you shitting me? Seriously. So they're turning their back on you. They're turning their back on us. So listen, I can't speak for any other unions, but I'm going to speak for the Teamsters Union.

I represent 1.3 million members and, and you know, we've said all along, we took over like we want to return on our investment. We want to be like big business. We make an investment. We want to return and that return with these politicians are supporting our issues. That's going to protect jobs and promote

unionization throughout the whole country. And you know, they've let us down. They've let us down. And you know what? I I'm a person, I think probably to my own fault, my mother keeps saying, you keep fighting with all these fucking politicians. You're going to get us all audited.

Well, that's okay. Right? Audited? I thought kill, but that's how they do it. First, they better get up early, you know, can't kill the willing. You know what I mean? Yeah, dude.

You know, I'll take my own life. That's now what I showed you and I'll do it on the clock. Yeah. I'll still be on the clock. Yeah, you bet dude. Oh, you don't think I'm saying? I showed you. And I'll do it on the clock. Yeah, I'll still be on the clock. You bet, dude. You don't think I'm clocking out for you, dude.

I'll be on double time. Yeah, we're letting that thing run, brother. Absolutely. Yeah, but I mean, it's just people got to step up. And look. California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed a Teamsters-backed bill that would have effectively banned autonomous trucks in the state.

Wow. Yeah. And you know how many people there are in California? But what does it say? Assembly Bill 2286 would have prohibited the operation of autonomous vehicles weighing 10,000 pounds or more on public roads for testing, transporting goods or carrying passengers

without a human safety operator physically present in the vehicle. There should be somebody in the vehicle anyway. It's like, cause that thing's also gonna get hijacked, dude. You think MS-13 isn't gonna want a bunch of carrots or whatever's passing through. They're going to hot. They're going to fuck it. Shoot, dude. They sent one of those little gypsy cruises with the, uh, it had a, it's like a Datsun B210.

It was a little R2D2, but it was like a, it was, uh, it was kind of aftermarket slightly, you know, and they, they had one of those rolling through the hood one time with some ice creams and it was something you could buy out of it. And 11 brothers beat the shit out of that thing. So there's no, what are they even talking about? Dude, this shit will get hijacked so quick, but then you're going to have to put a gunner on the top of the beat.

You know what I'm saying? Like it's just getting weird. Bring that back up please, Trevin. Thank you, bud. Um, it's important to note that? Like, it's just getting weird. Bring that back up, please, Trevin, thank you, bud. It's important to note that 35 jurisdictions, including Arizona, Nevada, Texas, Washington, and the District of Columbia,

have already authorized the testing of heavy duty autonomous vehicles. Wow, that's what Newsom said. California remains the only state to actively prohibit these vehicles. But it's also a huge state where there's so much agriculture and stuff. And there's a huge port over

there as well, right? Yeah. Oh yeah. LA, LA port, Long Beach, you've got some big ports over there. So they're not on strike. They're under a different union. They're the IW, ILWU, but you know, same, same

issues, I'm sure they'll be fighting the same battle down the road, but yeah, this, this, this is, this is the stuff that we're fighting against and look, these politicians, you know, they, they're going to realize that the constituents don we're fighting against. And look, these politicians, they're going to realize that the constituents don't work for them. They work for the constituents. Yeah. And that's what they have to be reminded of.

And there's a lot of good ones that do a lot of great work. Like, we've got a great relationship and our goal is to try and work bipartisan. Cause that's the only way we're going to get shit done, right? And there's been a line drawn in the sand and our focus has been as a union and mine as a leader is like, look, we can fucking agree to disagree on a lot of shit and we're going to.

But let's agree on the stuff that we can and get some stuff done in this country. Get some real, real progressive legislation that we can work together on. But the focus has been lost and the whole system's a fucking disgrace to be honest with you. Oh yeah and it's time to shake these pedophiles down dude that's how I feel. What else does it say on here? The Teamsters Union issued a statement criticizing Newsom's veto the vast majority of California's opposed unregulated unaccountable driverless cars and trucks on the road dude. Yes there's already so many yeah it's like because then if somebody hits

you, what do you just, you can't even sue anybody. You're just what you're like that guy hit me and the cops like who, and you're like, ah, fucking nobody. Cops. What do you need cops for? Yeah. I mean, I mean, that's another thing. Public safety. It's crazy. And it's, it's like, it's going to get bad. Yeah. It's going to get ugly. And we're going to be a world of robots. If, if people like us don't step up and hold as politicians accountable. Look, I'll eat beans, man. I'll do what I gotta do for as long as it takes, brother.

If there's no, yeah. As long as I got, I guess, candles, I guess, what else do I, yeah, we'd have to have candles, water. Dude wipes. Dude wipes for sure, you know? Unless you're not eating, you know? Unless it gets that bad, you're not eating, you know, unless it gets that bad,

you're not wiping, you know what I'm saying? Save money on both ends. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, yeah, I'm gonna have, we're gonna have to get some stuff. Oh God. That's why we get these shirts made up, you know? Yeah, I'd love to get one of those, man.

You're gonna have one by the time I leave here today. Amen, dude, you see that? See, we deliver. Results, not excuses. Yeah, they deliver results, not excuses. Yeah, they deliver results, not excuses. Take me through some of the decision and what it was like behind the scenes to make the choice not to endorse a candidate. Well, look, the one thing that we pride ourselves on when we took over as leaders was transparency

and inclusiveness, right? So when you have 1.3 million members, it's important to make certain you understand their perspective because that's who our employer is. That's who we work for. When you have 1.3 million members, it's important to make certain you understand their perspective because that's who our employers, that's who we work for, that's who gives me the opportunity and privilege to represent them. We went through, for the first time ever, we brought every single candidate in from the beginning. We invited every one of them from Dr. Cornel West all the way, former President Donald Trump,

former President Biden, and then VP Harris, and everybody in between, RFK, who, I love that guy. I love that guy too. That guy's awesome, man, he's the best. And we brought them all in in a round table, first time ever, with rank and file members, eight or 10 of them from various parts of the country, various political affiliations,

and we asked them specific questions that were important to us. And at the end of the day, we did the meetings there. Then we did polling, straw polling in the union halls. And then we did electronic polling, 1.3 million of our members, QR code, where we had over 40,000 members participate, which is huge.

And then we did scientific-based polling using the Democratic pollster that the Biden-Harris campaign used. And the only poll that was favorable was the poll we did, the straw poll in the union halls, which was polling 44% Biden and 38% Trump. So the other polls were 60, 62% Republican. And so-

In favor of Trump? In favor of Trump, yes. Even, we sent the electronic polling after, you know, President Biden dropped out of the race. Look, Biden's been great for unions, working people. Um, but you know, the reality of it is, you know, it's gone. He's gone. He's gone.

And, you know, again, it's, it's like, you know, we've got to, we've got to take into consideration our members, uh, opinions. And I don't have the beauty of leaning one way or the other. I have to represent both democratic members and also Republican members. And quite frankly, uh, when I spoke at the RNC,

that's when the attack started happening from the Democratic left and the Republican right. Wait, so just to back up to some clear stuff. And so a straw poll means. It means you go to the union halls. We have 319, uh, union halls nationwide. Okay. So you actually have an in-person meeting

town hall where you get to, uh, where you get to actually, you know, control the meeting, right? You control the narrative, but our members get to vote in a secret ballot. And you know, when you have meetings like that straw poll, usually you can put your thumb on the scale and flip it either way. We thought we were going to come out of there with, you of there with Joe Biden at 80% and the rest

because there are people coming in there for the most part that show up. There are people that work on your staff and when it only pulls 44%, something's wrong, something's broken. So that's why we started doing extensive polling. Which is- Because the unions are extremely democratic.

Absolutely. That's what you're saying. Okay, I see what you're saying now. Yeah, absolutely. The team for polling data shows members backed Biden 44% to Trump's 36.3%. So that's more lopsided than usual. Well, we were thinking that it was going to be 80% Biden because, you know, people that show up at union halls for union meetings and, and any type

of meetings are usually your supporters. I usually the people that are going to vote or follow your recommendations or whatever. Oh yeah. Their children dress up like, yeah, like a plumbers and stuff for Halloween and everything. Well, we do check their membership cards, you

know? Yeah. Yeah. Well, some of them get in when they're 11 team. I'm only kidding. Um, okay. So at that point you realize, okay, so things And some of them get in when they're 11 teen. Okay. So at that point you realize, okay, so things are a little bit more, there's people have different opinions.

There's a divide. There's a divide. There's a huge divide. So then at that point, did you make the decision to not support a candidate or support? No, we took all the data and, you know, historically the team says union has never ever endorsed a president, presidential candidate till after both respective conventions are concluded.

Okay. So we, we, we asked to speak at the Republican and Democratic. Obviously we spoke at the Republican and then we didn't get invited to the, uh, democratic national convention. Did they get back to you? Did you see you ask to speak?

Yeah, they never, they never got back to us. They never got back to us. And you email them or text them? Oh, we called them. We sent the invitation, we sent the request to speak at both conventions at the same time. And we heard from the Republican National Convention right away.

Now look, going in there was like, it wasn't easy. It was like, you know, going into an ex-girlfriend's house who family hates you because of a bad breakup on Thanksgiving and saying, how are you all doing? Oh, wow. It wasn't a comfortable feeling. But like I said, everybody else, when we get the opportunity to highlight American workers and or Teamsters Union.

You have to do it. We're going to do it any and all. Platforms are out, whether we're welcome or not. And we wanted to do the same at the Democratic National Convention. We didn't get that opportunity. So to get back to your point was, after we did all the scientific polling,

after the conventions, we have a general executive board, which are 24 leaders from all around the country, vice presidents and presidents. Teams are leaders? Yes. They make up the general executive board. So we presented all the polling data. We had you know spirited debate and dialogue, very respectful.

And at the end of the day, you know, there were three people that voted to endorse the Harris-Waltz campaign and the majority of the rest of the executive board voted to not endorse and allow local unions and area joint councils to go out and you know endorse whoever they wanted and you know again, you get criticized no matter what you do. So but it was the right decision because you know both candidates Harris and president former president because, you know, both candidates, Harris and president, former president Trump, you know, didn't answer

specific questions of what was important to us. So, you know. Like for example, so which ones. So it's like our right to strike. Like right now you see the ILA on strike. We had the railroad workers when we first took over two years ago, they're under what they call railway labor act where Congress can, Congress can make a recommendation to implement the contract under the process.

And they did it and our members weren't happy. They did it under the Biden administration. And one of our biggest goals moving forward because we've got this campaign with United Airlines where they're under the same process. We want the right to strike and we can get the right to strike once we conclude the process, but a lot of times the government will intervene and they'll obviously implement a contract.

So that was very important to us. Look, if we're in the middle of an RLA negotiation and we want the right to strike, are you going to support us, are you going to stop us? Wasn't a commitment from both sides on that. On either side, Republican or Democrat. On either side on that. Not even supporting commitment from both sides on that. On either side, Republican or Democrat. On either side on that.

Not even supporting your right to strike. That's crazy. That's in certain arenas under the Railway Labor Act, like airlines are under the Railway Labor Act, railroads are on the Railway Labor Act, trucking industry isn't, most private sector that we represent isn't. So we still have the right to strike in other arenas, but these are important industries for us. So we didn't get commitments on that. You know, one candidate may have been stronger on a pro act, you know, obviously supporting the right to organize, supporting collective

bargaining agreements. We didn't get a strong commitment from the Republican side on vetoing national right to work. So, and again, when you're face to face with people and you're asking questions and look, we give the questions to all the candidates prior. Right. So it's like fucking prepare, lie to lie to us.

Tell us what we want to hear. Right. And when they can't answer the question, well, they try and go around you look, we're pretty sophisticated now. We're not as dumb as we look and our members are certainly not, not dumb. And, uh, yeah, someone might be on break.

I mean, look, that's fine, brother. Third coffee break of the day, but they earned it. Thank God for the unions. Yeah. You know, but you know, they, um, they, they didn't answer the question. So it's like, put the polling numbers together,

put the in-person interviews, you know, we did the right thing. Right. We did the right thing by our members, no matter what. And I'll defend that all day long. But you know, the problem is it's like the good news about this whole situation is you see how treacherous the far left can be and

the far right. And I think it's fucking hilarious because, you know, don't threaten us with a good time. You want to fight, let's do it. Yeah. You know, and, you know, we'll, we'll cut their money off. We'll, we'll do whatever, whatever it takes.

They're going to have to earn it moving forward. They've done a lot of personal attacks. They've done a lot of attacks on our members. Um, and, and, you know, we're ready to go. Whoever wins either way, you know. They're going to have to deal with you. They're going to have to deal with us. Good.

We control commerce in this country. Fuck yeah, dude. And we're powerful and we're not afraid to fight. We'd rather just fight corporate America. Yeah. Instead of dealing with this other bullshit, which is a distraction. You know, we, we, we've had politicians, right?

That, oh, we support you, we support you. When we're doing the UPS negotiations, you know, there were some high profile people that, you know, and senators that, you know, claim to be the working people, the Schumers of the world and some others, we're pro-union, we want to support unions, they wouldn't sign off on a support letter for UPS workers prior to going into these negotiations. They wouldn't sign off of support letters, you know, while we're striking these DSPs where your mom works at Amazon. So it's like, what does that tell

you? It means, you know, they're afraid they're going to get their campaign contribution taken away from Amazon and big tech. Well, don't say one thing and do another. Be consistent. If you want to be in bed with big tech, just tell us, be transparent. Like you'll always hear me say, the one thing I do, and this is me probably to a fault,

I always state my fucking intentions clearly. I'm going to come after you. We're going to get X, Y and Z for our intentions clearly. I'm gonna come after you, we're gonna get X, Y, and Z for our members, and if you don't, you're choosing to strike yourself. So accept the consequences. If you're gonna screw us over, don't fucking hide behind false promises.

Screw us over. You know, tell us you're gonna screw us. I'm happy, we'll figure out how we deal with it moving forward. Yeah, fuck me in the face, don't fuck me in the rear or whatever. How some people do it, I don't do it like that. No me in the face. Don't fuck me in the rear or whatever. How some people do it. I don't do it like that.

No, no, no baby oil here. Yeah. Yeah, dude. Yeah. If only did he would have unionized man. Um, he would have definitely violated every human resource policy and procedure. He probably wouldn't lasted too long.

Yeah. And one of it, yeah. The first one, wash your hands. That's the number one. I mean, that's above every sink, you know, um, or age appropriate. Amen, dude. You know, I got my producers some tickets to the Tennessee Titans versus green Bay Packers game a few weeks ago.

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Download Game Time today. What time is it? Game Time. This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. You know, we all wear masks sometimes. Ways that we present ourselves to the world and, and just things that we allow people to see. But behind that, sometimes there's a whole orchestra of stuff going on. Thoughts and feelings and uncertainties. And a lot of times that can get overwhelming. orchestra of stuff going on, thoughts and feelings and uncertainties. And a lot of times that can get overwhelming.

When I get in those instances, I reach out for help therapy. I'm talking about better help is exactly who I'm speaking of. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give better help a try. It's entirely online. It's designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and you can switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. October is the season for wearing masks, but some of us feel like we wear them all year long.

Now you can change that. Take off the mask with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash t-h-e-o today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterH-e-l-p BetterHelp.com slash Theo. Yeah, that whole thing's crazy. I think that they, I think the government or somebody, the CIA, whoever's busting him, they're going to use that as leverage to get people to speak out for political leverage or speak out in favor of politicians in lieu of getting exposed. I don't know if that's true or not,

but I just wouldn't put anything past any of these organizations now. What, so that was why you guys didn't endorse a candidate. Is there still the possibility for you guys to endorse a candidate? No, we're not going to endorse it. We've made a decision that we're going to stay out of it and you know, see what happens. Nothing would change that? No, nothing at all. Nothing at all. Um.

Look, if we change our position either way, you know, we look weak, we're strong and I'm strong, we're strong in our position. Um, you know, and there's people that, people that don't agree with it. Um, and that's fine. That's great. And, and, and the problem is, is like,

remember one thing, everybody's opinion matters, right? Especially our membership. And I'll tell you, I'm so disgusted And the problem is, is like, remember one thing, everybody's opinion matters, right? Especially our membership. And I'll tell you, I'm so disgusted on, you know, with the behavior of people like attacking each other personally, it's like, we're the best country in the world, which we're provided the greatest freedoms in the world

where we can say and do whatever we want within reason, not breaking the law and not be retaliated or any retribution against us, in this whole process, that's complete opposite of what we stand for. That's a fucking disgrace. People are laughing at us around the world. They're laughing at us because we're not taking care

of our workers. Right. Workers or the communities. I mean, we're getting involved in stupid shit, attacking people personally. Oh, you mean union members are? No, workers or the communities. I mean, we're getting involved in stupid shit, attacking people personally. Uh, Oh, you mean union members are? No, it's just the whole, the political bullshit. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It's unbelievable. It's disgraceful.

That they would then want to make you guys look bad. It's crazy. Yeah. For workers not to get paid. But then you do have people that say, well, these guys make so much money and this and that, but a lot of that you're saying is just bullshit. That's not the starting out salary. No, it's not the starting out salary. No, it's not the starting out salary.

And you know, majority of our members are working 50 to 60 hours per week. Oh yeah. You know, life family balance doesn't exist in certain industries, and we've been fighting hard to make sure that we negotiate contracts that limit overtime or limit people being forced to work. And you know, people might think everything's great in this country. There's still a lot of workers out there that are hurting. There's still a lot of people being forced to work. And people might think everything is great in this country.

There's still a lot of workers out there that are hurting. There's still a lot of people that are hurting, that are living week to week paycheck to paycheck. And it's a disgrace. And we're giving money out left and right that let's take care of our workers. Let's take care of the people that make it. If your workers last name was Israel,

you'd have all the cash you needed. That's for damn sure. But it is unfortunate. Yeah, my mom's out there, she's driving a fucking catalytic converter 30 miles out into the desert to drop it off, you know, deliver an auto part sometimes. And you know, and it's like, and she's not even getting paid by the per mile or whatever.

Just, you gotta think about all those things, you know? And who's making the money? Who's doing all the work and who's making the money? It's easy. Be a big muffler. Or whoever, yeah, whoever it is, dude. New York Amazon delivery drivers join the Teamsters in surge of momentum.

That's exciting. Hundreds of Amazon drivers at a delivery station in Queens, New York marched on their bosses today to go out there joining the Teamsters. I think striking's fun, dude. If you have somebody out there with a drum or something. Oh, we get it all. I mean, we've got strikes are awesome.

I mean, the one thing about strikes are two things, when you strike for recognition, it sends a strong message to the employer that, you know, our members are united, our members are strong and they want to fight for a contract. And if you don't, we're going to withhold our labor. I mean, there's a lot to be said about disruption

and the positive effect on it. Yeah. And look, it is what it is. And, um, you know, it's not easy at times, but you gotta fight, you gotta stand up. And it's a great litmus test for us because we know how strong the group is or isn't. And these Amazon workers, I gotta tell you, they have courage and

conviction like I've never seen. And, you know, uh, two, two and a half years ago, we put this as a priority. We've got to organize Amazon workers. And we have been working tirelessly around the country. And this is going to be a reality. This is definitely going to be a reality. You know why?

Because once you shut companies like Amazon down, or you shut a DHL down, or any company, you shut the ports down, it sends a strong fucking message on, look, this is important, and these corporations need to realize who's actually in charge, and it's not them. Yeah, yeah, I agree, man. I long for the day that everybody just

just like all of these like Facebook headquarters and different Verizon, whatever. I don't care if my cell phone doesn't work, dude. You know what I'm saying? I don't want a cell phone anymore. Yeah, I know. It ruins everything. It's awful.

It's awful. It's like we've ruined kind of, it's like we let technology take away so many things that were valuable to us, and then you see the effects of it on children and they don't know the difference, right? But then you see some countries like Poland who are standing up for like whatever their beliefs are

as a country and like their moral fortitude. And it's interesting, sometimes I wish that we did more stuff like that, you know? We started to realize like, hey, just because this is a technological advancement or because it makes things easier, is it good for us as humans? We've dumbed down society. Oh yeah.

You know, I mean, look, think about this. You know, we talk about phones. I used to be able to memorize 10 or 15 phone numbers, right? Because I'd go to a pay phone and I'd call someone and I didn't have the number written down, I'd have to memorize it. Oh yeah.

Right now I can't even tell you, I, I'm lucky I know my own phone number, because all you do is just speak into a microphone in your phone and call Theo. Yeah. Bang, he'll call you. I don't even have to know your number. Yeah, call my bookie or whoever.

Yeah. I want a beeper. Let's get a beeper back. Oh, yeah. Beeper, let's put payphones back in the corner. Payphones. It'll be a home run. The best part about payphones was when you were on one,

and some guy, like a homeless guy or whatever, like. Well, someone trying to rob you, you can just hit him with the receiver. Yeah, that's true. But it was never long enough. It would get so, it would get an inch from their skull. And it would be like, oh shit, now he's gonna hit me. Yeah, you have to put in 40 more cents

and you'll get like three extra inches of cord, you know? And you could beat the guy, you know? Crank calls were the best from pay phones, huh? Pay phones were the best also because, well, first of all, you used to be able to hide from people. You could be like, I can't be there. Nobody could know where you were. They couldn't get in touch with you at all times.

Did you share your location? You'd have to, oh no, I don't share my location, dude. I don't either. Yeah, I'm not sharing my location, dude. I don't either. Yeah, I'm not sharing my location, dude. That's crazy with who, I don't even know who would, yeah, but yeah, that's crazy. You're not gonna see me coming, motherfucker. Imagine your parents tracking you

like 25 years ago on social media. No, I would've tied my phone to a cat's back or whatever. Oh yeah, yeah. Let that bitch hit the streets. Duck tape it to like the German shop at Kala. When I run around. Oh, it'd be awful. They track it down. I'm 53 years old and we ran wild like back in the day.

Oh yeah. And I couldn't imagine. My poor mother, my mother, we ran her hard. You know, we ran her hard, but I can't imagine. Like these fucking idiots put everything on social media now and it's like, really? We used to be able to lie. They rat themselves out.

Oh yeah. People rat that they tell their boss, they ain't coming to work and then they're partying or something. They're like Buffalo wild wings or whatever. Dude. Yeah. We used to, you used to be able to lie to somebody and they didn't know you were lying.

What about that beautiful piece of America that we lost? The ability to lie and not get caught. Yeah, dude. You could tell a woman you were a lawyer or whatever, and she's like, you're 11. And I'm like, who cares? The defense rests, you know? But those were the days, man, you could go into another city and, uh, yeah, you could just make up stuff.

You didn't have to be a criminal forever. If you were online or something, So much of the fun is gone because a lot of the mystery is gone. But the last thing we can, if we lose the like, man, it's just so crazy because so much of the fabric of our society has started to dissolve. It's like, you know,

it's not as much of a Christian nation anymore. It's not, we haven't stood up for even, and even if it's, if it doesn't have to be a religious nation, it should be a moral nation, right? And we don't protect, like, we don't stand for things morally, like, um, business is just taken over. It's yeah, like greed. It's just, it's gotten, it's crazy.

How about people, how about people, you know, everybody talks about, you know, all this righteous bullshit, right? And a lot of it's, some of it's good, some it's bad, but you know, all this righteous bullshit, right? And, and a lot of it's, some of it's good, some it's bad, but you know, recently, uh, I work in Washington DC and there were people actively desecrating monuments and lighting the American flag on fire. Now, regardless of what your position is on

anything going on in the world, like growing up, one value that we add is you respect that flag and you defend it with everything you got. Yeah. And I kind of, I posted a picture of an American flag on social media and I'm not really allowed to touch my social media, you know, because like guys like Will and Brian, my

good people that are around me, chief of staff, they protect me from myself because of certain things that just drives me, chief of staff, they protect me from myself. Cause there's certain things that just drives me nuts, but I post the American flag and I wrote, I will defend and honor this till the day I die and everybody else should. We're in the greatest country in the world. I got a tack like on this, these private DMs

saying, well, Supreme court said it's legal to burn a flag. Okay. So it's legal to burn a flag because the Supreme court says, is it morally right to desecrate something so sacred? So that's where like, I think we got to get back to basics and say, look, let's fucking cut this bullshit out. We're in the greatest place in the world. But we don't even, but now it's almost, if you say America, you say USA, you're

suddenly a right, you're far right. You know, it's like if if you say America, you say USA, you're suddenly a right, you're far right, you know? It's like, if you put an American, like some people think the American flag, it's like, it's been positioned by the media that it's not even, that it's not our unifying flag anymore, you know, that it's for one party. And they did that on purpose. And it's unbelievable, it's sick.

And we took the Pledge of Allegiance out of schools. Little things that I think have an effect on yourself and your psyche in a positive way to make you feel like you're part of a group. And when you don't feel like you're part of a group anymore, you don't feel like you're part of the fabric of America that it's not a real thing, then you start to only look out for yourself.

And that's when I think things get really scary. Well, if it were so bad, wouldn't people be leaving hell often, right? Oh, yeah. All those people that said they were gonna leave, wouldn't people be leaving here left and right? Oh yeah. All those people that said they were going to leave or whatever and they're leaving, dude. I wish they would leave. I love, I love this country and I, it's, it's

look, do we, do we have our flaws as a nation? We all. Yeah. We have our flaws as human beings, everyone. Yeah. Look at the jets. Right. Yeah.

I know, I know. Jesus. And, um, but you know, it's a great country. It's, it's something that people should be proud to live here and they should respect it. And, and the fight isn't amongst ourselves. You know, for us guys like me and our union members, it's like, we were afforded freedoms

because of that flag, because of the country we live in where the enemy is not ourselves. The enemy is corporate American crooked politicians. That's fucking easy. Yeah. It's weird when the enemy now is in your

country though. That's the, that's the thing that's gotten different. You know, we used to, it used to be that you would, you know, your enemy was other countries or the countries you had conflict with. And now it's gotten to be that the enemies are running our country or they are in debt to people who are running our country. Our leaders are in debt to

our enemies. That's what's gotten weird. Our leaders are in debt to people who don't care about the morals of this country and who don't have any. No, and it's, it's, there's gotta be a solution to the problem though. That's what I hope brother. I fucking hope dude, I will fucking chew the tires off somebody's asshole, brother. I get, I fucking hope that we can change things, dude, you know? And I think there's a lot of guys out there who can, you know? So that phrase you just said, chew the ties off someone's asshole. So if I had to interpret that in a Boston

interpretation, what do you think that would be? Oh man. Like just give him a swift kick in the nuts. No, I think it would be happy. Yeah. No, I'd put a cannoli in there somewhere. Yeah. North end.

Yeah. The Italian section. What's that one place? It's so good. Stragon? The green awning, it's open all night. Oh, the Bova's. Yeah. You go in there and they Yeah, Northend. Yeah. The Italian section. What's that one place? It's so good. It's the Green Awning, it's open all night. Oh, the Bova's.

Yeah, you go in there and they got Mike back in the back and he doesn't have, he has, he may still have a couple of teeth. I don't know what, there's an update you can get online. I haven't checked it. With nice tooth? Yeah, yeah. And they're like, tell them Mike.

And he'll be like, yeah, yeah. I think that's Bova's Baker. Yeah, that's it, bro. God, that place is good, dude. I'm not gay, but I'll suck off one of those canolas, brother, I'll tell you that. You know what I'm saying, dude? BLM, dude.

Those things are good. And bro, you go in there, you can meet a lady. They got some people in there, dude. And the guy that works in there works with his ex-wife in there. They're in there running it all night. Yup. But yeah, they got the guy in the back who's still got,

he's got a couple of horsemen left in the stable back there and every now and then he- Oh, there's some thoroughbreds back there. Oh, yeah, every now and then he'll sound off, you know? Every now and then somebody'll- You know what's good about that place? Every now and then, yeah, they put him in a Vince Will Ford jersey back there and he'll fucking start

rattling around. Back in the day, that place used to be great, because you come out of the bars in Faneuil Hall or North Station, and that was the only place open. And, you know, after drinking 35 beers, it's a good idea to fucking eat a couple of cannolis and a little Tiramisu, but then you end up in the corner, and you end up fucking getting in a fight argument.

It was like WWE after eating cannolis and Italian pastry. It was WWE Claire's. Oh man. Yeah. WWE Claire's. You guys beating the shit out of each other with like a frost. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, it was crazy. One guy's got a fucking apple Cruella just slammed him in his throat. It's funny. I live, I live right now there and it's still, it's still open. It's an icon. Yeah.

Oh, last time I was there, we went in there and yeah, it's so good, dude. That place is good. It's solid battery with a cannoli. Yes. Oh bro. They got the best stuff in there. Bring it up. Bring up their website. What's it called? But, uh, yeah, see what they got on there. Let me see some of the items over there. Oh, you gotta go with the whoopee pie. Oh, they got them.

They got them right there. Oh yeah. Yeah. Some of those things. Oh, they got those little, uh, I mean, that's from brulees, brother. Now, my son that you met today, he's a type one diabetic. Is he? It's it.

And he always tells us joke, right? But like, see that stuff right there on the website. It's pretty sad when that can save his life Forget CPR that'll save his life put a little creler in him, huh? Put a fucking little bit of Boston cream in his snout You know absolutely bring him back to life brother that fucking sugar not hand homie that poor kid has diabetes He's politicians have fucking liabilities Oh, I hope you almost it's almost weird cuz you're almost like will some country come and rescue us But it's our own country, you know, it's like

That's the part. We're gonna rescue ourselves from ourselves. We do we do but it's it's definitely greed is one of the biggest things from ourselves. We do. We do, but it's definitely greed is one of the biggest things. So with the country kind of divided and even with the union having different views in politics, how do you keep the union unified? Is it tough to do or is it? No.

I mean, the one thing that's important is the inclusiveness of the union. We're not a dictatorship. Our leadership is something that's never been done where we are out there, myself and my general secretary, treasurer, my partner, and all this, Fred Zuckerman. We are actually out three, four days per week in work sites all around the country.

We're not talking to leaders. We're not talking to, we are talking to rank and file members in every industry we represent. And look, this political shit that's going on right now, the presidential race, it's important. But what we do is represent workers.

That's the most important thing. So what do we do to keep them unified, negotiate the best contracts, be out there, be visible, be transparent, be inclusive, but more importantly, be honest with them. be inclusive, but more importantly, be honest with them. Part of the issue with a lot of situation we've been through over the last two and a half years is, and the success we've had is because we've been honest

with our members and we've empowered them. We've empowered them where they know we have their backs. They know that if they wanna take on a they know that, uh, if they want to take on a fight, okay, we're ready to go, you know? There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Yeah. And should every worker be part of a union, do you think?

I think every worker should be part of a union. I mean, look, think about it. Um, you know, we set the tone nationwide on, uh, um, you know, industry standards and look, everybody should have healthcare they don't have to pay for, that an employer's paying for. Everybody should have a pension that they can retire on and actually maintain their quality of life

while they're retired. So yeah, everybody should have that. That's the American dream. Yeah, and unions, it would feel like, are especially disadvantaged because, even because their healthcare costs go up year over year and those costs get levied out to the members. The members have to, even if their salary's going up, the cost of the healthcare is going up the same or is similar

so it all washes out, you know? Like I was reading the other day about there was a union 32BJ, I think it is, 32BJ? SEIU, yes. Which has workers paying 37% of their compensation of their earnings to health care. The members spent, what you're saying is the members spent $37 million towards the cost of some of their premium that they pay in the health insurance. See with us, we-

No, that 37% of their compensation goes towards healthcare. Yeah, so they're paying a cost, part of their compensation towards their healthcare. We go into every single negotiation, the majority of our members in the big industries do not pay anything towards the premium. The employers, we demand that they pay the full,

no, there are some industries that pay, you know, certain percentage towards it like public sector, but we get the ability to negotiate that. You know, we get the ability to negotiate free healthcare and stuff like that. And that's, that's important this day and age because again, you get back to big business, you know, we're out there fighting for the insurance company. The insurance company, Blue Cross, Blue Shields

of the world, you know, the Kaisers of the world. And, and, you know, they act like they're providing us all these great benefits. We're fighting for them. Right. And they're actually a vendor to us. So we're some, in some instances. Right.

We're the customer. We're investing in them. And we're not just investing in them. We're investing in them. We're investing in them. And we're investing in them. And we're investing in them. And we're investing in them. And we're investing in them. And we're all these great benefits. We're fighting for them and they're actually a vendor to us.

So with some, in some instances, we're investing in our own demise in certain situations, right? So, you know, we've tried to change that narrative as well. Um, but yeah, it's a disgrace. That's a disgrace. Yeah. And I read an article that in New Jersey,, fire, and teachers unions are expecting a 20% increase in their healthcare premiums

for 2025. I mean, you know. So you take a wage increase that's, you know, you get a 5% wage increase, right? But your health insurance goes up 20%. Right, that's what- You just lost money. Right.

Right, and why? You shouldn You just lost money. And why? You shouldn't be losing money. No, it's all part of the same scam. It's like, yeah, well, okay, we'll give you an increase, but this is gonna be even higher than that, so we know we're gonna get the money back. So think about this. You get a teacher that is responsible

for cultivating the next generation and educating that next generation. You get a firefighter that's running into a burning building to save your children. And you're in healthcare. And you have a police officer that's risking his life every single day with zero support from communities now. Yeah, except for Marlboro neck brace.

Yeah, right, yeah, right, exactly, right? And you want them to pay more for their health insurance? Are you out of your fucking minds? Oh, it's literally gonna get to the point, Sean, where you're literally gonna have to smoke for medical care. It's gonna be like, all right, if you want an IV, it's 20,000 Marlboro points. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You want a Tylenol, you gotta smoke a fucking cotton of cigarettes, break them off, yeah. It's crazy, but imagine those people. You'll see somebody with a full body, like just a full body Winston cast, you know? Just a full body Parliament cast, you know? This costs 30,000. Tarrantin 100s.

Miles in town. Oh God. That must have been a boss. My grandmother, my grandmother used to smoke Tarrantin 100s, right? And she had like a three inch ash and he'd be sitting there. I'd be like, all right, when's this going to light the couch on fire? Hold on. When is it going to light the die van on fire?

I didn't know what the fucking die van. Yeah, I didn't know what it was. She called it a die van? A die van, yeah. Well, yeah, my grandmother called it a die van. Yeah, whatever it was, yeah. Yeah, they both had it wrong. Smoking butts.

They all smoked through pregnancy, right? Oh, yeah, brother. Oh, you'd see a kid be born. You know, it's four ounces, bro. You know what I'm saying? She'd put them in. My grandmother put my brother in a curio cabinet for a little bit. The kid was craving, craving like fucking tab cola.

Dude, they had a, fuck, what was I going to say? My brain's not working good today, man. Some days it's on, some days it's off. You know, it's union. You know what I'm saying, brother? Might be on an off shift. But hey, it's hey, but hey, bro, it's part of the union, dude. Hey, FMLA.

Hey, it knows, it knows no matter what that it's going to, it's going to be rewarded. FMLA, Friday, Monday leave act. Yeah. Um, what was, what else was I going to ask you? Um, yeah, why do every, why does every, did we already ask this? Why does every worker need a contract with their employer? Well, because look, if you don't have a contract, right? And I tell this to people all the time

when we're organizing workers, because we have these meetings with groups that want to organize. And you always get people that don't want to organize, right, they want to be friends with the boss, so they think that they're being taken care of. And I always tell them, look, take a piece of paper, write down all your demands, write down your guarantees,

like I, Sean O'Brien demand from my boss and my boss will provide for me. 7% wage increase every year, free healthcare, job security, respect in the workplace. And if you give that to your boss, that you're not organized, you think he's going to sign that? Absolutely not. There's no guarantees.

Right? Well, the union contract, you're guaranteed. You're guaranteed. Yaeliant wage increases, you're guaranteed. You're guaranteed. Yaelian wage increases, you're guaranteed medical, you're guaranteed retirement, you're guaranteed holidays, you're guaranteed vacations. It's simple.

It's easy, you know, and that's the litmus test. Hey, you don't believe us? Then everything that you want, write it down as a contract, you individually go give it to your employer and I guarantee you one or two things are going to happen. He's going to laugh at you and then he's

going to fire you. Damn. And now in smaller businesses, it might be different. Yeah, there's, I mean, look, there's a lot of smaller businesses that actually take care of their employees that, you know, we've had instances where, you know, you've had a small

business, you know, a couple of people come to you and, you know, and when you get into the weeds, deep down in the weeds, you see that this might not be a great opportunity for a union and or an employer that is actually doing the right thing by the members. That's the one thing that people lose sight of is what we do as a whole holds other people accountable. So what we get as a union may encourage these

small employers to do the right thing, selfishly to keep us out. Right. So we do set that bar pretty high. But there's a lot of family owned businesses that, you know, that I know of, especially in my area where I grew up where, you know, they take care of their employers.

You know, I have a friend of mine, Paul Nazzaro, who started his own business and he sold it for a lot of money that he'd probably never ask to work again. But he's an example where he always took care of it was a small like tech company. And when he left, he had an employee that worked for him for 35 years on a forklift.

He gave him a $500,000 check. Wow. Just, you know, stuff like that. So there's our good stories out there, but, you know, the majority of people, you know, the, and again, I'll stand by it. I think everybody should have the ability to join a union without retaliation or retribution.

Yeah. And again, but there are a lot of good employers that small businesses, family run that have done well and have rewarded the people. So, you know, it's not every employer's bad because they're non-union. Yeah, man, I used to, speaking of forklifts, I used to work over, I used to work at this place

where we was galvanizing clevis clamps or something, some bullshit, I don't know, I got really bad summer in doing it because we had to do it outdoors or whatever because we weren't unionized or whatever. But yeah, we'd be out there galvanizing shit in the sun. And oh, at lunch sometimes, we would get real high and we would put each other

on a pallet, on a forklift, and then put it all the way to the top and get the highest dude and just put him way up there and leave him up there while we went Nate. You guys definitely needed a union. Yeah. Oh yeah. Was it the, was it the junior guy or the senior guy you put up the, it was a low, it was a low on the totem pole guy. It was me. Did they drug test at that company? Did they drug test at that company? No, you, but you knew people were on drugs. Yeah. So you didn't have to test. Yeah. Yeah. Just you already knew it. Yeah, it was just kind of baked in.

Was it like a prerequisite? Yeah, I don't know if it was or not, but it was baked in. Yeah, that's the one thing that we do when we stand by. Everybody's gotta get drug tested? For the most part, most of our members do, which is a good thing. Do you guys use USADA?

Who do you guys use? I don't even know. Oh, you don't? No. USADA? No. They're a big drug testing company. Oh, one of America's greatest mysteries

is the Hoffa mystery, right? So we got to ask about that. And what happened to him, right? Because he was the Teamsters president. He was. Well, there was the father and then junior. The father was an icon. I mean, he put the Teamsters on the map.

Did you ever meet the father? I didn't, no. I was born in 1972. He disappeared in 75. No, but I know a lot of people that did out of my local and everything else. He was an icon. He really was.

Greatest labor leader ever. And he put the teams. He had to organize labor on the map. And then he went missing, right? Yep. Do you think he's still alive or not? I mean, it'd be 105 or something like that. So I don't know. Probably not.

He's getting overtime. If he is. Yeah, he might. I mean, he's probably on the clock, still. Probably on the clock. Or yeah, do you think he's still on the clock? That's probably the appropriate term. Dude, once you become president,

do they tell you what happened to him? Because he went missing. No one knows what happens to him. I mean, that's the biggest mystery. There's all you become president, do they tell you what happened to him? Cause he went missing. No one knows what happens to him. I mean, that's the biggest mystery. There's all these theories that, you know, you got killed by the mob. There's all these theories that, you know, he's buried under giant, uh, giant stadium. No one knows. I mean, you know, all the theories, but, but the one thing that is like, look, he's gone,

but the work that he did should never be forgotten. I mean, that guy, uh, yeah, he's buried under a Dunkin' Donuts out in New York or whatever. Yeah, probably South Medford or something. Yeah, there's always, you're like, we're not digging up another Dunkin' Donuts out here. We got munchkins to make. But no, I mean, it's unfortunate what happened,

but back then, I mean, the team says it was a very controversial, very influential organization, which I think today we're not as controversial, but we're just as, as, as much influential. And no, I don't, I get asked this question all the time. I'm sure we had to ask. But I'll tell you one thing, fascinating thing in my office,

in, in I'm in the same office that he had, and then his son. His son Jimmy. Jimmy P. Uh, James P. Hoffman. James P. Hoffman.

James P. Hoffman. James P. Hoffman. Yeah, uh, definitely not his father. Um, you know, was born on third base and actually thinks he hit a triple to get there. Yeah.

Um, you know, great name recognition, right? But, uh, in my office, um, you have, it was, it's been all done over, but the one thing is, there's a little closet in my office that, you know, they kept part of the history and you open the closet door, there's a little closet door on the hallway and there's actually a two rail tape recorder that's still there.

So he used to tape record all his conversations in his office and listen to them. You weren't, you didn't even know you were getting taped. Oh wow. Right? So it's actually still there. It doesn't function. Um, but, um, you know, it's funny, uh,

Bobby Kennedy tells a great story and it is true. Um, you know, there's no, there's no, uh, love loss between, uh, Jimmy Hoffa senior and Bobby Kennedy's father. Actually, this is the, if you see this, that's president Hoffa at a Senate hearing. Flipping him off. Flipping off Robert Kennedy, right?

But Robert Kennedy Jr. tells a story how driving past our headquarters and with his father, he was probably 14 years old. He was probably 14 years old and he's driving past his, past our building. And his father, his was probably 14 years old. He was probably 14 years old and he's driving past his, past our building. And his father, his father had like a vendetta against Hoffa and he saw that he was in there like nine o'clock at night working, the lights

was on, so he dropped Bobby off and said, I got to go back to work. If he's working this late, he's preparing, I got to prepare. So it was funny, the story, but you know, he was definitely an icon and he made the team. This is what it is today. Yeah. You know, I had a fallen. So it was funny, the story, but you know, he was definitely an icon and he made the team says what it is today. Yeah. You know, I had a fallen out with his son who,

um, you know, as far as I'm concerned, you know, uh, he, he, he didn't do what was right towards the end of the union. And, um, that's a great thing about having a democratic union. And does everybody's you vote in the union count for the same? All our rank and file members vote.

Yeah. We're one of the only unions where one voice, one vote. Each one of our rank and file members gets the opportunity to vote on their leadership. And so now every union member can vote for also for any president that they want or any election? Whoever's running, whoever's declared candidate, they can vote for whoever they want. So most of the time we run as Slates. So you'll have like the Sean O'Brien slate or the, like I think we had,

it's the Oz, the O'Brien, Zuckerman slate. And we had our opponents last time were membership slate or something like that. And you know, you run as a slate a team, 24. How often do you have to run? Every five years. Every five years, yep. So often you have to run? Every five years. Every five years. Yep. So, uh, we ran in 2000.

Our election was in November of, uh, 2021 and we take over March, uh, of 2022. So we'll have another election in November of 26 and take, or, you know, obviously get sworn in for another term, hopefully, uh, in March of 2027. And do you have a campaign slogan or did you have like a campaign slogan? No, but I think, yeah, well we did. Yeah. Bigger, faster, stronger. And I say it all the time, you know, we've got to be bigger. We got to be faster. We got to be stronger. And we definitely have,

we definitely have done that. Is it even growing? It's growing. We've, we've organized just the teams to the loan in two and a half years, organized 50,000 new members and And we're organizing in different, in traditional industries. But I know for a fact, you've probably never done this. You've probably never smoked weed, but we are organizing in the cannabis industry.

No way. Where there's 425,000 W2 employees nationwide. Bud slaves, they call them, a lot of people are calling them, yeah, because they're not unionized. No, and we have organized, I think we've got 2,000. You're sleeping in hammocks. We've got 2,000 of them organized, I think, throughout the whole country.

So they're into cultivation, there's workers that are in warehousing and then they're going to be in distribution. So all in our warehouse, so what we do in this 425,000 of them. Is that one of your largest growing sectors? It's, well, yeah. Is sector the term or what is it? It's divisions. Is that one of your largest growing sectors? It's, well, yeah.

Is the sector the term or what is it? It's divisions. Is that one of the largest growing divisions? Hopefully it will. I mean, we're doing a lot of things differently where, you know, once this is legalized nationwide, which I think both candidates are supportive of legalizing it, you're going to see in the safe banking laws of change

where, again, these companies can put money into actual banks. You're going to see a private equity come out and try and buy up all these, all these smaller companies where what we're doing is we're working with a private equity fund, utilizing contributions from our pension funds and investments in our pension funds. To be the buyer of them? To be the buyer of them? To be the buyer of them.

Let's go. Right? And obviously, you know, organized within this industry. So there's 425,000. Is it a conflict of interest? So to be an owner? No, we're not an owner. We would be the private equity firm that we invest in.

So it's, it's not uncommon. We do it all the time in other industries. Like, would you still make the best deal for your candidates? Oh, we're going to make the best deal because think about it. A lot of times, in pension funds and health and welfare funds, we make investments off contributions because that's what you're supposed to do, right? And it's usually a pretty dynamic asset allocation. You invest in real estate, you invest in private equity, you invest in stocks, you invest in bonds and stuff like that or infrastructure. So think about investing in a lot of times,

especially with private equity, you're investing in competitors, non-union competitors that could potentially put good companies out of business. So we're taking a different look at it now and approach and say, look, why don't we invest in the industries that we actually represent? And instead of investing in our demise, we invest in areas where we can help. So for instance, 30% of this portfolio will be dedicated towards a cannabis investment. And the other 70% will be in all kinds of other investments. We're hoping to raise a billion dollars by January or February of 2025.

And that gives us the opportunity as well, is if there's a distressed company out there, like a small business that's unionized, or even a big business like Yellow Freight, who went out of business because they couldn't get financing because it was a greedy private equity firm known as Apollo. If we had this fund up and running, you know, a

couple of years ago, we could have bought a Paul's position out at $600 million, restructure the company and actually keep 22,000 jobs. Right. So we're, we're doing creative, innovative stuff like that as well. You have to. Oh, you have to.

Because like I said, we're a lot more sophisticated. And our members deserve the investments we're going to make on their behalf. And like you look at the cannabis industry, for instance, right? If it doesn't get organized, what future do people have going to work there? So we organize them, we negotiate contracts

that have healthcare, that have retirement benefits, we're not just creating a job, we're creating careers for people, right? Right. Cultivation, warehousing, distribution. I mean, you know, that's, that's what we should be doing. Yeah, that's really interesting. Yeah. And I can't believe that's one of the biggest growing that that's one of the largest growing.

Um, so there's, there's saturated. Like one of the largest growing sectors for you. Yeah, there's, there's saturated heavily with, with licenses nationwide. Right. And that's a good thing, but the capital poor right now.

So they're waiting for this, you know, legalization federally but they're capital poor right now. So they're waiting for this legalization federally, and the safe banking laws are changed. And you're going to see a grab. And if we're not controlling that grab, the best interests of these workers

are not going to be at hand. So we want to make sure, first and foremost, that's what we're doing. We're not really concerned with doing double digit return on doing. We don't, we're not, we're not, you know, really concerned with, you know, doing double digit return on investments. We're concerned on taking care of these workers that work in this industry and making certain that they have the ability to have a career if they

choose. But how crazy that it's even come to that also that now in order to ensure that the workers are going to be safe, you, that the company, that the organization making them safe also wants to be a vested interest in the, like you know what I'm saying? It makes sense.

You got the skin of the game. It makes sense, but it's crazy that people wouldn't just think, yes, we need to take care of the workers. Yeah, well, so again, you get back to corporate greed. You get back to bottom line of a balance sheet before people. Yeah, it's unreal, man. And then there won't be any more people. It'll just be a robot and some,

I don't even know, just who knows, some Israeli lizard licking a Bitcoin somewhere, jerking off in a bank vault. One of your most viral moments was you had a confrontation with a fella from Oklahoma. Was he a Senator? Yeah, US Senator Mark Wayne Mullen. Mark Wayne Mullen. And did you guys ever patch that up? Cause you guys almost did a charity fundraiser fight

right there in the Senate? Yeah, we had two. Yeah, we had to two run ins, you know Sure people. Yeah, we don't know we had two run ins like I was testifying in a Senate hearing At the request of Senator Bernie Sanders who I got a lot of respect for him. I'm a huge fan of And this guy like attacked me First what was he upset about? Well, he, so when you go into these hearings and again, like you, we have to submit like a 15 page brief, right? So you give that 24 hours prior and then you're

going to condense that in your testimony to about two and a half to three minutes. So I'm reading my testimony and you know, usually have witnesses pro and con on each side. That's a, and you have, you usually have witnesses pro and con on each side. That's a, and you have, you know, the Republicans on the help committee and the Democrats on the help committee. And I didn't know this guy from a hole in the wall and he had an issue with a different union. He owned a business of plumbing, a pipe fitting company in Oklahoma. And I guess

they, you know, they picketed his house. He had 300 employees or something. So he took it very personal, which, hey, someone shows up at your house, that is personal. But the reality of it has nothing to do with me. So he started attacking me on all this stuff. And of course, being from Boston and the neighborhood, I'm like, fuck you, dude. Whatever, you're a clown, I just started shitting on him. He started shitting on me back, right?

And poor Bernie, I thought he popped a nitro. He started shitting on me back, right? And poor Bernie, like I thought he popped a nitro. He was like, enough, enough, enough. And so that was, yeah, I was like, you know what it was like? It was like, you know, you're sneaking in your grandma's house in high school because you're drinking and your grandfather's up screaming at you. Um, but I felt bad for him. And then, so that wasn't a gig. He bums a sip of liquor off him.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He goes to bed, you're like, this is a, this is definitely. You got a Marlboro? Yeah. I'm two points shy. Right? So. Yeah, this is insider trade. So we get into this big exchange and then I didn't know who he was. It was, it was actually Carmichael. That was the first time. And then, so after that, of course, I start

attacking him on social media and he starts attacking me back and we're going back and forth. So then I have to testify another herring and he come in and he, I can back and we're going back and forth. So then I have to testify another herring and he come in and he, I can, he was all fired up, you know, cause clearly I hit a few nerves and he's like, stand your butt up.

And I'm like, you stand your butt up. I am fucking, he goes, you want to do this? We'll do it right now. I'm like, let's do it. And, um, and they didn't let y'all fight that long. No, I was like, you know, it was like, you know, I played a little bit of hockey and like, I don't even think I could jump over the boards anymore. But you know, if I got over there and he got over, I mean, it's on, but you know,

and poor Bernie, you know, he's yelling and everything else. I saw that clip. Yeah. I mean, he was, he called me the next day. He goes, did you have fun? I go, I had a fucking blast to be honest with you. Right. And so then as time went on, um, you know, Mullins people and my people were bumping into each other up at Capitol Hill and they all determined it would be in the best interest if, you know, we sat down and, you know, try to air out differences. If we couldn't air out differences, whatever.

But, you know, he challenged me to a fight, like a charity fight. He's supposed to be an MMA fighter. And I'm like, dude, I walk to work. I'll just meet you in a park, you know? Yeah. And we'll see what happens. But thankfully it didn't get to that on both sides.

And you know, no, I'll be honest with you. Like I met with him, we agree to disagree on a lot of things. Um, but you know, he's a sitting US senator, uh, one of a hundred. Should be well-respected people. I get the privilege of representing 1.3 million working people. You know, we both probably could have done things differently that day, but it was fucking fun as hell.

It was fun. Yeah, it was good. And it was, it was great because you know, you need some of that shit cause C-span or whatever or whatever that channel is fucking boring. Oh yeah. Yeah. I'm lying to you. Yeah. And you don't even know what's going on on there. You know, every now and then it's awful. It's like, it's like watching old people, you know, hump and they're all, yeah. I mean, yeah. If you've done it. No, I haven't never done that. Yeah. Never watched that stuff. Yeah, I know.

Look, dude, as long as you're not watching. But maybe I'll watch the golden bachelorette now or something, you know? As long as you're not watching it on the clock. No, no, definitely no. Be in the break room. Yeah. In the break room.

Dude, the break room is always so much fucking fun, dude. I'll tell you this, and I've definitely stolen from my employers. I used to work at the grocery right now as a checkout guy, right? We did stocking and checking out and then I got moved up to checker and bagger too, dude. And, um, I got up and when I go to checker or bagger, baggers, bagger sounds a little deviant.

Yeah. Baggers definitely why I used to, I used to, if it was rich people, Bagger. Bagger's da- Bagger sounds a little deviant. Yeah, baggers definitely, well I used to, if it was rich people, I would ring their items up a couple times and then when poor people came through, I wouldn't ring their items up. But I'd remember like, okay, I got three boxes of cereal. So you were like a modern day Robin Hood at Publix? I mean, yeah, I was, you know, it wasn't anything big.

It was just some fucking cinnamon toast crotch or whatever, but I definitely helped out here and there, you know, did what you could. Cause some families, they didn't notice it, you know, it's still, it's still stealing. But what we used to do is when we'd go to break, we would walk down like our fate, whatever aisle had our favorite food, and we'd just steal some shit right off the shelves.

So that's, I feel sorry about that. I want to apologize. That place is called Dell champs, I think, went out of business and then- Do you think. Went out of business and then. Do you think it went out of business because of the employee pilfering or? I mean, I don't know. I didn't take much.

I usually took. Swedish fish and shit? No, I do like a banana, maybe a little bag of fungans or something. Not one of the big bags. But yeah, it was just, everybody did it. But see, that's not a fair thing. Everybody does it.

You just implicated all your coworkers. Oh dude, definitely all of them. Chad, you just implicated all your coworkers. Oh dude, definitely all of them. Chad, Giddy, all those dudes. This one dude, uh, used to come clock in, go home. He worked for us for four months. That's funny. Like who is he?

People would come to work and they're like, where is he? They came at a piece of picture, a picture of one day. Where is he? This kid named Chuckie or whatever. We're like, who is he? And like your employee, you're going to rat him out. I'm like, I don of one day, where is he? This kid named Chuckie or whatever. We're like, who is he? And like your employee, you're going to rat him out.

I'm like, I don't even fucking, we never seen that. We don't know him to rat him out. Yeah, dude. But, uh, yeah, working at a grocery store was fun. Do you see more, do you see the union growing now?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we can joke about like the breaks and all that stuff. Oh yeah, for sure. But unions have proved they're the hottest work and most productive, uh, work is in the country. And I think this new generation, um, you know,

that have an appetite to fight and, and they want to take on the boss and you know, that they're very in tune with social media. And I think there's a great opportunity. I mean, when you see places like Starbucks and Chipotle and all these industries that have never been unionized, where the young workers that are 18, 19, 20 years old,

demanding recognition, demanding representation in the workplace, I think the sky's the limit. And I think, again, it sets the tone for the next 10 or 15 years in the labor movement. We definitely have seen growth in the teamsters and a lot of those industries that have never been represented. It's exciting times.

Yeah, I know. It definitely seems like, well, I'm seeing as more big businesses and things become conglomerates and stuff like that. Yeah, the last thing you have is, it almost seems like it's the last choice, you know, and it's the best choice. You know, you have to have somebody fight against these groups for you. This article says, this summer alone, 10,000 workers organized with the Teamsters for the first time in a

wide range of employers and traditional Team, there's industries like transportation and delivery, including DHL. Oh, we were already talking about that. Um, yeah. So you, do you think that, uh, oh, it says also including Amazon, the American Red Cross, Costco, and cannabis, cannabis dispensary nationwide. So it's, um, it's everywhere. Yeah, we are. We're, we're, we're hitting every single, uh, opportunity. We don't solicit. We have targets like Amazon, because they're such a bad employer.

But DHL, we represent DHL around the country. Some places were unionized, some weren't. So what we did is we just started striking them for recognition. And we shut them down at CVG, which is the airport in Cincinnati last December, right during the busiest time for them. And what we did there, there was 2,300 workers.

We got a first time contract there for 1,300 workers. In the remaining 1,100, we got card check neutrality, which they didn't want to give us. But we said, look, no problem. Next December, we're going to do the same thing to you. We'll shut you down. And the good thing for us, once you have a union contract for the most part, whether it's DHL,

UPS, UNFI, Cisco, any of those, we have what they call picket line protection. So we get to honor picket lines all over the place so we can extend picket lines at different locations and shut down industries nationwide. And again, that's a choice that an employer makes that they shouldn't make. And we've been successful doing that.

So as a result of that, DHL's funny. They are, I think they are owned by the Deutsch Post Office, I believe. Well, I remember when they showed up with those yellow trucks. Yeah, they're off with the Kansas City Chiefs. What's going on, yeah. So we organize and we have, you know, but they're again, they're a European company and I met with the CEO

after we struck them and I said, he's like, we want to reestablish our relationship and I'm like, okay, give us card check neutrality. What is card check neutrality? It means they just agree to, once we get the majority of the employees assigned cards, we give them to a third party arbitrator who decides the validity of the cards and then if we have the majority,

they sit down and negotiate a contract with us. There's nothing else they can do. What do you mean validity of the cards? What do you mean? Like they just, the arbitrator will determine if we do have the majority or not. And we don't usually submit these cards to an arbitrator unless we have 80% of the cards.

And so the cards mean people saying- People signed up, I wanna join the union. Got it, okay. So they'll determine that, and then they sit down and negotiate a contract. So we had a meeting in Washington. They sent these three, the CEO, the lawyer, and the CFO. And I went with our attorney, Fred Zuckerman.

I'm a general secretary treasurer. We sat down, and they're like, we want to reestablish the relationship. One guy had an English accent and really fucking aggravating. And you know, it was like, good day. Yeah. We'll see about it.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All that bullshit. And, um, well, we want to have a relationship. I go, well, the only way we're going to have a relationship, you give us card check neutrality.

And he said, yeah, we don't, we don't believe in that. I'm like, okay, great meetings over. I'm not going to beg for this. Go fuck yourself. See you later. Yeah. And then like two days later, our attorneys on the phone and their attorney's like, uh, we rethought this because we told them we'll

just shut you down every chance we got. And you don't want to be like that, but when they come in and that, especially, you know, they're not from, they're not an American company. Yeah. You know, they could give two shits less about us, but you know, we've reestablished our relationship where, you know, we've made them

realize how important their work is and how important a relationship is with the teamsters. So we've been successful there. Look, we'll work with anybody. How, say in the weed organization, right? Say the people that work for weed companies, how do they become part of the union? How does someone who's working somewhere

who feels like, okay, I'm not supported, or maybe I'm at a place that should be supported. How do they approach you guys to be hopefully potentially be part of the union? They'll go to a local, they'll go to a local union, like a team says local and they'll, you know, initially started a local. They'll go to a local level, talk to the local union. A local union will either send in their organizer, we'll provide an organizer for them. They'll go out, talk to the workers, establish a relationship, establish trust, and have them sign

authorization cards, meaning they want to join the union. And especially in the cannabis industry, I think we've gotten more card check recognition because I think two things, they know that, you know, we can strike them for recognition and two, they know that we have this ability to, uh, you know, make investments in their businesses as time goes on, once this fund is created, um, and it's good, it's good for the

industry because think about it, we're going to regulate that industry, right? So if we don't organize them, you know, the mom and pop that are charging X amount, and I've never done drugs in my life. I don't even know. I've never smoked weed or anything else.

But I've done them. They're all right. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I mean, I didn't do them because I probably would have fucking loved them. Oh yeah, dude. But, you know, I don't know, but you know, you don't want to undercut each other in this

industry where it's a race to the bottom. So there, there are a lot of, uh, uh, employers out there that have welcomed us in because of that reason, like we don't want to sell a gummy, you know, 25 cents cheaper than the guy down the streets. So, you know, we've actually regulated this industry to a certain point, but the other

thing too, which is very important in this industry is continuity of employees, employees, right? So if you are providing employees with a union contract, good wages, good benefits, you know, there's not going to be a turnover ratio, right? You know, we first started this organizing campaign, we were seeing, you know, 20, 21

year old kids that, you know, they weren't stealing a banana, they were sampling the product, right? Oh yeah. And they'd get, they'd fight or they'd leave. So, you know, we've actually instilled some stability in this industry just because they know there's an opportunity and they're organized as a contract and there's a future. Yeah.

I think then you feel like you're part of something. Absolutely. Which is the same thing like in, which goes back to our conversation about America, it's just like feeling like you're a part of something, feeling like, you know, I think it used you feel like you're part of something. Absolutely. Which is the same thing like in it, which goes back to our conversation about America, just like feeling like you're a part of something, feeling like, you know, I think it used to feel like

your country was unionized. It definitely felt like that when I was a kid and we haven't catered to that, you know, and our leaders haven't catered to that and our decision makers haven't catered to that. One last question. Wait, so do the union also work with the employer to do certain things?

Yeah, I mean there's times where we have to work with each other on legislation that benefits both our members and the company. There's a lot of common fights that we have to work together on. It's not always a line drawn in the sand. And the good thing is it's like, you know, a lot of political issues we have coming up,

like, you know, certain issues with Reauthorization Act and, you know, a lot of federal legislation. We'll work with a lot of our larger employers, especially if it's more beneficial for our members. Amen. So yeah, we do work. We do work a lot with employers. Some employers, you know, you'll never be able to work with.

They just, you know, they just dig in and they want to fight all the time. But, you know, we're ready for it either way, but we'll work with anybody. Do you think you'll be able to unionize Amazon workers? Oh, without a doubt, we're going to be able to organize them. Hell yeah. Without a doubt. It's going to be, to organize them. Hell yeah. Without a doubt. It's going to be, you know, it's going to be a battle, it's going to be a fight, but

that's where, you know, we're going to call on, you know, the Dems and the Republicans and everybody involved that say they are passionate and supportive of these workers. We're going to, we're going to call them out. We're going to, we're going to expose them and we're going to put them to the test. And that's, that's what needs to happen. Good. We're going to be there. We're gonna expose them and we're gonna put them to the test and that's what needs to happen.

We're gonna be their conscience. I wanna represent your mother. Yeah. Absolutely. I appreciate it. It's something, yeah. Yeah, I think that'd be awesome. She likes to work hard. That's one thing my mom's always been is a worker.

She likes to work. It's probably her favorite thing to do. Absolutely. So where did you get your work ethic from? Probably from her, I guess. You know? It's funny, it's like, yeah, there's so many things that, but I do thank her for that actually a lot of times.

Yeah. It was like she was always working, but, yeah, I do have a strong work ethic because of her. Yeah, no, it's, well, you're a product of your environment. Yeah. If your parents sat on the couch, smoke butts and drink beers, chances are that's probably what you're going to do. Yeah.

You know, I had the ability growing up where I grew up, my father worked two, three jobs, uh, and hustled his whole life. Uh, my mother, the same thing. So, you know, we try and instill that, uh, work ethic in, in my two kids and, and my nephews as well. Um, you know, which is important.

And that's, I think we've got to get back to basics in this country. And, uh, you know, which is important. And that's, I think, we got to get back to basics in this country. And, you know, I think we have the ability to do it over the next several years. Well, and a worker should be able to know if they're going to lock in with a company and they're going to be like, I'm going to be here, that I'm going to know that when I get home from work every day, I'm not going to also wonder, do I need to go back out to another job to pay for insurance this month for my wife and for my children? And and then they're not home to be home with their children And so then the children grew up without their parents around and so then they run into all types of things

so then they're in therapy and they're out using drugs or They don't there and there's no sense of a family and it just everything starts to Dissolve, you know of a family and it just, everything starts to dissolve, you know, and it's just, and it definitely is, there's a part of it is greed at the top and a part of it is that in a first world country like this, in a country that has the highest GDP in the world, you would think that we would also want the workers

to be happy and worrying about what's next always isn't that you can't stress alone, you know, can cause so much damage to someone. Think about, think about your personal life, my personal life. When you're happy in your personal life, you're productive. Yeah. Right? You're driven. Same should hold true with people that go to work every single day. The employer

should realize that if you have a happy employee that you embrace and you respect, they're going to, they're going to work that much harder for you, right? And you reward more importantly. Um, yeah, reward, I think for sure. Sometimes it's, you know, it's tough to be the certain type of employer to everybody, but that

they should be rewarded for sure. Cause there's no doubt, you know? I mean, you talk about therapy when you're a kid. I just look back at my therapy was a wooden spoon over the head. If we acted up, you know? Oh yeah. Oh, my mother.

That was a good old days, wasn't it? Oh dude. My mother would hit us like Teddy Bruce. Oh yeah. She would just fucking. My mother had more hits on us than Justin Bieber. Oh, my mother would put on a Pedroia Jersey and just Dude just hitting triples right off of my brother. Oh, that's good stuff. Yeah. Did you laugh when your brother was gonna be?

Every now and then I chimed in dude. I'll shatter a wooden chair over that frickin mixed breeds. Remember how Remember how like growing up I don't know how you grew up in your house, but we'd be eating dinner. My father would work two or three jobs and you'd be sitting there eating dinner. We grew up in a pretty modest house, very simple. And God forbid, you couldn't poke the bear, God forbid someone spilled something at the table. You'd be, Jesus fucking Christ. And you'd start, you'd be firing,

your fork would be have sparks on it because you're wanting to get out of that table because you don't want to feel the wrath, you know what I mean? It was awful, but those are the best times. Oh yeah, it was so much fun. And part of what you're talking about is a family being able to sit and have dinner together, right?

And part of that was because like, yeah, because people are being compensated fairly and a mom was able to be at home sometimes and sometimes they weren't. But yeah, and now we've gotten to this point where it's like both fam, both parents have to work and nobody and people aren't even building a family unit anymore. And it's, and I'm not, I don't mean that in a negative way. Some people still are, but people should be able to afford to do that in a country that brings in this much

That produces this much it's it's gotta start to change. There should be a work-family balance and look I'm guilty as charged I went out to work and I wanted to work 80 90 hours a week I still do and I always did it with the you know objective of taking care of my family taking care of you know My kids and thankfully my kids didn't end up fucked up over. Well, I mean, you know, maybe not completely, but. Sean looks like he's. Yeah.

Sean's all right. Sean's good. We'll see. Yeah, we'll see. Jerry's still out. But no, you went to work to provide for your family and now it's like, you know, you made that choice.

Now you don't have a choice, you know, because it's just so hard to make it. Yeah. Yeah, we can definitely do better. And it starts with the individual people. And sometimes the individual people can't do it by themselves anymore because they don't have the lawyers to back them up. They don't have the voice they need. So the individual people have to get together and they have to unionize. And that's where you guys come in. Yeah. You can't survive as an American work and not represented now that the deck is stacked against you, you know, and, and, you know, the average person, look,

you want to go to work, do your job, you know, let us fight for you. Let us take on the grievances at work. You know, don't bring them home. You know, that's the beauty of a union. You know, you don't have to, you have the, you know, you have the backing of a union. You don't have to fight with your employee

and make a call and say, Hey, you know, to your business agent, you work for me, this is my issue, this is my grievance. I. You don't have to fight with your employee and make a call and say, hey, you know, it's your business agent. You work for me, this is my issue, this is my grievance. I have faith you're gonna fix it. Yeah. Right, yeah, you don't have to be, take on all that stress. What do they lose by being a part of a union? What does a worker-

Not a thing. Not a thing. Not a thing. Not a fucking thing. Before you go, Sean, and thanks so much for your time. I appreciate you, sir. Thanks for representing people and supporting people and being a voice for people and sharing things so clearly with us today. I think that we've learned a lot.

Is there like a movie or a song, like is there something from the dropkick Murphys or something from a movie, just that like really you feel like has a union fucking feel to it for you feel like is like, like has a union fucking feel to it for you ever? I mean, one of my favorite movies all time, I knew I wanted to be a teamster truck driver my whole life was Convoy.

That poor guy just died this past week, Chris Christopherson. But all the dropkick Murphys are the best. Kenny Casey is a buddy of mine. Um. Chris Christopherson right there. He just passed away. He just passed away. He just passed away.

People love him. Yeah, yeah. Road scholar too, I guess. Was he really? Pretty smart guy, yeah. Wow. And he drove truck too. Well, I don't know if he drove, it's just

for the movie maybe. There was probably a team, so I'm sure a team was driving it back in the day. That was filmed in New Mexico. Imagine if nobody's driving, you don't even have anybody to flip off if they go by. I know. Robots going to give you the finger.

What fucking fun is that? Yeah, how are you going to do that? I know. It's crazy. That's the last piece of America we have. Yeah, blow the air horn. Oh, yeah. And if you can't be a six-year-old flipping

off a trucker, dude. I know. Well, like picking your nose and stuff like that. Yeah. That's crazy. What is this country coming to where you can't even flip off a fucking. Dropkick Murph is the best.

Kenny Casey's awesome. Yeah? He's my guy. He is my guy. He's a good friend. Very, uh, very active in the sober community as well. Oh, is he? Which yeah. Kenny Casey, I'm gonna have to learn more about him. Yeah. He's, he is awesome. You know, he's a character too. He is absolutely hilarious. Cartoony character,

you know, but, but very, very committed to sobriety, very committed, um, to working people, working class guy. He loves unions. Um, real good friend. Wow. I'm gonna have to tap in with him. I'll, I'll have to send him a DM or something.

Yeah, I can, I can hook you guys. Yeah, it'd be cool. Absolutely. Yeah. People love them from up there. That's definitely, I mean, people get married to their music and buried to it. Coming up to boss, shipping up to Boston. I was, uh, in the departed.

Yeah. You were in it? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That was to it. Coming up to Boston, shipping up to Boston. I was in the departed. Yeah? You were in it? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That was in it? Not the song was in it. Oh, the music. Yeah. Yeah, dude, I'm a Boston Bruins fan, dude.

We gonna sign that goalie or what? Huh? We gonna sign that goalie or what? Oh, Ratlett? No, who is it? No, Swamen. Oh, I don't know. Not that big of a fan.

He's in a big contract fight right now. He is? Oh yeah, Public too. Kim Naly. Jeremy Swamen. There he is. Yeah. Yeah. Fucking sign him, dude. Is he unionized? They are. Marty Walsh is representing them, right? Former Secretary of Labor. He's the head of the National Hockey Players Association. I love their coach, man.

Oh yeah. He's good. Well, my, my friends, their assistant coach, Joe Sacco. Oh yeah. Guy's the best. We all grew up together. Yeah. Family best friends. Joe's the best.

Oh, that's cool, dude. Right there. There he is. Yeah. Monty's the best dude. Joe Sacco. That's cool. Monty's just a fucking Monty's hilarious too.

So where I grew up, we had about four or five guys make the NHL, one on my street, Keith Kachuk, his two sons play in the league. TCA? Yeah. They're calling the rat or no? No, no, no. That's the brother?

No, so the father was my age. We grew up in the same street and he's got two sons that are in the NHL right now, Brady and Matthew. Matthew just won this, Keith right there. Matthew just won, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's Matthew's nickname? Oh, I don't know. They call Keith big Walt. Oh, they do? Yeah.

Me and him went to a UFC fight not too long ago with Brian. We went with Dana White. It was hilarious. Dude, I was going to say, cause you kind of look like Dana White. Dana's a good man. Yeah. Dana's the best. But, oh, that's him. That's the guy. They call him the Rat, something, right? What's his nickname? Matthew Tuk-tuk-tuk-tuk. That kid is hilarious. So the mother's a longshoreman. Yeah, they call him the Rat King, dude. We'll fucking see about that.

Keith's mother is a longshoreman and she's on strike. I was with the sister yesterday on the picket line. She's a longshoreman as well. And the father, Keith's father, their grandfather just retired a few years ago, Boston Fire Department, great family. Wow, the Kachucks? No, the Kachuck?

Kachuck. Kachuck. They're definitely, look, I'm not saying they're, they're using extra letters, sir. Oh yeah, absolutely. I'm not trying to snitch or nothing like that. You know? So, it is what it is. You gotta fill the back of that jersey up.

Hey, also in Boston, fucking who knows how to spell anything. Yeah, yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like it ain't like. Listen, we have a rule in Boston. If it's any more than three claps as a word, you don't use it. No, I thought you were just saying three syllables.

Three claps. Oh, man. You know? You gotta sound it out. That's a nice rule. Yeah, dude. Um, wow, Sean, I appreciate it so much, man. Um, yeah, thank you so much for your time, brother.

I appreciate you, sir. Thank you. Really appreciate it. It was informative and, uh, anything else that you think you need to share? I'm an Aries and I like long walks in the park, my friend. Look, long as you're back in an hour.

Absolutely. All right, back. Now I'm just floating on the breeze, and I feel I'm falling like these leaves. I must be cornerstone. Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this piece of mind I found. I can feel it in my bones

But it's gonna take a little