Weekly Skews - Weekly Skews - 4/23/24 – TN Joins the (Autoworkers) Union!

Episode Date: April 24, 2024

Skewers, tonight we welcome friend of the show and labor activist John Russell (of More Perfect Union) to discuss the biggest win for Labor in the South in recent memory: the decision by workers at a massive Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga to join the UAW. We’ll talk about what it means, both right now and for the future of working people below the Mason-Dixon Line.Support the show

what's up everybody welcome back happy skews day to you it's april 23rd 24 i'm tray that's mark how you doing mark good man i'm still laughing about you regaling us in the pre-show about the guy who made a bunch of money being the first man to bring condoms to the upper cumberland area of tennessee so that's a yeah yeah man of the people uh he's dead now i don't know if i should say his name, but he was like, he was like the biggest sponsor. He then went on to found like First Tennessee Bank and had a shitload of money and he was a big sponsor. I got

an MBA from tech. That's how I know all this, because he was like the biggest sponsor or donor to the business school at tech. But the way, he was all ancient, even when I was in college 20 years ago, he was ancient. And his, uh, the way he made his first big chunk of money was, he was the guy that brought condoms to

the upper Cumberland back in fucking the 30s or 40s or whatever it was. And, uh, and he made no bones about it either. He was like, yeah, you know, all in the market. What are you going to do? Yeah, fuck the Baptist. So we, we're talking about Tennessee tonight. We're talking about the United Auto Workers successfully unionizing a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga. We got John Russell, a reporter for more perfect union coming on to talk to us in a little bit. In other worker news, labor department, we talked about the FTC and they're trying to ban

non-competes. They successfully finalized the rule today. No non-competeers. for anybody who isn't as like basically a sea level executive, including current agreements being voided. Fuck yeah. A lot of people can start their own companies, move jobs, upgrade their jobs. That's better for workers, better for the economy in general, which is not like, it's funny how much

the economy working doesn't hit for like wealthy powerful people. That's crazy. Do you know no one else is going to care about this? Will that affect like entertainers or anything? Because I often have the equivalent of not, I mean, I have non-compete sometimes. But the thing is it behooves us all, including

me to not do that. Meaning, if I'm doing a show at this venue in a certain city, I can't book a show at a competing venue in the same city during whatever time frame or whatever. But again, that would be dumb of me to do that. So I wouldn't do that. But like, is this going to like keep them from, you know, we're not going to be part of this whole thing? I haven't seen how it works for contractor workers. But yeah, we don't want to get too far into weeds of that. Typically with the independent contractor thing, it's like, it's a little different. None of that shit replies to them. That's why people like. to have independent contractors.

Right. Today, the Labor Department announced a new rule, proposed rule that would, so you had a salary job, right? Were you, did you ever get overtime? Well, I worked for the Department of Energy, the federal government, and the way that that used to work for us was you got, you didn't get paid more, but you got, shit, what was it called? Calm time.

Yes, comp time. And you could, it got added to your, like, vacation days or whatever, and you can take that time off in the future. but you didn't get and then at a certain point you could cash that in for like when I left the government all the comp time I had they did have to pay me for that that I did not use so kind of well I remember when I first graduate college and my first salary job making 24,000 dollars a year I was told I was ineligible for overtime because I was salary employee and therefore management right I was management at 24,000 dollars a year right so we got we did get comp time but comp time famously is just the

amount of time he worked, not time and a half. I would have rather been paid overtime. Anyway, the Labor Department updated that rule. And now, so solid workers will be eligible for overtime up to $59,000 a year. The current rule was $36,000. So ideally it should be nobody, but raising to 59 is better than 36. And I was just thinking about like- Stopping companies from just designating certain positions as being salaried or whatever, even if there's no need for it just to avoid giving them overtime or whatever. Do you know what? nothing that's what they've been doing for right right that's what you're still able to do that right I mean even it's just that the threshold is higher so it's right they can do it for me like a 59000 or more but

but not below that yeah so like yeah I was just thinking back to my back to my days the incher level employee at 24,000 a year been classified management you know smoking my cigars in the in the in the lounges um the arithmetic they ever had to do was like versus salaried versus hourly was like if you're hourly we're not going to give you 40 hours a week do you know what I mean like If it was a job where they could not give you the hours to make a living wage, then it'd be hourly. If it was a job where they're going to work you to fucking death, they'd take any justification to, you know, make you a salaried employee so they didn't have to give you overtime. That's America, baby. Yeah, yeah.

That's what we're talking about unions today. So this made me laugh. So Ron DeSan has signed a bill this week, last week, I think, to require the teaching of history and communism, the evils of communism in Florida schools. and he had the bill-siding ceremony and announcement on the Bay of Pigs anniversary on purpose, which I found fucking hilarious because Bay of Pigs is a farce. We took a bunch of Cuban expats. We got them super drunk and I think Venezuela for a few months and did some fake trainings. They kept, a couple guys got caught selling drugs.

They got kicked out. They kept sneaking off base to go to a brothel. So they had a CIA had to build them a brothel on the base. They wouldn't keep going off. anyway, then we shipped them into Cuba on some rickety boats with no air cover and they all got wiped out and caught or murdered or killed and they were like, well, fuck.

And now we're like, we get celebrating that as a great memorial. I don't know. I mean, you tell me, I don't know. I never lived in Florida, but as I understand, this is kind of like a pandery move right to a big conservative voting block in Florida, which is Cubans, that Cubans, generally speaking,

statistically, are conservative in Florida. And the reason I understand why is because of that they, I hate communism so much, which they associate with the left, because Fidel Castro and old Cuba and all that shit. And so, I don't know, do they look at these guys as like the Alamo type thing? Do you know what I mean? Like, doomed heroes or something? Is that like, do they celebrate this shit? I don't know. I'm asking. Yeah, I mean, they were mad enough to, in theory, kill Kennedy over it. That's how the conspiracy theory goes. But like, but like, because he didn't, you know,

green light. But like, the whole thing is, I don't want to get into Florida. Like, anti-communist politics because like a lot of the first people that came over of course mad at cadast at castro for you know taking their lands that they were running basically state operations all yeah yeah yeah that's the thing yeah it's like uh yeah there's no context with just oh we were forced to flee because about evil it was but there's more to it than that which is we're forced to flee because we were running sharecropping operations with the mafia and fidel Castro put it into anyway yeah no that's to say that any like any all that stuff's fucking stupid and sucks but it's funny to be, like, when they have a class on Bay of Pig, like, they announced a class

on Bay of Pig's Day. It's like, sure, communism's evil. At the same time, the anti-communists are fucking idiots who fucked up invasion of Cuba to a comical degree. Anyway, uh, you want to talk real quick about the guy who set himself on fire outside Trump's trial. Yeah, sure, because I saw that, you know, I think probably like a lot of people, I assume, when I first heard a man has self-immolated outside of Donald Trump's trial, I just assumed. I just assumed, you know, I just assumed he was like a trumper who was doing this in protest of the witch hunt and the weaponized Department of Justice under Joe Biden that's unjustly coming after Donald Trump for for nothing. That's what I assumed was happening, in which case I was like, oh, no, you know, but I don't want

anyone to set themselves on fire. You know what I mean. But then, yeah, but that's not. Turns out the guy who set himself on fire, he had a lot going on upstairs, not the most mentally stable person. It's a little more complicated than that. He had a lot of ideas. Yeah, mainly he was mad about The Simpsons.

Right. He thought the Simpsons was a conspiracy to, I don't know, brainwashed people into capitalism and make them open to Ponzi schemes that included Bitcoin or something. So let me read for the guy's name was Max Azarello. He said, he wrote, so I asked myself the question, if the Simpsons serve the interest of organized crime, how would it do so? Well, that's an interesting question to ask yourself. I'm not sure you'd need to ask it, much less write a whole manifesto about it. But so the evidence he points to it is that the Simpsons represents, quote,

a dysfunctional family suffering for moral decay, a community incapable of solving its problems, a worker drone who slaves away for an evil billionaire and cathartic laughs for our poor collective circumstances. To which I got to say, that's the logline of the show. It's making fun of all that shit. Of course, yeah. But anyway, he thought it was like, I don't know, like all the conspiracy theories seem to think the elites have to like, signal their plans to us somehow. And I don't know.

They're just crushing us under their boot and everything all the time. I feel like they make it pretty clear if you're paying attention. Do you think that like if, because we all know mental health is treated in this country generally still to this day. There's not a lot of support. It's like gotten better, but especially for men, it's a lot of just like,

if a man's got some wild shit going on, people just try to ignore it and he bottles it all up and nobody like I think somebody who's this far gone is probably not going to go try to get help probably but like do you think if culturally we were better about that than things like this like this particular case would not have happened you'd still have some lone wolf wild motherfuckers every now and then right even if we were better right he proceed he wrote in his manifesto about how isolated from his family he couldn't get he couldn't get them to believe his simpson's conspiracy theories which is like That's just going to have that go. But he also, the guy was like a Reddit celebrity. He was like a famous shit poster on Reddit. And like, wait, that guy. What was his username? You know, I'm on Reddit.

I know. I don't know. I don't get on Reddit. Well, damn, I'm not going to look us up. I might have some of his work. I don't know. So it appears to be just like an irony shit poster. He got so lost in the irony.

I forgot where it started and he ended and he started. But like, like, he had, he read a long, a podcast that went 53 episodes that was totally devoted to Laura Dern. Yeah, she is very talented. I have a big fan of Laura Dern, but 53 episodes. Yeah, well, Mark, hey, listen, hey, if somebody starts a 53 episode podcast about the works of Quentin Tarantino or Martin Scorsese, you don't bat an eye. But celebrated Thespian and Laura Dern, she doesn't deserve that kind of coverage, that type of adulation. I challenge you, Mark. By the episode 53, you're down to like Dr. T and the women, you're like, well, because it's time to sell myself on fire.

Anyway, so I want to talk about this Biden versus New Jersey. Guinea thing real quick? Do you have any idea what the hell I'm talking about, Trey? Not until it got into our show rundown, no. So Biden, he's pissed New Guinea off now. Yeah, so let me read this headline too. We'll figure out how we got here. Okay, so Papa New Guinea's Reuters,

Papa New Guinea leader responds to Biden comments saying nation undeserving of cannibalism label. All right. So Joe Biden was speaking at an event in Pennsylvania last week, and he said that his uncle, Ambrose J. Finnegan, who was in the Army Air Corps, during, he was a pilot, an Army Air Corps during World War II, was shot down in New Guinea. He was talking about his family's legacy in public service or whatever. And he said, quote, they never found the body because there used to be, there were a lot of cannibals for real in that part of New Guinea, he said.

Okay, before we get to what actually happened here, do you remember corn pop? Now, the, what, the cereal? A couple of years ago during the 2020 election, Biden gave a speech, we talked about how when he was growing up in Delaware, he was lifeguarded public pool. and like he was talking about like he volunteered to be a lifeguard at a segregated pool he was trying to talk about like civil rights stuff or whatever anyway this guy named corn pop who he said was a bad dude pulled a knife on him one day yada yada yada it sounded totally made up but then people wouldn't interview people from like from wilmington in that era and like yep we know for him corin pop and he was a bad dude all right so things I want to hold you in your head for a second is the crazier abiding story sounds the more reasonable it might be to expect that it's true yeah yeah so So the defense POW MIA County Agency has this story on record. And Biden's telling of it, except for the cannibal's important to come back to in a second, seems completely consistent with what happened to what could have happened. So his uncle Ambrose, who he calls Bozzi, was shot down, or the plane went down around Papua New Guinea.

One guy survived, was found and said, yep, the other guys are in the plane. Hopefully go get their bodies. They went to get their bodies, and their bodies were gone. All right. So Biden's family appears to have come up with the story. well, obviously they're eating by cannibals, and Joe Biden just believed it for the last 80 years. Right.

Yeah. But there's no reading as a thing. There were a lot of cannibals in Papua New Guinea, or at least some in that era. And you cannot prove to me, Trey, that Rosie Ambrose was not eaten by cannibals. Well, another thing, I mean, like you already said, I'm just assuming what happened was his grandpa or whatever,

Brozies' brother, Brozies' bro, you know, probably told a young Joe Biden like that story. That's the family story. back yeah you know that a lot of and it's like that type of shit happens man like there's so many different like families of veterans in it who have stories about somebody who dove on a grenade or something like that and it's like that has happened before but you know what i mean in any given scenario how likely is it to be actually true that's kind of how it goes with war stories my assumption is just this is what joe biden was always told right he just and he just rolled with it you know and like you said you can't prove it ain't true yeah it's cooler than crabs ate him or whatever right right Right. So anyway, so I understand why New Guinea doesn't want, like, people talking about this and whatever, but I just want to point out that, like, Asia Pacific was a horrific theater of war. And around New Guinea, there is still plenty of human remains, plane wrecks, shipwrecks, tunnels and bombs that are unexploded. People are still, like, dying of unexploded ordinance. So what I'm saying is, it's not like only one group of people are uncivilized here. We're both talking about cannibalism. And I got to say, as a trade for all that.

Gainty, Joe Biden's uncle, seems like a fair swap. It led a minimum. So, yeah, whatever. Who cares? Anyway, that was funny. Trey's frozen. Okay.

This happens since Trey moved to his new place. Usually once an episode for a minute, minute and a half. He'll be back in a second. I'm assuming he's frozen and not me. Matt, if it's me, tell me. Okay, thanks, Matt. All right, so Matt, we're going to get to our daily dumb ass. Hope Trey rejoins us soon.

Daily, I play that graphic, please, Matt. All right. Have you just been sitting there this whole time, Mark? No, I've been, you were frozen, not me. I know, I know I was frozen. But I'm saying like, when I froze, did you just, were you like, shit, here we go. Okay. No, I vamp and then I planned.

You vamp. Good. Yeah, that was planned vamp. Listen, guys, I say this every week now. We already did. I taught them while you're going. All right. next week

next week I won't be here anymore I'll be at the new place and fake Lord willing that will not happen anyway all right just read the day yeah just do the day yeah just do the damn ass

okay very quick before I do that go to Treycrouter.com and check out my upcoming tour dates please I had a great time this past weekend there's me and Corey's book is on there around here and over yonder and lastly if you like this program you can show us your support by signing up on Patreon

weekly skews.com slash more or you can go on Patreon and look for my name either way $5 a month full-length bonus episodes. We do two a month. It's very fun. And you can, you know, get some more skews in your life and support the show in the process. Now, we're getting in the main, like Mark said earlier.

We got John Russell, a more perfect union with us talking about the biggest labor victory in the American South in a very, very long time. Maybe ever. We'll talk about it. But before we get to that, we're going to begin with the daily dumbass, Matt, graphic. I already did the graphic, I told you that, but I go. Sorry, I didn't hear that. I had to do my thing. Jesus.

Okay. damn it, did you do the, did you do the lead-ins? I did not do the plugs. I did not do the plugs. I hate, I mean, did you say? No, no, read the daily done-ass. Okay, all right, okay, listen. So just how you know, our guest is in the green room watching this meltdown. So that hopefully makes it funnier for y'all. Anyway, tonight's DD is the GOP at large for not being able to fit, re-elect us, the real scumbags on a bumper sticker. This is GOP congressman Tony Gonzalez. He will survive. Look, the House is. is a rough and rowdy place, but Mike Johnson is going to be just fine.

I served 20 years in the military. It's my absolute honor to be in Congress, but I served with some real scumbags. Look, Matt Gates, he paid minors to have sex with them at drug parties. Bob Good endorsed my opponent, a known neo-Nazi. These people used to walk around with white hoods at night. Now they're walking around with white hoods in the daytime. I mean, shit. Show me the lie, you know?

Which parties, motherfucker? I don't know what you tell you. Well, that, I don't know much about this guy, but if he's like, if his whole thing is like, no, I represent what Republicans are supposed to be, then like, you know, I'm glad there's at least some of him left that still exist. I've lamented the loss of any kind of reasonable Republican. They've been one by one forced out of the whole party. If there's any of them still out there, I'm glad it's not exclusively the lunatics just yet. And the reason it gets primed, he replaced Will Hurd in a Texas district that spans the border. So, like, I'm not sure what Texas border politics are more sane than the rest of the state.

But he has known as Republican moderate. That's why he's getting primary by neo-Nazis. And he, like, is for, like, marriage equality and stuff. So he's not nearly the worst. So this fight of Northern to expel, Mike Johnson, is about the foreign military support bill with money for a overall majority, which goes for Ukraine, a chunk of it for Israel and slightly less for Taiwan. We can debate the merits of those bills in a later. on or at a different date. But the funny part of this, if you want to looking for the comedy in it, is the Senate passed a bill that had tied Ukraine aid to border security. The House Freedom

Caucus, the mega lunatics, support border security but oppose Ukraine aid. They blocked it. So then the House passed the bill that includes Ukraine aid, but no border security. Right. That's what they got. Not really following that. Right. Yeah. So say what you will about like the American left, to the left wing of the American Party, if they, if like, say it was passed a bill like Obamacare, that's like a half measure where it comes to giving people health care, they would complain about it not going far enough. They would not block its fucking passage and make past something like worse, like a money for a war without that attached.

Right. So. Yeah, no, they can't, they cannot govern. They can't get anything actually done. We talk about Tennessee in a minute, but another thing that just happened to Tennessee is the school voucher program, which was Bill Lee's big flagship program. was championing. It failed, and I'm so glad it did, but it's like, really, there's no reason that should have happened when you consider the stranglehold they have on Tennessee politics.

You know what I mean? It should have been smooth sailing, but it wasn't because these people they can't, they're not competent. They cannot work even with each other to get anything done, even things they all want done or whatever. There was that. They couldn't keep their mouth shuts and they couldn't get their mouth shut in Tennessee about the real agenda. But the real problem for them was like Republicans that represent rural districts who were allowed they would have destroyed their school. So they did they stood for us still for their constituents, which is how this fucking shit is supposed to work. Right. Yeah, exactly. No, I know. I mean, I'm glad that that never happens in Tennessee. You know what I mean? Like they always fuck over their own

constituents and normally it's fine, but this time they actually didn't because that's just how far they took it. Anyway, I didn't mean to divert us that much. Go ahead. Right. So Margaret Taylor Green so far is chickened out from a filing a motion of vacate with Speaker Johnson. And she instead, she's now insisting that he resigned, which is like, I don't feel like do anything, but can you just go away? Which is really deeply funny. And we'll skip this next video, Matt. But like this is, so they passed Ukraine aid after dithering for like seven, eight months, nine months, like, while, you know, a bunch of Ukrainians were dying and Russia was taking more territory and getting, uh, and getting more confident.

And then, so the only part of this I'm super for is Ukraine A because I don't like people being fucking colonized by any. imperial power. But, like, so this headline on CNN fucking drove me crazy. By passing Ukraine aid, the accidental speaker became an unlikely Churchill. Come on, man. If you mean, like Winston Churchill, he's going to get a bunch of people in the Middle East killed? Right.

Sure. Yeah. But if you met he was, he stood courageously. By the way, the only part of fascism that didn't hit for Churchill was the conquering England part. You like the rest of it. Of course. Yeah.

But still, right, there's just, there's no reason to treat this guy this way if you're seeing in. You know what I mean? Like, I, like, why? Why do this type of thing, man? But they do it all the time. So as much as I complain about Democrats, I want to do this real quick. So today and the two parties are not the same. A lot of Republican reps try to attach riot to this bill, removing humanitarian funding.

Marjor Taylor Green tried to add an amendment to build the Iron Dome, which is like Israel's missile defense system, on the southern border. Mexican missiles coming through, Mark, somebody needs to do something, all right? Tired to sit the neck and let us our Texas cities get bombed by the Mexican missiles every day. Anyway. And because we do

governing by trolling now, she also tried to attach space laser funding for the southern border. She also attached to a amendment that said no funding for Ukraine until language restrictions are lifted on Hungarians in Transcarpathia in Ukraine. Now, Hungarians and Transcarpathia,

it's not what we're getting into it's one of those things only like those terms of phrases only used by like hardcore Russian nationalists like Vladimir Putin so a bunch of people like like got crazy on the internet like obviously she's in Russia's pocket that'd be too big of a tell for an actual

like indulgence asset these people are just too online like if you don't pay attention like the botaf fascist with like classical statues and like their Twitter and Reddit profiles they just are into this kind of shit it just means she read a Reddit post you'd understand and copy and paste it into a congressional bill So anyway, this is all fucking stupid.

Yeah, dude, dude, it is right. You're right. It's like we have people serving in Congress now who see some wild shit on the deepest, darkest parts of the internet that just some other random internet denizen wrote. And then they go try to codify that into American law and stuff. And that's the reality we're living in. So, yeah, pretty wild. All right, let's get into it. So listen, guys, in case you didn't know, on Friday.

The National Labor Relations Board announced that workers at a Volkswagen auto plant in Chattanooga in my home state of Tennessee voted to join the United Auto Workers Union. The union won by 73 percent majority, more than 2,600 votes, a historic feat. This was their third attempt to organize at this plant. It had failed previously in 2014 and 2019. This is the first time a foreign-owned factory in the American South, a region which of course has some of the lowest unionization rates in the country has successfully unionized. And we're about to talk about it and two talk about it. Tonight, our guest, our returning guest friend of the show, John Russell, a reporter

for more perfect union. More perfect union is a nonprofit education, advocacy, and journalism organization with a mission to build power for the working class. Hell yeah, brother. Welcome back to the show. John Russell. Bring him out of here, Matt. Hell yeah.

Brothers, can't believe I missed this conversation about cannibal. That's what I did it. That was pretty crazy. What's going on, guys? We're here to talk about eating the rich, buddy. It's on topic. It's got me in. Did you want to show this video of you interviewing Sean Fane to get this conversation started there, John?

All right, here's John interviewing UAW president, Sean Fane after this historic win. So, thank you, first of all, for sitting down with us. Volkswagen workers just won their union. This is obviously a really significant. moment, but help us understand how significant this moment is and how you feel about it. Well, I mean, it's another mountain moved. You know, we, in our Big Three campaign, you know, we were laughed at for some of our demands we asked for, and we were told, you'll never get this, you'll never get, you can't bargain

for retirees, you'll never get cost of living back, you'll never get to battery EV work under our agreements, and it's the same thing since then. Once we won all those fights in the Big Three contract campaign, and we talked about focusing our moving our focus to organizing in the south. All I kept hearing was, you can't win in the south. You know, it's not been done. It's not possible. And here we are. We've done it. And, you know, it's because, you know, what it means. It's the first domino to fall. This was won by the workers here. So, all right, John, like you said, you know, they said it couldn't be done. And like I'd mentioned, they tried before. So I'm from Tennessee. I got friends. I have one

very good friend in particular who worked at this plant for years. He doesn't anymore. But he was there for a long time. And so I know that this has been an ongoing thing there as had come up before and it had failed miserably in the past. I also know if they're talking to him that some of the tactics that were engaged in to like demonize unions in general and the UAW were pretty wild. But so, I mean, what happened? Why was it so different this time? Why did it get through with 73%? Like what changed? That's a bad. I'm glad you mentioned that at the end because this not only did this pass, not only did workers win a union. The first one is, in the South, after 40 years, this was by a huge margin, 75%, right?

So a lot of it was, you know, you mentioned the past attempts that came close but came up short. The anti-union campaigns were all things that people had heard before. It was a real boy who cried, Wolf thing. And I think the important thing to know about that is that kind of copy and paste over in the politics. I mean, the anti-union talking points are some of the same. stuff that, you know, Republicans will trot out all the time, you know, all they're going to close the plant, they're going to ship the jobs to Mexico, you know, you'll, this, this is somehow

bad, workers having a voice in their job is somehow bad for them, you know. This is all stuff that gets trotted out anytime working people get close to having more control over their lives. And people had just heard it all before. And what happened after they trotted those talking points out and they kept the union out and the other times all those people who came in and said everything was going to go to hell it all went away and people were left holding the bag just like they were before they started so this time around they'd heard it all before and they were ready they were feeling squeezed everybody went through covid and they found out how essential workers really were and they said you know what we got nothing to lose man we got everything to

gain there's new leadership in this union it's time for us to seize our slice of the pie they did it and it's a huge deal well do you think that there's also an element of like uh the cost of living continues to outpace wages and things like that like nobody's dollar goes as far as it used to and it's only gotten worse year over year and so the idea that you know when those when this happened before it's like well it's still a good job or whatever they worked me to death but you know what But now it became more readily apparent to people just how screwed they're getting. And like, is that a larger trend, too? Because I feel like we're seeing a moment for labor in this country, not just in Tennessee or not just in the south.

Is it because people have just, they've just had enough? They've just been pushed too far by this whole thing? I think so. I think you really can't underestimate how big the iceberg is below the tip that we're seeing. And I can't believe that that just came out of my mouth. and I completed the metaphor I was thinking up there. But we are in, I mean, this is late stage capitalism, right? I mean, we have been handing power to corporations for everywhere.

And now we're looking around and everything in our life is expensive. And all of our jobs suck. And, you know, every time there's a sacrifice to be made, it's coming from us, right? And it's the same thing at Volkswagen. I was talking to members there. you know we all think of auto jobs as being this ticket to the middle class i've covered a lot of these strikes i've been up in detroit when the ua w was first doing the big three strike over the summer where they won a ton of stuff which by the way the workers down in vaux wagon in tennessee

were looking at the big three they saw those wins and they said hey we can do it here if they can get that we can get it here that was a big factor of what changed um but uh You know, these, we all think of these auto jobs as a ticket to the middle class. I talk to people who are working this job and also door dashing. You know, I talked to auto workers in Detroit who said you can make $18 at Subway. I mean, these jobs aren't what they used to be. And it's because corporations, no matter what sector they're in, have all the power. And they'll pay you the lowest wage they can get away with.

And this labor movement is really just everybody around us, the people listening. I mean, you've got to realize this isn't just for auto workers, it's for Starbucks workers, it's for wherever you work. People are realizing that if we joined together, we can actually have a say in our workplace and start to turn this around. That's what happened down there. Yeah, no, there was like a lone medieval times. It was striking for a long time. They lost, and that was sad, but it was sort of nice to see them be plucky, but one waffle house were on strike a while back. And I was like, hell yeah, fucking.

I like I love a little moxie So I wanted to ask So there's a lot of different stuff going on the economy And whether or not you'd like like Wealth inequality is awful It's either shrinking or growing less Less quickly depending on which data you look at And Biden's running around bragging about his new tax plan

Which raised money It raised taxes on the wealthy But the reality is it's not going to be able to pass it Because without a fill of robust majority in the Senate Which is not going to get this election Is this the fuck it we'll do it ourselves moment for the working class because it's like right it is man you're damn right it is look i you know i talk to uh i have i'm a lucky person i get to go around and do a journalism job right and you know

i think other journalists would look at me saying that i'm a journalist and probably say uh we don't associate with him but the the thing is is you know i get to go to all these places and and talk to folks and there's a real sense we've all been looking to the police we've all been looking to the arena, the political arena, somebody to vote for to solve these problems that just keep getting more in your face and more unsolvable. At the same time that our politics gets crazier. So the thing that I think is so powerful about the labor movement is people taking it into their own hands. You know, we don't think about everybody values freedom, but we all walk into a workplace and surrender our freedom for, you know, hourly wages or salaries, right?

And it's just that. It's like, hey, I'm going to pay you $15 or $20 an hour to be your king. Does that sound like a good idea to you? You know? And a lot of people are looking around and saying, hey, why don't we have a say in this? And so, you know, I think that's a long way of saying where the political arena is failing, the new labor movement is putting power into the hands of people and they're really feeling it. And that is something that's very contagious.

And we're watching incredible wins happen. We didn't think the big three wins could happen. They got laughed at when they asked for a lot of stuff. Then they won it. Then they didn't stop there. Nobody would have blamed them for playing it's safe. But they said, we're going to go into the South and organize a plan. People haven't seen that happen.

They got laughed at again. And here we are. And the next one's Mercedes. So they're on a roll. Yeah. I want to ask you about Mercedes a little bit. But I, real quick, I like, how did Volkswagen, how the workers feel like Volkswagen was approaching this? Because the context here, the Chamber of Commerce blamed the VW for not actively trying to defeat the union hard enough.

The company decided to reign neutral in the campaign, which really pissed off the Chamber of Commerce. But for context here, Volkswagen's never had a problem with having a union, even at Tennessee, because they're unionized all over the fucking world. And like, let me quote here, they wanted to unionize the plant based around a German-style, Works Council, and Volkswagen considers its corporate culture of works councils a competitive advantage. So it is funny to me that Germans were like, you guys in Tennessee are being too tough on the downtrodden. That just made me laugh. They invented work was set you free for Christ's sakes. So like, why was the Tennessee government in the Chamber of Commerce trying to sabotage a company who thought this was the best way for them to operate? What the fuck?

Because they're dickheads, man. You know, you get. You had six southern governors come out there and say that workers having a say over their workplace would go against the very way of life of the South. That's a statement that they put out, right? And it was just rejected by people in the South and good on them for it, right? You did mention, though, it was pretty funny. Volkswagen is a company that has this principle of co-determination. That's where managers and labor are on,

labor representatives, they're on equal footing over company decisions. So that was another thing that changed when we were down there covering the run-up to this vote. And we, you know, we don't realize this being in America that's not in our culture, co-determination of corporations, not something we consider it. But you had German people down there. Oh, what was the line? The German representative of the Works Council was sitting in a group, a roundtable of all these good old boy Southerners, right? This is last week when I was covering it. And they said, said, you know, I'm sorry, I'm not very good at English. And then one of the good old boys chimes up and says, we ain't either.

You had, you had, you know, you had a lot of people coming in to work for this win. You had the Germans from the Works Council coming over and explaining co-determination to people here. You had Ford workers from Detroit coming in and saying, hey, we won this at the Big three, you can do this down here. And then you're seeing that worker-to-worker communication. Detroit Ford workers talking to Volkswagen, Tennessee workers, Volkswagen, Tennessee workers talking to Mercedes-Alabama workers. This is a real movement that's gaming state.

So I want to talk a little bit about the tactics sort of in line with that, but the tactics that have been successful in the past, you said earlier, it's this time around, oh, it's old hat. They've heard it all before. They don't buy the shit anymore, which is great. I appreciate that. But, like, you know, I think about, like, you know, coal miners, Johnny Paycheck, take this job and shove it, this whole thing.

There's a whole thing of like, you know, fuck you boss man type of mentality in the South. Generally, yet unions have never been able to get a foothold there. Like, what has been affected? And again, I've known guys in this scenario. Is it just like they pretty much get told, hey, would you rather have a union job or no job at all? Because if y'all do this, you ain't going to have no job. Nobody's going to have a job. and you're all going to be fucked.

And that's why you can't do it. Like, is that kind of how they get sold on not unionizing? Or like, what kind of tactics do they employ to scare these people into, you know, not voting for unions in places like these? Yeah. Well, they'll trot out, you know, tried and true talking points. They'll say, oh, well, they'll move the plant to Mexico. Right.

Why didn't they build the plant in Mexico to begin with? It's not like the wages are lower there and higher, you know, here to begin with, right? So you just, it's just these things that you, first time you hear him, you're like, oh, they might do that. Right. Well, the third time you hear them and it doesn't happen, you start to wonder, you know, especially if things get worse in the meantime. Something we haven't talked about yet, though, that I think did contribute to the win.

There was turnover at this plant. You know, 10 years ago, the makeup, the racial makeup of it changed. 10 years ago was a lot more white and male. And I know from other reporters who have covered this before that, you know, past attempts to appeal to, you know, masculinity, right? They work. They said, you don't need somebody stepping in and speaking for you. You speak for yourself, right?

Good luck fighting the company on your own. okay so you know that's something that's been tried it out in the past but like you know as profit margins get narrower and narrower and more power trickles to these companies you know they keep squeezing the workers and they stay there for less time so there were more people now who had been there a year two years three years just enough people left over who had been there 12 years those groups got together and they said what do we have to live? We have everything to get. There's like, one thing I really like about this kind of stuff is like, it feels like something is broken in America where we've lost sight of like why we work. Did it certain degree? Like, I mean, there's a Sean Fane quote in like your interview with him where he talked about how his parents, his grandparents had to leave Tennessee. I guess they were from Tennessee to go to Detroit to get jobs for Chrys or General Motors,

no jobs change their lives because it just wasn't work in Tennessee. And he's like, he's like, why weren't their, why weren't their jobs like that here? And it's like, what, he's, they had to move away from friends and family, which is the, you know, your community, the people you spend time with, the people you enjoy being around in a place you wanted to be because the job there wouldn't support you. Now, I know that there's never going to be any perfect economic system that keeps great jobs in every specific location. But in general, like, there are automotive jobs in Tennessee and they pay like shit right now, right? Until, you know, until this factory opens. And I was thinking about that and I was thinking about quality of life stuff, which obviously nobody votes just their pocketbook. And the anti-union forces know that because one of the billboards is stuck with me in a 2014 anti-autautil workers drive at this Chattanooga plant.

One of the billboards was the UAW wants your guns. And I was like, well, so you recognize that people want dignity. They want dignity outside of work. You know that. and you're lying to them about what that is to give them a different kind of dignity. It's just like, do you think what I'm saying makes sense? I feel like I lost a mind made or something.

No, it makes perfect sense, right? And it's what we are all familiar with. You know, these rich and powerful forces, they can never talk about economics. They can never talk about that because their ideas are horrible for that. ideas are we get all the money you do all the work and we're going to get away with the lowest wage we can possibly pay you do you think that would work in a democracy no it's shit right

nobody wants that it doesn't work in a capitalist economy either because the cars goes to shit because you're making them poorly then you leave town with a bag of money the company goes under and the factory's empty and we're like well what happened to the fucking CEO he's in st. Barts it's like it's not a way to run an economy either is the thing about it no no it's not a way to run a economy but they can't talk about that so they do these crazy things and talk about guns right but you know i feel like even on that um it's the boy who cried wolf thing right how many times have we heard this and i'll say this just to illustrate why i think the labor movement is so hopeful so important at this moment is what i keep seeing when i go out to cover these things

which is you know we're polarized we have you know racial divisions right But the labor movement is where, you know, a white Republican male, a black Democratic female, and everybody in between are forced to look at each other, see each other, understand each other, and stick together or else they both sink. You know, and they're thrown together in this campaign for much more than money. This isn't just about money. this is about control and power over your own life in the place where you spend most of your day away from your family at work, right? So these people are thrown together,

they rely on each other, and it's a way to get across those big racial divides, and I think we need it now, you know? Yeah, no, I mean, you watch some of these videos on, like, videos of the people, the workers in at these plants in Chattanooga, like when the decision came down, oh, it worked, we got it. And it's like a, fuck, it's like a rainbow coalition, man. It's all different types.

of people, white, black, every age, man, woman, whatever, and it's, you watch that, and it's like, this is exactly the type of, exactly the type of unity that, like, threatens the plutocracy so much, you know what I mean? Like, this is the same, like, they want to, you know, turn poor people of all stripes against each other, it behooves them to do that, and they've been largely successful with it, and I think you're right, you watch big labor victories like this, and you can see the potential in it for grander change in this country, and it's like it used, we used, I don't No, it's so, that got lost somewhere along the way we used to, that was happening.

It's like it was working, man, people were coming together. And then it just got dropped and profit, I guess. I don't know. There's a lot, like, like John might know, like I only know of like a vague, I read a, like a disdain labor history blog read by later historian, but like one of the reasons the South is under unionized is there's a lot of like racist, strike breaking tactics people have historically used where it's like, oh, so you all want to be paid the same? you as a white worker

when you be the same but it has been an effective straight breaking tag that's why it's cool when it doesn't fucking work so there you go that's all I want to say

so what do you think about the like prognosticating a little bit here we've alluded to it a couple of times already but some people are saying oh this is the first very important domino to fall when it comes to labor in the south

like what's next in your mind Mercedes and Alabama right that's the next big one that's coming up tell us about that how you feel about it yeah let's get a little broader view here too. I think it's important to remember just how intense this is, right? The leader of the UAW, Sean Fane, is a great person. If you don't know him, you should look him up. He has been elected for 14 months. And the leadership before Sean Fane, only 14 months ago, went to jail. Okay, unions like any other

corporation, democracy, they're susceptible to human things like corruption. Okay. So the prior leadership, They were using member dues to buy boxes of cigars and whatnot. Then there was a reform campaign. This brought Sean Fane in, and a lot of people, and he brought democracy to the union, right? And that's why we're seeing a lot of these organizing drives. Because his campaign turned power into members' hands. They started putting money, millions of dollars, behind new organizing. And that's why they're in the South.

right um this is something that was not prioritized by by previous leaders so they went they went big on the big three they won there they went down to volkswagen said it couldn't be done they won there mercedes they have an interesting strategy here too you know they're not going everywhere all the time they're prioritizing uh their resources in in this stand-up strike is what is is what they're, you know, calling it. They'll say, hey, Mercedes, Alabama, your turn to stand up. And then they focus right there. So I think any time you see them going to a place, you can bet that there's been some good

progress made on the ground and some money invested. I don't want to get into predictions or whatnot. But, and, you know, there's going to be setbacks. But Mercedes, you know, it's a company that is, is less friendly than Volkswagen. Alabama certainly isn't the most friendly territory for this. But I think nonetheless, it's going to be a real fight. And beyond that, Sean Payne himself said, you know, when we come back to the bargaining table, it's not just going to be the big three.

It's going to be the big 12. He's going after Tesla, right? And this is one by one battle after battle. We're going to see it happen. The last thing I want to close on here is May 1, 2028. that is the date that Sean Fane said we want to align all of the union contracts we want to make an appeal to unions make your contracts expire May 1st 2028 everybody knows that people get on Twitter they call for a general strike never happens and it's a little bit crazy this is kind of the first time though that we might see a real unique labor strategy of aligning contracts so everybody goes on strike May 21st 2028 so pay attention to that Do you need to go, John, or can I ask you another question or two? No, please.

Okay. So I'm glad you brought the corruption thing because I saw an interview with a, you did with a worker who was talking about how the three big reasons he had for supporting this union drive. One of them was like seeing the sitting president walk a picket line and stand behind union, the least labor department stand behind unions. The second one was like he called out the Writers Guild strike, which I thought was interesting as inspirational, which is, which is, you know, there's other more inspiring stories in labor. movement. Although, thank you for the shout-out as a car carrying member. But the third one was the corruption angle where he just trusted the institution more. And I just thought that was super cool and important. Was it just cigars or what else were they up to before the

reform movement? Oh, well, you know, $13,000 in one day on only cigars. That, you know, use your imagination. There was a lot of other shit going on there. But, you know, this was it's really a new way that just the point to make there is that this is a new labor movement there's still a lot of sentiment out there especially people not familiar oh you know it's jimmy hoffa and the unions of the 70s mob and all of this look every union's different but by and large we have you know new leadership in a lot of these unions we have people unionizing like Starbucks and trader joes and don't forget there's an amazon labor union okay They only unionize one place, haven't negotiated a contract because it's Amazon, and they're, you know, doing a bunch of crazy shit to make sure that doesn't happen.

But this is a new movement. And you have people like Sean Fane coming into one of the, you know, biggest, most powerful legacy unions and saying, we're going to go one member, one vote. So it's direct democracy. It is putting power in the hands of members. and you see how that resonates with people. And the other thing is this is a, you know, a testament to political courage, right? Guy's only been elected for 14 months.

His election was close. The leaders before him were in jail. Nobody would have blamed them for not reaching for the stars here. But he said, we're going to take a big bet. People are ready for it. We've turned power to their hands. And it's paying off. So I think political courage is something.

about it. So the, uh, Sean Fein's, I'm sorry, Trey. That's right. Sean Fain had a said something I never heard before. He called a big three and the German three. I didn't realize German automakers made like 50% more money and profits than American automakers do and they don't have to be, you have unionized factories in the United States. Is that right? This over my head. I don't know. Oh yeah. I do, but I just saw this quote. This is, I'm quoting from a Paul Blast, one of your co-workers and more perfect union. Yeah, yeah. A piece he wrote. I said, uh, Alabama has only been producing automobiles for less than 30 years, but the state is already a leading exporter of vehicles in the United States.

Most, the biggest export of cars in America is Alabama, I did not see that coming. And for Jeremy Kimbril and Mercedes-Benz worker involved in the UAW push, it's simple. Everybody knows where a Mercedes is. Why would it, why should a worker just because he lives in Alabama, be paid less and be treated worse? That's old-timey fucking thinking, right? And I just like, the South, why is the problem? why is it always southern economy always based upon the promise of free and cheap labor like going back to 1692 you know yeah so john i wanted to ask uh like about we're talking about leadership and all this and how it's like oh it's a new labor movement things are going on as a journalist in this in this field i was wondering what you thought about how much does the biden administration have to do with any of this like mark was saying it's like this is a fuck it we'll do it ourselves moment like

Is that irrelevant? How much, if any, of a part, if they played and what's happening here? Because it has been happening during, you know, Biden's tenure in the past couple of years. So what do you think? What's your perspective on that? We'll go short answer first. And I say very little, but a very important part. Okay. So I want to say this. The administration that you have in there really does make a difference because they appoint people to run the National Labor Relations Board. This is the government agency that determines how powerful unions are. Biden's been very, very good on that front. He's also, and it's important, you know, to have somebody who's doing a job like that.

He's had labor fuck-ups, to be honest. I covered he's Palestine. He lobbied against a rail strike. Beyond having a favorable national labor relations board, which is very important, this is really in the hands. What we're seeing in this new labor movement is made by workers and workers themselves. It's not even Sean Fane. It's not the, it's not the presidents of these unions. It is working people seeing a vehicle to exercise their power and realizing that that's a thing that they can do. I mean, we don't even think about that, you know, in America, right? We don't think about, hey, how can we exercise control over our workplace? We're just conditioned. to do what the boss tells us.

We're in a global moment now where we're starting to really question that and we're finding these old labor routes and kind of inhabiting these organizations that have been dead and gone for a long time with new life. And that's producing favorable leaders who actually listen to people.

And the last thing here is I hope it affects the Democrats. Because along with the death of unions, you know, Democrats used to answer to the organized working class, okay? And then they started taking corporate money and it was like, hey, we're just going to compete with Republicans for corporate money. And you never win with that. Okay, so we got NAFTA and Bill Clinton and all the rest and Democrats kind of became complicit in screwing the working class. And what I hope for, and what I think is, you know, a real thing that we can all start hoping for is that the organized working class becomes the base of the Democratic Party again. And we actually have an opposition

party in this moment where fascism is rising that is worth a damn. Hell yeah, brother. I love that. I think on that note, we can let John go, Mark. But John, I wanted to give you a chance. If you have any kind of like parting thoughts or any way people could support you or the movement generally where you want to direct people, anything like that, please do so. Number one, I want to say thank you to more perfect union. I work for them, and especially my producer Katie Nixdorf on this story. They are really great to work with a lot of them go follow Perfect Union. Shout out to the Tennessee hauler.

Love y'all, but I have my own newsletter, and I hilariously named it the hauler. That is my newsletter, theholler.com. Didn't know there are so many hollers out there. It's a great name, and every one of them is doing great work. So follow both of us if you want to do that. And the last thing, you can follow me on social media at Hey, John Russell. Right on. Thanks, John.

Thank you, John. I thank you, guys. Fantastic, as always. All right. Thanks, brother. All right. I do wanted to say, like, somebody that he bought it because he brought out the mafia, like, one of the reasons unions had the mafia is because the companies had the cops.

And the one thing the president and the governors can do that really helps, that it doesn't seem like much, is to not send in the fucking National Guard. Right. Because the phone's ringing. You don't see the private chat that we have back here that we can see. I had it open now to see what John got here. So I saw you just so y'all know, because I think you, the audience, will appreciate. it. Producer Matt just texted us

in the private chat. Thanking the producer. That's interesting. All right, Matt. Well, we have plenty of time to thank you in between calling for the video and getting the video. So that's the way to go that time. Yeah, there it is. Mark, knocking it out of the park. Out of the park, Mark. Beverly Hayworth

Hittkin says, great show. Thank you very much. That's mostly due to John. Me and Mark were flailing before he got here in case you missed it. La Dragon de Jardine says, Came in late, but John rocks. Yeah, indeed, indeed. Yeah, go back and watch the rest of it.

You can watch the rest of it. Anyway, Freya says already signed up at More Perfect Union. Yeah, support them, doing good work over there. And John Orbit Bainbridge has much love John and love More Perfect Union. Oh, I meant to, because John said, I'm not a real journalist,

he just go out and talk to people. That's what a journalist is supposed to do, not send the studio and read spreadsheets. but like so like uh you are out there doing it john but also i wanted to say like one of the things that's really cool a more perfect union if you go follow their stuff is they go out and talk to workers you might have noticed as a business section in the newspaper but no labor section so like if you they go out and talk hey are you made enough money what could be better at your job they're like oh here's a no one ever asked that it's nice that someone's asking that so yeah yeah and that uh red wave

of ketchup says smash the like button y'all thank you redway please do, smash that like button, subscribe, share, tell your friends, helps with the algorithm and engagement and all these internet words that I don't actually understand what they mean, but I've heard that it helps. So thank y'all for doing those things. Do the internet things. We appreciate it. But yeah, I was hoping we'd get to it and you got to it right at the very end. The idea, like he said, you know, his hope is that it can become, like the working movement can become a foundational part of the future of the Democratic Party or whatever, because I've always, and we've talked about it plenty of times, long lamented the fact that that got lost, that that would, because that used to be. I mean, really, before I can even remember that used to be the case.

And then for my entire life, it's just been lost. And now, like so many working people fucking hate Democrats. And it's a goddamn shame because it would not be that way because Republicans fuck them over at every turn. So they need to figure it out. Need to claw that back. Yep. It'd make a big difference, especially in economic matters. Yeah.

Spring Lizard says, thank you for such an informative show. Love to celebrate good news, right? I know. We don't get to do that very often around here. It is nice. Something we didn't get to that I wanted to mention. This isn't just a victory for workers at that factory because, like, I brought this up before, but studies show that unions reduce wage inequality, improve workplace conditions and increase the wages of both union and non-union workers because it makes the job environment more competitive in whatever town the union's in. And if you want to compete with this Volkswagen factory and you run a plant down the street, you better fucking come off off your those dollars, man. So like it helps everybody. That's like it's not just a victory for people at that plan. It's a victory for the state of Tennessee and the people of Chattanooga. And so many companies out there that have unionized in the past are still somehow against all odds managing to keep the lights on and stay operating. They did not get thrown up, put under, by having their employees unionized. Weirdly, they somehow rallied together, management did, and found a way to survive despite having unionized employees, testament to their resolve, I suppose.

Not only that, they do better. Right, yeah. Again, everyone in Germany. It's hard we never have. Yeah. Right. Because when people like going to work and feel value, they do better jobs. It's crazy.

We got Kraft Dinner here who's been here before because I remember me and Mark talked about. What is Kraft Dinner? That's how I know they're a Canadian. Says, miss the Vancouver show. Hope you enjoyed the visit. I did. Well, I mean, I was in and out. Unfortunately, came in, did the show and I had to leave to go to Seattle the next day.

But Vancouver is a lovely city. I got up there and I was freaking out kind of talking to my opener. And I've done, that's the second show I've done in Vancouver. and I've also done Calgary and Edmonton, but not in like five years. And I was telling my, the host, before we went on, who's a Canadian guy, Abdul. And Abdul of Z's, very funny guy. Shout out to him, Canadian comic. I was like, dude, my shit is so American.

It's like, it's not, like, so much of it is not even, like, overtly political or whatever, but all of it is very culturally American, I feel like. So much about, you know, like, even the South. Like, what does Canada know about these? American South or what that means or any of this shit. You know, I started thinking all that. I was like, thank you're fucking, you're not going to get whatever. And he was like, he was like, dude, we're aware.

You know, he was like, you guys are the spectacle that we all can't turn away from. So we're very aware of what you have going on. Vancouver is literally, you can throw a rock from American hit it, right? That's what he said too. He said, also Vancouver is the most American Canadian city. So you'll be fine. And it was fine. It was fun.

And if you think Canadians don't have rednecks, watch Letter Kenny? No, I know that. For sure. Later Kenny, Trailer Park, boys, I recommend the YouTube video out for a rip. That's a good one. Anyway, yeah, they definitely got rednecks. Betty Veronica 2.0 says taking a friend for her birthday to see Trey's show. Well, that'd be fun.

I don't know which city you're talking about, but it'd be a good time regardless. On that note, once again, I remind you, go to Trey Crowder.com and check out on my upcoming tour dates. I've had a little bit of time off other than those, the shows we just mentioned. But starting in mid-May, I'm back on the road and back on it heavy for pretty much the rest of the year. that graphic will be updated in the near future. We've got stuff going all the way through 2025 already and still adding more. So I'm going everywhere. Come to Treycrider.com and check out the dates and come and see me.

Also on the website and find a link to me and Corey's book, which is still on sale at Audible. The audio book is on sale for the rest of the month of April. So check that out. And lastly, support the show and get more of it by signing up on Patreon, weekly skews.com slash more or just go on Patreon and search for my name. $5 a month, full-link bonus episodes. We're doing another one this week.

It's going to be fun. Most importantly, y'all keep watching us on skewses, and we'll keep doing it. We'll see you in seven days. Love you by.