What A Day - The Labor Movement Goes PRO

Episode Date: July 22, 2021

Hundreds of Uber and Lyft drivers went on strike yesterday across nearly a dozen cities in the U.S. to call for the passage of the PRO Act, which would allow employees to unionize and gain greater wage transparency and better benefits. In other labor news, workers at the Frito-Lay plant in Kansas have entered their third week in a strike against poor working conditions.The #FreeBritney Movement hits Congress as members of the House of Representatives this week proposed the FREE Act, a bipartisan bill that would grant individuals like Britney Spears the right to request for their private guardian or conservator to be replaced.And in headlines: drug manufacturers reach a $26 billion opioid settlement with state AGs, central China faces extreme flooding, and scientists in the United Arab Emirates electrocute clouds to produce rainstorms.Show Notes:LA Times: “Uber and Lyft drivers strike over pay, gig-work conditions” – https://lat.ms/3BuWMf1New Yorker: “How the Elderly Lose Their Rights” – https://bit.ly/2Us9vOZFor a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday

It's Thursday, July 22nd. I'm Travelle Anderson. And I'm Gideon Resnick. And this is What A Day, where we're treating ourselves to a bunch of new masks in the world's most tragic shopping spree. I've resorted instead to going into the trash can to find the old ones. I'm at a low point. I do not believe that is the CDC's suggestion, so maybe not do that going forward.

On today's show, how Giannis celebrated scoring 50 points in the Milwaukee Bucks' first NBA championship in 50 years with a match 50 chicken nuggets. Plus, the United Arab Emirates is trying to fight water scarcity by launching drones that cause rain. But first, hundreds of Uber and Lyft drivers in dozens of cities across the country went on a 24-hour strike yesterday.

That's a former driver, Daniel Russell, leading a protest in Los Angeles. Gideon, what are they pushing for? Yeah, so this was all organized by Rideshare Drivers United. And one big thing that they were talking about wanting outside of California is for the federal government to pass legislation that would allow these workers to unionize, a.k.a. the PRO Act. So labor is an issue that we've covered frequently on the show, but as a quick refresher here, the PRO Act would do things like allow the National Labor Relations

Board to fine companies for violating employees' rights to unionize and a whole lot more. Plus, it would make it harder for companies like Uber to just classify their workers as independent contractors. And for protesters in California, that was a particular sticking point. Yes, it was. And that goes back to Prop 22, the ballot measure that voters in the state passed last year. That was financed by companies like Uber and Lyft, and it basically invalidated a state law that would have made rideshare drivers specifically employees entitled to benefits. The companies claimed that it would be better for drivers, but former drivers like Daniel Russell said yesterday that this was all a bait and switch. PAP 22 was a law written to defeat us. We had won our rights in the state of California court system.

And these companies decided not to follow that law. They decided not to pay their drivers fairly. Instead, they decided to write their own law and then sell it to the public with $200 million of false advertising. Yeah, and here's one example of how drivers have been really hurting in California. So Uber made changes in April where they basically stopped linking what drivers would earn from the fare that passengers actually paid. So if a customer paid surge pricing, for instance, the drivers would get a flat bonus from that ride as little as three bucks instead of a percentage of that higher fare. And then on top of that, when demand tanked for rideshare options last year, many drivers declined to

return to these jobs citing the pandemic, lack of transparency in pay and the inability to organize and unionize for better benefits. We'll have a link in our show notes so you can get even more details behind how drivers say they're getting shortchanged here. As someone who has used these services in LA, New York, and Chicago over the last few weeks, I'm kind of upset that I've been paying more and the drivers haven't been getting and seeing any of the benefits.

Yeah, seriously. But Gideon, there was a lot of other labor news going on yesterday too. Yeah, that's right. So we've talked was a lot of other labor news going on yesterday, too. Yeah, that's right. So we've talked about Amazon. We've talked about Alabama coal miners and more on the show. But there is yet another story that we want to highlight here as well. There is an ongoing three-week-long strike of workers at a Frito-Lay factory in Topeka, Kansas.

Force over time causes divorces. It caused people to kill themselves that used to work here. Okay, there have been several employees that have killed themselves, okay, that have worked here over the years. Okay, this is a continual thing. Yeah, that's the voice of worker Mark McCarter, courtesy of the outlet More Perfect Union. So hundreds of workers there are in their third week of a strike. And among their many complaints, they say that they work up to 84 hours a week with no days off. And inside the warehouse, reportedly temperatures can reach over 100 degrees. There are some really grim images out there of what this all looks like.

And due to staffing shortages, many workers have been forced to add four more hours before or after eight-hour shifts. They call them suicide shifts. McCarter also talked with Vice News and said, quote, one guy died a few years ago and the company had people pick him up, move him over to the side, and put another person in his spot without shutting the business down for two seconds. Truly horrifying.

Workers recently went back to the bargaining table with management and they've called for a boycott of Frito-Lay and PepsiCo products, which owns Frito-Lay, while the strike is ongoing. We're going to return to this soon and hopefully have some more workers on the show to talk about all of this and more. But Travelle, let's turn to another story here. You've been following Britney Spears as she fights out of her conservatorship. So where does that all stand? Yes. So a number of our elected Congress members are apparently joining the hashtag free

Brittany movement. A couple of days ago, two members of the House of Representatives, that is Florida Democrat Charlie Crist and South Carolina Republican Nancy Mace, proposed the Freedom and Right to Emancipate from Exploitation Act, aka the Free Act. This bill, if passed, would grant individuals like Brittany the right to ask that their private guardian or conservator who is appointed by a judge be replaced. Currently, the only way to have a conservator or guardian replaced is by proving in court that some actual abuse or fraud has occurred. The hope is that this bill would provide greater accountability and potentially remedy the dearth of data on guardianships and conservatorships in the United States.

It was estimated by the National Center for State Courts in 2011, so a decade ago, which is the most up-to-date information I could find, that there were 1.5 million active guardianships. But apparently there aren't any mechanisms in place to track their efficacy, and therefore we don't really know how abusive these arrangements can sometimes be. A note, you'll hear me use both conservatorship and guardianship so that you know the difference. A conservator controls just the financial affairs of an individual, whereas a guardian controls all aspects of a person's life. So they're different, but in practice, perhaps not so much. Thank you for saying that before I stupidly asked. So all of this attention around Britney's case might actually help others around the country, which could be great as well. But what's the latest in her case specifically? So Ms. Spears is beyond fed up with her family is the best way I can put it.

About a month ago, she appeared in court and gave an impassioned speech about all the foolishness she's experienced since the conservatorship began in 2008 and gave her father, Jamie, broad control over her life and finances. Jamie started off as co-conservator. Then in 2019, he was temporarily made the sole executor of the pop star's estate. Last year, Britney tried to get Jamie removed and lost. Now she's in the process of trying to get the entire conservatorship terminated. Over the weekend, she took to social media and had very clear words about how she feels. Quote, my so-called support system hurt me deeply. This conservatorship killed my dreams. So all I have is hope.

And hope is the only thing in this world that is very hard to kill. As of this week, Brittany has a new court appointed lawyer. And there's a slight difference in how he's talking about this case and the words we've heard from Brittany herself. She stated that she wants the conservatorship terminated and to charge her father with conservatorship abuse. Meanwhile, her new lawyer said Monday that his focus is on removing her father, Jamie, as a conservator, which many have interpreted to mean that there may be a desire to maintain the oversight that comes with conservatorship, but just under another person. Potentially shady. Very much so.

Regardless of the specifics, we'll get more details come the next court date, which is on Monday. Okay, so very soon. And conservatorships, though, are getting put under this microscope lately. It's an industry that doesn't really have a lot of transparency into how it works and the regulations actually in place. Right. So prior to this iteration of the free Britney movement, there was a Netflix film from earlier this year called I Care A Lot that touched on some of these issues. Here's a clip of that movie with Marla, a conservator, played by the star of our podcast, Edith Rosamund Pike. Jennifer, listen to me carefully.

I don't lose. I won't lose. I'm never letting you go. I own you. And I will drain you of your money, your comfort, and your self-respect. Yikes. There's also a number of investigative stories across the country that we can link to

in our show notes about this industry. And there was a previous measure aimed at reforming guardianships and conservatorships introduced in 2019, but it failed to move beyond the House Judiciary Committee. Which brings us back to the current bipartisan bill seeking support. Though advocates are in favor of it, seeing it as a stepping stone to reform, they also know that it does fall short of addressing more systemic issues. For example, the bill does not make it easier to end a guardianship or conservatorship. It also does not encourage state courts, which largely oversee such arrangements, to use alternatives to conservatorship first and foremost. Rick Black, who's executive director of the Center for State Administration Reform and helped shape the bill,

told the New York Times, quote, the free act is just a start, but it will drive discussions to hopefully give us statistics to help quantify the issues to help introduce real reforms and prosecute those who execute these crimes. Florida Democrat Charlie Crist, who co-sponsored the bill, said it's designed to be narrow in order to actually attract bipartisan support. So we'll see soon if that actually happens. But that's the latest for now. It's Wednesday, WOD Squad, and for today's Temp Check, we are discussing appropriate post-game meals. So after carrying the Milwaukee Bucks to victory in the NBA Finals on Tuesday night, MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo live-streamed his trip to Chick-fil-A in Wisconsin

where he ordered 50 chicken nuggets to celebrate the 50 points he scored to beat the Phoenix Suns. Here is a clip of Giannis talking to a Chick-fil-A employee. Can I have a 50 piece? Sorry, I will put you, can I put your camera? Do you mind or no? Sure. There's 150,000 people watching you right now. Really? Yes. So can I have please a 50 piece mac minis 50 exactly not 51 none 49 chicken minis yes 50 and um let me have a large drink no ice half sprite half lemonade okay i i personally think that the drink order has not gotten enough attention in all of this. But anyway, Giannis apparently had both the NBA championship trophy and his MVP trophy with him in the back seat. And he referred to them as his babies. He also asked the manager of the restaurant to give him free Chick-fil-A

for life, but wasn't able to score a commitment. So Travell, your thoughts on this postgame celebration and what would be your version of Giannis' 50 nuggets? So I admit, I know very little about sports ball, but shout out to him. I think my postgame celebration, I mean, I'm a fan of fried chicken in any shape or form. So nuggets, you can give me some wings, you can give me, you know, a thigh. And I'll take it from literally any of the fast food joints.

What about you? Okay. I think that everybody is underselling what they could get in a circumstance like this. Like, why not? Why not say, like, take the 50, you know, comparison to the extreme here and say, like, everything comped for 50 days, right? Like, wherever I walk in, be it a restaurant that has fried chicken,

be it a place that I'm going for a new shirt, it's free because, you know, look what I've done. Just see how far you can extend the grace that people will have to you after you've made them very happy for a little while. It feels like a stretch. I'm not going to lie,, you know, try it out. Why not? Yes.

Thank you for your support. I assume if you're an NBA player of this caliber, everything's basically comped anyway. But God bless Giannis and Milwaukee. We'll be back after some ads. Let's wrap up with some headlines. Headlines. Johnson & Johnson and three major drug distributing companies for their role in helping fuel a deadly nationwide opioid epidemic. The national deal lays the framework for money to begin flowing into communities for addiction treatment and prevention services. It also bans J&J from making or marketing opioids for the next decade. Now states and local governments can decide whether

to accept the deal and suspend their lawsuits. And doing so would relieve some of the biggest pharmaceutical companies from legal liability in the opioid epidemic, which has been a decades-long public health crisis in America, killing hundreds of thousands of people. Extreme flooding in central China from the heaviest rainfall on record trapped commuters inside flooded subway cars, underground malls, and hospitals this week. People formed human chains to avoid being swept away by the raging waters, while others called for help on social media as they waited for rescue rafts to arrive. Across the province, over a million people were affected by the floods, be it through displacement, property loss, or blackouts, and at least 25 people have been killed, with seven missing. The rain has now eased up, but there have been conflicting reports about the collapse of dozens of dams and reservoirs. Ultimately, reports on the extent of the damage must be taken with a grain of salt,

since the Chinese government has historically downplayed natural disasters and censored media coverage to silence public dissatisfaction with prevention and rescue efforts. Horrifying stuff. Yesterday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took the unprecedented action of barring two Republican lawmakers nominated by minority leader Kevin McCarthy from joining a committee to investigate the January 6th Capitol insurrection. Pelosi blocked Representatives Jim Banks and Jim Jordan, saying she was concerned about statements they'd made and actions they had taken. Both lawmakers voted against certifying the 2020 election results hours after mobs stormed the Capitol and helped spread Trump's lies about a stolen election. In retaliation, McCarthy pulled all five Republicans he had picked to sit on the committee

and said the GOP would launch its own investigation. Excellent. Which we'll presumably discover that Rudy Giuliani, Newsmax, and Trump only stoked violence because they were under Antifa mind control operated by Dominion Voting Systems, I'm sure. As of now, the bipartisan January 6th committee seems to be unraveling with Representative Liz Cheney set to serve as the group's lone Republican. It should not take this much to hold people accountable, but that's democracy, right? I guess so.

We're entering the mad scientist phase of fighting climate change with meteorologists in the United Arab Emirates using airborne electrical shocks to produce rainfall as the country battles a brutal heat wave. Temperatures in the UAE have recently topped 125 degrees, which is disgusting, and there's typically no rainfall there in the summer. But rather than sitting idly by and letting the atmosphere decide how it wants to conduct itself, researchers and officials in the UAE have taken matters into their own hands. They've launched a program that sends drones into the sky to electrocute clouds, thereby causing small droplets to pull together into larger drops and creating rainstorms. Water is a major concern in the UAE, where the population is rising rapidly and access to natural water resources is scarce. Desalination has been used successfully in the country, but becoming the gods and kings of the clouds could be a useful technique to supplement it. Yeah, just be Zeus

and solve climate change. Why have we not thought of this before? Where is Hercules when you need him. And those are the headlines. One more thing before we go. It's that time of year. We want to know more about you, what you think of the show, and what we can do to make Crooked content even better for you. If you love it, we want to know. And if you hate it, we still want to know. Just don't name me.

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I'm Travelle Anderson. I'm Gideon Resnick. And release Rudy Giuliani's mind, Antifa. I mean, release a lot of minds, okay? Not just that one. Please. Please. And take the weird drippy stuff on his forehead as well. That would be nice

what a day is a production of crooked media it's recorded and mixed by charlotte landis sonia tun and jazzy marine are our associate producers our head writer is john milstein and our executive producers are leo duran akilah hughes and me our theme music is by colin gilliard and Kashaka.