May 22, 2012 • 48 mins
Yes, it's true: Unions have a shady mob-related past and were originally championed by anarchists. Born from medieval trade guilds, these organizations also helped grow the American economy, and not only protected but established workers' rights.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to you stuff you should
know from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always
is Charles W. Chuck Bryant, which makes this stuff you
(00:24):
should know. Heck no, we won't go. Heck no, we
won't record. That's more along the lines of what we're
talking about better paper podcasters. Yeah, as a matter of fact,
we could get together with like Adam Curry and um
Joe Rogan and maybe even Ira and form like some
(00:47):
sort of local He would be our Jimmy Hoffa. Ira
would be Is it a threat? No? Are you threatening?
I glad I know he would be our Jimmy. He
would make things happen. James P. Hoff Uh, the one
that the current team's church president. Either one I'm not
saying get rid of him burying a giant stadium from saying,
IRA would make it happen. He would break legs. It
(01:10):
need be. There's a leg breaking goon. Um. So for
those of you who have already seen the title of
this you are you are you understand the banter? I
guess if you have no idea what we're talking about,
I'll bet you guessed by now that we're talking about
labor unions. It's a good one man, that we had
(01:32):
this request a lot last year from when the whole
Wisconsin Scott Walker things, I know, and we're just now
getting to it because the Scott Walker thing is like
my intro. Well, let's hear it. So do you remember
last year in Wisconsin. Yes, there was this big hubbub
that was going on. A lot of people were wondering
(01:53):
if this is going to be like the beginning of
the Arab Spring in the United States. This is going
to be the flash point for it because Governor Scott
Walker was accused of trying to deunionize the public sector
employees State Employees UM through a little bit of legislation
that he was trying to introduce. That is very true,
(02:15):
and it caused quite a stir like thousands of protesters. Yeah,
there was some serious protests going on UM and at
the heart of this whole thing was some legislation where
he was trying to get the public sector employees unions
UM to get their union members e g. The public
or i e. The public sector employees I E means
(02:37):
that is e g is for example. But I realized
that uh, to basically pay in half of their pensions, UM,
to give up some other concessions like um, if they
were going to get a raise, it had to be
through public referendum. Yeah, anything over the rate of inflation,
I think yeah, UM. But probably the biggest one was
(03:00):
that they were stripped of their ability to collectively bargain.
And it worked, it got pushed through, and now if
you are a state employee union member in Wisconsin, you
can't collectively bargain anymore, which means you are effectively neutered
as a union member. In a lot of ways. That
(03:21):
is one of the hallmarks of the unions. And depending
on where you come from, what you believe who raised you,
whether or not your grandpa was still alive when you
were old enough to understand what he was talking about,
UM that. I think that largely depends on how you
feel about unions. A lot of people think they're a
(03:41):
good thing. A lot of people think they're bad. A
lot of people think they're necessary, A lot of people
think they're evil. A lot of people think they're necessary evil,
and in fact they're kind of America as it stands
as kind of split down the middle these days. A
pew pole that was taken during this whole bub in Wisconsin,
(04:02):
UM showed that of Americans had a positive view of
organized labor, which I found surprising. You thought that was high, Yeah,
I was. I was surprised because the the decline of
union has also been attended by a change in perception
towards them, you know, like they're kind of bad, or
(04:22):
that they hamstring business is another big one. UM. But
they also found that still believe unions are needed to
improve working people's lives so necessary. Evil. I nailed it,
you did, And unsurprisingly, a lot of times your feelings
on unions are drawn along political lines these days. They're
(04:42):
often expecially of being like the an organizing backbone for
the Democratic Party. Sure, but that's not always true, Like
very frequently unions throw their waiting their support behind Republicans
as well. At any rate, let's get to the bottom
of what all this is. Are our unions good? We're
(05:03):
probably going to avoid this kind of qualitative descriptor and
instead just kind of stick to the facts and let
the people decide. Power to the people to decide whether
unions are good or not. I think that's a good move. Josh. Uh,
So we got stats. We'll get to those later unions josh. Uh.
(05:25):
Industrial revolution is kind of where actually we go back further,
which we will with what medieval times. Yeah, the the
trade guilds. Trade guilds sort of where the beginnings seeds
of unions and uh. They originally sort of came about
though just too uh swap techniques and recipes and uh.
(05:48):
Then that sort of evolved a bit into hey, why
don't we get together and also share aside from our knowledge,
get together and maybe share expertise on how to how
to do things better and get better wages maybe or
fixed prices. That's one before they figured out that that
was um, immoral. This is medieval Europe a long time ago. Yeah. Uh.
(06:12):
And the trade guilds, um, we're definitely the origin of unions.
It's just a bunch of workers getting together and figuring
out because it is essentially what a union is that
they have um more strength than numbers, um. And it's
also an indication of workers understanding their value in the
(06:32):
production process that what they're essentially doing in return for
their salary was producing a profit. For business. Do you
have labor in business? Right? And UM, that gives them
a certain sense of value, whereas UH, and a lot
of situations, workers feel like, you know, they're very grateful
(06:53):
for their job and they don't want to make any
waves or anything like that, and they're not fully aware
of their value UM and unions. One of the roles
that unions plays to point out to a worker, Hey,
you're doing something in return. This isn't some sort of
welfare situation that you're involved in. You're producing labor and
that has value and certain rights as well. Exactly. All right,
(07:16):
So flash forward a bit to the Industrial Revolution nineteenth century. Uh,
things moved away a little bit from agriculture. UH, and
agricultural jobs moved into the factories, as we all know,
and kind of right off the bat, factories weren't a
good scene for fair wages and safe conditions and kids
(07:37):
working in factories and women and children not being paid
as much as men. Um. Triangle shirtwaist fire. That was
a big turning point. What was the triangle shirtwaist company
fire where the working conditions were really really dangerous? That
it was a clothing company, clothing manufacturer, I think in
Chicago or New York, I can't remember. Um, and it
(08:00):
caught fire, the factory did because there was all this
fabric in the air and it just ignited in the
whole place went up and all of these women had
to jump to their deaths. And UM, that kind of
brought in, brought working conditions into a limelight and help
the union. Um sentiment. I guess a flash point if
(08:22):
you will, exactly from your favorite Mr Cladwell the heath
flash point, tipping point, tipping point, good lord, get it together, Chuck, okay,
I've got it together now, tipping point. I had to
take a little break. Uh. In the nineteenth century, they
(08:42):
would do things called striking. Yeah, they still do today,
but back then it was a more uh contentious and
violent affair than it is today. Like people died, bombs
went off, guns were shot. There was and it was
on both sides too, I mean, like the workers were striking.
(09:03):
The point was the whole was the same, where we're
not working anymore and you're not going to make any
money because we're not producing the product that you need
to go sell. Right. Um. But during these times, like
the National Guard would show up, or um, the cops
would show up, or maybe the Pinkerton Detective Agency would
(09:23):
show up and just start beating the tar out of
the striking workers in order to scare them back into working. Uh.
Workers also would um defend themselves. Uh. There was this one.
I can't remember what strik it was. I just read
about it, where like the workers managed to like chase
the cops off because they were they were shooting two
(09:44):
pound hinges in these oversized sling shots like at the cops.
And I can imagine getting hit by a two pound hinge.
Was a hinge factory, I had to have them. But yeah,
so the strikes were very violent. People like you said,
would die and the cops like why couldn't the cotton
ball factory had been Uh but not funny though, because
(10:05):
people did die. Uh, not making light of it. Like
at the Haymarket riot for incidents for incidents, that was
a big one for instance. That was a turning point,
a flash point, if you will. It was early May, um,
there was a nationwide strike saying we only want to
work eight hours a day. Um, And in Chicago's Haymarket
there was a violent protest. UM. Not a lot of
(10:27):
people were there because the weather, thank goodness, because someone
threw a bomb into the crowd. Yeah, went off, and
shots were fired by the cops, maybe by the protesters.
Probably they were not just striking labors, but they were
anarchists there, and uh, you know this anarchist their trouble. Well, Um,
(10:48):
this is one of the places where in the public
imagination at least that anarchists and socialists became married to
labor like pro labor. Um, and it's always kind of
haunted labor unions. Is that idea? But it was born
out of this era, if not this riot, I'm sure. Uh.
(11:08):
In the end, eight people were charged and convicted. Um.
The labor leaders tried to get them out, saying this
is not fair. One of the people committed suicide by
placing a stick of dynamite in his mouth in prison,
and uh. In the end, in a few years later,
the governor of Illinois granted a full pardon to the
(11:30):
remaining three convicted, and that ended up leading to an
observance of May Day or Labor Day in other countries. Right,
May first, it is supposed to be labor Day. Um.
This whole affair, though, you left out that four of
the guys who were convicted were hanged, and then one
guy committed suicide, and then three were but they were
(11:51):
charged with like basically agitating violence. Um. This was back
when free speech wasn't protected quite as much as it
is out right. Um. But the they and they were
pardoned and as a result, this whole Mayday thing, this
Labor Day thing, came up about in May one. But
then within like five years Grover Cleveland was like, well,
(12:11):
this is kind of a sordid, like scary association with labor.
Let's just celebrate labor and I'm going to move it to.
Um the first Saturday, now, the first Monday, Monday in September,
it was Saturday, be no good, wouldn't get off work? Exactly? Uh?
Did he move it to to disassociate from that? Interesting specifically,
(12:32):
So that's why you can't wear white after September September exactly.
That's exactly the origin of that. All right, So maybe
let's talk about some of the basics of a labor union, josh. Um.
There's many different kinds, and like you said, it's all
about strength and numbers to get together to form what's
(12:53):
called a bargaining unit um with an elected leader to
deal with the employer right, because I mean, think about it.
If you are, if you have somebody who's advocating for
your success, for your rights, higher wages, better conditions, whatever
it might be. Um, you are removing yourself to a
(13:14):
certain extent from that negotiation. So it's a little less
sticky for you because you're not talking to your employer.
You're not saying, I really want some more money. Somebody
else is going These guys are making a bunch of
money for you, and you need to share it a
little better like an agent exactly right in a way.
And at the same time, you also have that element
(13:37):
of that bargaining unit being a collective bargaining unit, meaning
there's that strengthen numbers, so it's a bunch of people
becoming satisfied at the same time. And implied in there
is if you don't do this, then you're gonna lose
a bunch of people all at once and you're gonna
have some trouble. Right And Uh, they do this uh
(13:57):
agreement in the form of the c b A collective
bardying Agreement, and any fan of any professional sports will
understand what a c b A is and how tinuous
they can be. Uh. Once you have negotiated this agreement,
and everyone on the employer sizes, you know, we can
live with these terms. And everyone on the employee side said, yeah,
(14:18):
we can live with this. We both give a little bit.
They sign it, and uh, it is set for a
certain period of time and you cannot break the c
BA on either side without there being legal action or
grievance is filed, which usually means an arbitrator will come
in and say, you know, let me get involved. UM.
You I feel like just hit the nail on the head. Though,
(14:40):
for an ideal union presence in business, everyone give a
little you know, you can't have UM too much for
on one side or the other. But I think that
that's kind of the history of UM. The presence of
unions in business in America, it's been If you look
over time, it's maybe even down, but if you look
(15:02):
at in any specific decade, it's more on one side
than the other as far as who's in the beneficial
position or who's asking more, who's extracting more? Like UM.
Samuel Gompers, who who got together the American Federation of Labor,
I think when he was asked what the a f
L wanted, his answer was more. Yeah. Yeah, but at
(15:26):
the same time you have to say, well, business isn't
gonna just say just give it away. Very rarely do they. Um.
The whole presence of unions is to extract that. At
least that was the original idea of them. Yeah, you know. Uh, unions,
like any organization, costs a little money to run. Um,
(15:47):
so you have to pay dues. It's a membership thing. Um.
If I was in the Screen Actors Guilled, which I'm not,
I would pay dues to the Screen Actors Guilled every
year to keep my membership current and then they would
go fight for me and they would have a staff
that gets paid out of that money. Um. I love
in here that this is dues vary, but many are
(16:08):
around fifty dollars a month. What a deal? Yeah, I
think it's it's completely varies depending on what union you're in.
I don't know that you can put an average number,
or maybe you can if you average it, well, if
you counted them all up. And I don't think that's
what they did here. Um, it was fifty dollars a month. Um.
Act Now. Uh. They're also supposed to be democracies with
(16:29):
elected officials, elected leaders who UM take action based on
referendums and votes and basically just using UM voting to
take the pulse of the union members to see what
they want to do. Ideally, that's how it works. Yeah,
I get the feeling that doesn't always work that way
throughout history. Yeah, especially once the mob got involved, which
(16:52):
we'll get to UM a lot of times. You can
be uh local union member, which is sort of like
being a fraternity member of a larger national charter. Uh.
And if you're a local union, that means that you
maybe work in that same business sector, but you're employed
by a different company. But it's like, hey, I'm in
(17:15):
the and I keep going back to film business stuff
because they were lousy with unions still are like hey,
I'm I work in the art department. I'm a prop
sky so I'm a member of the local I can't
remember the number union here in Atlanta, but it's a
national charter probably pushed out of l A, not mistaken.
It's like UM, a chapter of a fraternity or a sorority. Yeah,
(17:38):
which is what I said. Yeah, did you say fraternity
a sorority? No, you didn't, that's a fraternity. You didn't.
You didn't add sorority. No, no, good point authorities as well, chuck, Um,
what's the point of all this? I think we've kind
of touched on a little bit of it, like and
especially in the strength and numbers thing. But there's other
(17:59):
benefit it's too being in a union. Correct. Yeah. Um,
should we throw out some stats here? I think this
is high time for stats. Your wages, For one, your
median weekly income, it's gonna be as a union member,
about nine hundred and forty dollars. Uh, it's gonna be
about seven hundred and thirty dollars if you're non union. UM,
(18:22):
let me see her. You've got some about healthcare? Correct? Oh? Yeah,
So eight eight percent of union workers and this is
from the Department of Labor. This isn't like from the
A F L C, I O or anything. UM percent
of UM union workers have health coverage. Of non union
workers don't do. UM. It's the same with dental plans
(18:46):
and the disparities even more pent of non union workers
have dental plans, where something like sixty six percent have
a dental plan. If you're a member of a union, UM,
half of union jobs have vision yeah coverage, and only
about a quarter of non union jobs, UH have it,
(19:07):
which in reading this also I was kind of like, man,
we have pretty good benefits here Discovery. Yeah, we do.
You know, Uh, if you're a minority, if you're a woman,
African American or Latino, you're gonna make more money. Women
earn about nine thousand more a year if you're in
a union, African Americans eight thousand more year, and Latinos
close to twelve thousand more year if you're a union member.
(19:29):
So aside from uh, safe working conditions and health insurance
and things like that, which are great, wages are really
the big deal, right Wages benefits UM pensions are another
huge um and they're also there to um protect workers
(19:50):
from being unjustly fired. So like we're non union and
we could if somebody could come in here and say,
you know what, I didn't the way that you looked
at your boss. I saw you scowling. You're fired. You're fired,
you're fired, you're fired. And we'd be like, you can't
do that, and they'd be like, oh, yes we can,
(20:11):
and that would be that right. Um. There was like
a big hubbub in Florida about some uh some workers
that all wore orange either depending on who you ask
because they were all going happy already together that night,
or because they were um simulating a prisoner garb to
um protest the working conditions at this law firm, which
(20:33):
is really what they were doing, and like twelve of
them were fired. They were just taking into a conference
room and the guy was like, you're all fired and
that's that. And they're like, you can't fire us for
wearing an orange shirt, and actually, yes, very much so.
The since it's a work right to work state or
an at will work state right to work um, the
(20:53):
the the the employer very much can fire you for
wearing something that's seemingly arbitrary, is wearing orange. If you're
a union member, that is not the case. The union
protects you from unjust dismissal and basically you if you
feel like you've been fired for wearing orange, you can
go to your union rep and a big stink comes about.
(21:15):
That's another big one is protecting them. But I also
feel like here is a good point to mention a
lot of the criticisms of unions because that same protection
from unjust dismissal um Unions are frequently criticized for that
extending to workers who perform poorly, if like, it's part
(21:36):
of that give I think with unions among labor to say, okay,
yes we're gonna protect you, but you have to be productive,
or you have to be good at your job or whatever. Right,
don't hide under the shield of the union just to
go phone in your your job every day and collect
(21:56):
your paycheck exactly and you know, flaunt that protect action.
That's not what it's there for. UM. Another big criticism
is that union, just the presence of unions in any
country harms economic progress on the whole by hamstringing business
and making it less competitive among countries that don't have unions. UM.
(22:18):
And so for states that have state employee unions, a
big one is that UM, state employee pensions can be
a drain on UM tight state economies. Uh. That's another
big one too. So there's criticisms of unions that are
very legitimate true, But again I think it comes down to,
like where your political affiliation is. Well, yeah, I mean
(22:42):
these days, UH, Republicans are more likely to not be
in favor of unions, and they have consistently been called
the backbone of the Democratic Party. That wasn't always the case, though,
UM in nineteen fifties, h Republican President Dwight Eisenhower UM
said that you and to have a secure place in
our industrial life. Only a handful of reactionaries harbor the
(23:04):
ugly thought of breaking unions and depriving working men and
women of the right to join the union of their choice.
And also throughout history, unions have kind of dabbled outside
their own labor negotiations and protection to fight for things
like UH medicare, social security, civil rights. Civil rights is
(23:27):
a big one. UM. I think Missouri Congressman Richard Boeling
said quote, we would have never passed the Civil Rights
Act without labor. They had the muscle. The other civil
rights groups did not. So there, you know, you don't
want to see anyone's strong arm, but there is certainly
something to be said for strength and numbers, especially when
(23:49):
it comes to something like the Civil Rights Act. UM.
The who was Eisenhower who had that quote about union rights. UM.
Eisenhower's speaking at a time that was just after the
peak of union membership. In ve UM, thirty five of
(24:10):
all non agricultural workers, which is like everybody but farmers,
UM belonged to unions. Now it's down to eleven point
eight percent. Yeah, and UM the public sector thirty seven percent.
But where they're really getting hurt is the private sector.
Less than seven percent of the private sector is unionized
(24:30):
these days. And there's a lot of people that, UH say,
a lot of the problems that we have in Washington
and a lot of the financial troubles we've had in
this country have been to a certain degree, UM because
of the non unionizing of like the rust belt in
the private sector. So UM to sociologist Bruce Western and
(24:54):
Jake Rosenfeld actually wrote a paper that said that, UM,
the decline of organized labor unions UM from the nineteen
seventies on can account for as much as a third
of them increase in UH income inequality in the US,
which has been significant, And they can attribute a third
(25:15):
of that increase just to the decline of labor. Well,
and I think it also coincided with in the nineteen seventies. UH.
Some say that big business really went hard at Washington
for the not for the first time, but in a
way that they never had before, and that changed the
landscape of the distribution of wealth in this country. Yeah,
(25:37):
and that's a really interesting UM point, Chuck, Like we
were raised after that period. But so that's just kind
of like our you know, we The Secret of My
success or, UM American Psycho, you know, all those great
movies about the eighties or set in the eighties, Like
that's just the way it was, like all these like
(25:59):
you just go after money and like you spend that
money on cocaine and pinstripe suits, you know, in Maserati's
or whatever. Um. And so we were kind of raised
with that sentiment. But there was a time prior to
the nineteen seventies where it was labor who was running
the charge. It was the unions and they were fully
in control, and business figured out how to regroup and
(26:21):
reassert itself. And that's the age that we're in now. UM.
So back to Eisenhower, though when he was talking, he
was kind of carrying on a tradition where the U. S.
Government figured out that Okay, there is a um, there's
a balance of power that has to be struck between
labor and business because business is part of this economic engine.
(26:45):
Labor helps fuel economic engine. But they really kind of
represent two different sectors of the the US, not just
economy economy, but the population. And we need to keep
them happy. We need to strike this balance. So the
federal government got involved starting in ninety five live with
the National Labor Relations Act, and they basically said, Okay,
we can't have strikes where you guys are shooting two
(27:07):
pound hinges at cops, and we can't have strikes where
cops are like murdering, uh, striking workers. Let's get to
the heart of this matter and figure out how to
strike a happy balance between what labor wants and what
business wants and progress from there. And it was a
really smart thing to do, but they figured out that
(27:27):
it was very much like Homer trying to keep pinching
lobster alive with the goldfish in that fresh water tank,
you know, adding salt, adding water, um. And it's been
that was kind of the mark of the twentieth century
in an American economic history, was that adding the salt
and adding the water over time through legislation. Well, in
(27:48):
the nl R A was like you said, the first one.
And prior to that they companies didn't even have to
recognize a union or negotiate with a union leader. So
this actually require by law that they not necessarily they
give workers what they want. But they had to at
least negotiate in good faith and sit down to table
with them. Yeah, which effectively said it brought unions out
(28:10):
of the dark and legalized them and gave them a
legal voice in legal recourse. That's right. And to enforce that,
they soon passed the National Labor Relations Board to oversee,
uh what was going on with n l R A
and UM. The article points out here that they accomplished
three things. Um. It allowed workers to have elections to
(28:33):
you know, elect their own union leaders. UM established laws
protecting employees from discrimination based on union activity, so like
are you union, well, we don't want to hire you.
That kind of thing, or even worse, like in the
case of Ford Motor Company led Forward Security Wing led
by Harry Bennett, a two thousand man strong goon squad.
(28:56):
They used to like beat up workers, beat up like organizers,
beat up union reps um, and do it like on camera.
They really were kind of above the law in a
lot of ways. But this was definitely target that was
targeted at guys like that for the goons. Yeah. Um,
and this kind of sneaks by, but important, Uh. An
(29:17):
important thing to note here is an l R I
also protected collective bargaining even if you're not in a union,
and the ability to bargain for better conditions for all workers.
So I mean it's it's the unions was one of
the main things. But it protected everybody, but not everybody.
There are a bunch of groups that were left out
(29:38):
of this. Agricultural workers UM, domestic service workers UM, federal,
state and local government employees, which obviously when when a
different way, UM, railroad and airline employees, that one kind
of became important. Like we talked about in the air
traffic control one UM under Reagan when he fired all
(29:59):
the traffic controllers you know who went on strike. Yeah,
and that's important. UM. I guess was that the TAFT
Hartley that ensured yeah, tapped Hartley Act came along in
nineteen seven, or the Labor Management Relations Act, and one
of the important things it did was said, you know what,
if there's any strike that's gonna put the public health
and danger, then we can issue an eighty day injunction
(30:21):
that basically says you cannot strike. And in the case
of the I guess was did that put the country
in danger? Necessarily, I put the country's economy and danger.
But at the same time Reagan didn't have file an
injunction through the UM relations Board. He fired work. You're
(30:41):
fired man, that guy, I know? Uh? And what else
did that? Oh? At the outlawed secondary boycott's the Taft
Hartley Labor Act, which was a big deal because the
example they use here in this article is really good.
Like let's say you're a brewery and you're striking against
your employer, or you might have a boycott against the
(31:01):
glass company that makes the beer bottles, just to put
the strong arm on the company from another direction. And
you can't do that. It's called the squeeze. Can't do
the squeeze. You can't as a union, but consumers frequently
do that kind of It's like UM trying to get
like Rush Limbaugh off there boycotted a lot of people
(31:22):
boycotted his UM advertisers until they said, you know what, Okay,
well we'll stop advertising with him, and then all of
a sudden, Russia Limbaugh has the double squeeze on him,
same with them. I can't remember. There was some special
interest group, some pack that was getting funding from like McDonald's, Wendy's,
(31:45):
a bunch of people and UM because of their alleged
unfair and um very much pro business only practices. UM,
like all of these companies is kind of abandoned them recently.
Really yeah, alec A l EC, I don't remember what
it stands for. No, no, no, no, okay, you sure? Yes? Uh,
(32:11):
the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of Josh, what's
that all about? Well, this was during a time when um,
the winds had really shifted towards not only the unions
having the uh, the labor um business under their thumb,
they also had their union members under their thumb. The
(32:32):
mob was involved the the democracy um where the democratic
basis of unions had eroded, and uh, there was a
lot of shady stuff going on. Um. This what I
thought was cool was rather than the federal government going, oh, well,
then we need to re reinvigorate the power given to
(32:53):
business under these union laws, instead they went and invested
more power in union members. That's right. Yeah, Like you
couldn't use union dues anymore to promote one candidate over
another in the union. For union, the elections were really
pretty heavily monitored from that point on. Uh, every single
(33:13):
union member has to be notified by mail at least
fifteen days before the election, like you can't sneak an
election by them, which probably used to happen in the
old days. UM. To to increase transparency in the whole
union thing, there was a lot of UM disclosure and
reporting requirements that were added, and not just for the
unions but for also like employers, consultants. They want to
(33:36):
know where the money was going and basically they wanted
to see how the MOB was involved as a big one. Well,
in speaking of money UM, I don't think we pointed
out that a lot of times UM unions will have
strike funds and some of the money that you pay
into it will actually pay you when you go on
strike to keep you from going hungry. It's like Affleck.
(34:00):
You know that Gilbert Godfrey didn't do that anymore. I
don't think I know. And I wonder how ironic would
it be if he had Affleck insurance and that it
kicked in Whence Affleck fired him. Interesting, why do you
I think he got fired because he wanted too much money? No? No,
he got fired for making Twitter jokes about UM. The
Japanese tsunami like the day of Yeah, I thought it
(34:23):
was a money issue. Yeah, I'm worried about the sense
of humor in this country in the direction that's going,
like there's stand up comedians have always almost always been
allowed to some they're exempted from a lot of the
standards that average joes are held to, you know, like
(34:43):
their stand up comedians that's their job. Sometimes they make
tasteless jokes and all that stuff. Yeah, they'll go over
the line and they'll just go people go oh, and
they'll go what too soon? And then right exactly, and
then people will be like, yes, it is um But
there seems to be it seems to be open season
on comedians well because of platforms that they've never had before,
(35:04):
probably like Twitter. I guess all of a sudden, that's
like your official statement instead of a joke he made
or yeah, and the audience is much much wider and
much more um varied and diverse too. So I beg
you for god read so pissed off. I would imagine so,
because I mean, you've got tell me there's like ten
thou people lining up voice actors to go act for
(35:26):
a huge page. I think he just made a pretty
good argument for yourself that wasn't as good as but
but I mean, and the problem is I realize what's
at risk is you know, cultural sensitivity, even individual sensitivity
towards people who are going to be offended or hurt,
but they're also there has to be a balance between
that and I mean the other thing that that risk
(35:48):
is like our national sense of humor, which is really important.
It's one of the things you could be like, well,
it's just a stupid joke. No, Like our ability to
take a joke is a very vital and important thing
about keeping us from like all, you know, killing ourselves
and stand One of the roles that stand up comedians provide,
or any kind of comedian provides, is to keep that
(36:09):
healthy and vital and going agreed, There's nothing more of
a turn off to me than when you see a
humorless celebrity, like when Ricky Gervais is doing a thing
in the Golden Clubes and you see like the people
out there that just are offended by this. I'm like,
come on, man, yeah, I don't know. I I think
for yourself, I can see Ricky Gervais being We'll make
(36:32):
him the sacrificial lamp leak over God for you alone.
You know, man, that was a sidebar, Yes, it was.
Are we talking about labor unions. I don't remember labor
unions today, Josh, you mentioned the a f l C
I Oh. Um, A lot of people might not know
that that is actually a collection to labor federation made
up of fifty four member unions ten million strong. That's
(36:56):
a lot of people change to win as sort of
a new one two thousand five, it was formed, but
it isn't also a labor federation encompassing seven unions in
six million workers. Yeah. The A f L that was
founded by Samuel Gompers who I mentioned earlier, and he
got some cigar makers and some other industrial laborers together
(37:17):
to form that. And then that was in the late
nineteenth century, and I can't remember exactly when, but maybe
in the forties of the fifties. Uh. He got together
with the c I O to form the a f
l C I oh because he loves cigars. U A
W is a huge one. Autoworkers. Yeah, they have something
like um one point four million members. Uh No, I'm sorry.
(37:40):
The Teamsters has one point four million members and they're
the ones who are probably the most well known by
the average job thanks to one Jimmy Hoffa. Do you
know his story? A little bit here there. Um. The
whole mob involvement I think with them, with any union
was they really is that there's a bunch of guys
(38:02):
UM who are sitting on enormous piles of money and
let's see how much of that we can steal or
get their hands on or used to build ourselves casinos.
And Jimmy Hoffa was in with these guys and he
just went missing right in. Yeah. I mean, I don't
think it's any secret what happened to him, but they
definitely don't know exactly what happened. And that's the whole point,
(38:25):
Wasn't it was a secret what happened to Well, he
was snuffed out. Oh I don't. I don't think he
you know, I just had a heart attack while hiking
in the wilderness and his body decomposed naturally. Well, he
was supposedly going. He was last seen waiting on to
mafia associates. It's kind of good giveaway too. But his son,
(38:46):
James P. Hoffa Um has really kind of brought the
family name back tremendously. He's the head of the Teamsters today.
R Yes he is. He's the president of the Teamsters
Union UM and is doing a lot of work toward
um relegitimizing um unions again country, which is pretty cool. Well,
(39:08):
anyone who's ever been on a film set and has
seen a two hundred and seventy five pound man eating
a doughnut sitting in his truck, you can say I've
met a teamster, and they they do great work, and
they're basically there's a I can't remember the number, but
they're there. If you're an industrial worker, you're basically eligible
(39:30):
to be a teamster, and in just about any kind
of industry. I'm gonna get hate mail for that. Oh
you'll be fine. There's like two guys that you described
who listened to this podcast, so you get two pieces
of hate mail. If I was a teamster, I would
do nothing but listen to this podcast because you're just
sitting a rapp That's not true. Teams do great work,
but on film sets is sort of the old joke
(39:52):
is that like they'll park the truck and then they
sit in it until they leave. In the truck, you
know them that There was another since reference just came
up with them. The one where that film for Radioactive
Man comes to town and Homer tries to see who
can out lazy, the teamsters, good stuff. That is just
(40:14):
a stereotype. Although yeah, but stereotypes are there for a reason, right,
has not funny? Isn't that funny? What else? I don't
have anything else? You get anything else? Um? No, I
guess I think we covered pretty much everything. Yeah, it's
a nice broad overview of people can and like you
said early on, man, you hit it on the head,
(40:36):
my friend, whether or not you are pro union or
anti union largely depends on your family's background. Yeah, it's
a it's a very tried and true a thing through
through families, through generations that you know, people feel very
strongly about it that are involved in unions or like
(40:57):
my actually my parents were in the teachers union. Oh yeah, yeah,
you're a union kid. Huh. Yeah, But that that wasn't
like factory stuff, Like I never heard them besides complaining
about not making up money, which every teacher should complain about. Um.
And if you don't have any kind of passionate feelings
about it whatsoever, I would advise you to look into it. Yeah.
(41:20):
And if you do have passionate feelings about it, I
think a great exercise would be to explore how the
other side sees it and see if it changes your
mind one way or the other. Look at you. Um,
you can do that by reading this fascinating article that
we just based this podcast on, Um, how unions work.
(41:41):
You can type in the search bar at house tofforce
dot com. You can also go into WAPO. There was
a pretty cool um editorial. That's the Washington Post. By
the way. That's right, Um, the Wisconsin union fight isn't
about benefits, it's about labor's influence. From March six eleven.
That's a good article. That was a good article too.
And I already said search bar, which means it's time
(42:01):
for a listener mail. You know, our buddy Joe Garden
was he's a scanni. He was really upset last year.
You can tell you you can see right through his skin.
He's so pale, he's translucent. Vote Joe Garden, big craftwork guy.
(42:22):
Oh did he get tickets? No? He did a h
He promoted his own craft work. Um, I believe it
was a craftwork covers show and he got different bands
to come and play craft work. And his big deal
for Joe was it was awesome. He wore like white
suit and introduced everyone that is sweet. When was that
very recently? Did you see footage of her? Were you there? No?
(42:44):
He was just he wouldn't shut up about on Facebook
and even admitted like, guys, I know you're tired of
hearing about craftwork. That is significant Joe. Um. Yeah. There's
also I guess kind of in with the music sampling episode,
there's I think a DJ Food or a DJ Shadow
I think DJ Food Um craftwork cover mix. Yeah, there's
(43:07):
like maybe three volumes of it, and it's like just
mixing together all these people who were like sampled craft
work for those songs. Yeah. They just did a big
thing at the some museum MoMA. Yeah. Yeah, oh my god.
We you mean I tried very hard to get those tickets.
Did you try? Dude? It was such cluster. I'm not
into craftwork and this solidifies it when I saw the
(43:28):
reviews of it and it said they did like a
twenty one minute of auto ban and I was just like,
somebody put a gun to my head. Are you just
supposed to zone out and forget where you are for
a little bit where I'm not a craf work guy,
but I know people are. People don't know I'm not
a craft work guy. Either like um, but I will
say that like that would have been just a momentous,
(43:50):
just a momentous thing to see MoMA in this pretty
much Okay, like the Tupac hologram. I'm sure seeing that
at coache it was just amazing. Yeah, and a bet
way more amazing for some people than others even. All Right,
So should I read a listener mail? I guess I'm
gonna call this a good cause. We like to promote
(44:12):
these and attach it to our Labor Union episode. How appropriate,
big big fan, guys, I was just down at south
By Southwest where I caught your variety show and shook
your surprisingly supple hands. I also, I know I also
sat on a panel called Harnessing the Power of the
Benevolent Internet, something you guys, seem pretty skilled at yourselves,
(44:33):
which is why I thought you might be game to
help students across the country learn all sorts of stuff
they should know, in many cases, of stuff they need
to know. I work for a nonprofit website called donors
Choose dot org, where anyone with a dollar can give
support to classrooms and need. Teachers from all fifty states
post request for resources they feel their students need and
(44:56):
kind folks from all over the world help bring those
lessons to life. It's cool. It sounds almost really like
a Kiva for teachers. I need tickets to craft working well.
Since our founding in two thousand, we've delivered over a
hundred and ten million dollars of resources directly to public
school classrooms, supporting more than six million students. Uh. And
if you or my fellow listeners would like to help
(45:20):
you or my fellow listeners. You have listeners, fellow listeners. Okay,
we have listeners. That listener has fellow listens. Check out
the page I set up. He set up a page
with our name, and I was like, that's cool, you
can do that, but we're not, like, we can't officially,
like sign on because then it has to go through
corporate and all that stuff. Oh oh, I already signed
(45:42):
us on officially made T shirts and it didn't. So
you can go to donors choose dot org slash stuff
kids should know and um let me know if you
have any questions. And this is from Zach and he said,
by the way, we recently hired a system admin a
(46:02):
couple of months back. Drove me crazy for a few weeks.
Then I realized he sounds exactly like Josh, and he said,
I've enjoyed working with you. Josh. Who is the other
voice double for me? There's another person that was some dude. Well,
there's a writer that writes about running. He wrote one
thing about running one Clark and have been asked five
(46:25):
times if it was me? What's ironic? Now? I actually run?
You should write your own orgicle. Um, I can't remember.
There was some other voice person that did like hike
videos or something. I don't remember. Yeah, well, if okay,
who is that that was Zach? Donors choose dot org
slash kids stuff kids should know. Donors choose dot org
(46:49):
slash stuff kids should know. Indeed, Uh, if you have
a great charitable organization you want to us to let
everybody know about again, We're always happy to do that.
And if I sound like somebody, let me know because
it's driving me crazy. Who it is. I've heard from
like a bunch of people. You sound just like this
or whatever? Yeah? Remember? Or I want to hear from
(47:09):
people who have um actively been on a worker strike,
or if you have been a scab as they called them,
and been a strike buster, or if you've ever been
beaten up by the cops. We want to hear about
that too, Yes, and anarchists, any anarchists out there, We're
(47:29):
always interested in hearing from anarchists. I guess I got
shipped down by the cops and happens one night. If
you get beat up their difference. No, but they like
threw me against the wall and like we're kicking my
legs out from under me, and yeah, it was weird.
And then they had just left. Are you sure there
are cops and not just some eternity boys dressed up
(47:50):
as appens police in a car me and my three friends.
I don't know what they thought we were doing, but
they they got out of there really click. I'll say
that they must have thought you were somebody else, Kevin Smith,
or the reality of their situation hit them and they
realized that what they were doing was wrong. Maybe. Uh.
You can communicate with Chuck and I electronically via Twitter
(48:12):
at s y SK podcast that's our handle, uh, Facebook
dot com slash stuff you Should Know, or you can
send us an email to Stuff podcast at Discovery dot
com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Does it how stuff works dot Com brought to you
(48:40):
by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, Are
you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to you stuff you should
know from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always
is Charles W. Chuck Bryant, which makes this stuff you
(00:24):
should know. Heck no, we won't go. Heck no, we
won't record. That's more along the lines of what we're
talking about better paper podcasters. Yeah, as a matter of fact,
we could get together with like Adam Curry and um
Joe Rogan and maybe even Ira and form like some
(00:47):
sort of local He would be our Jimmy Hoffa. Ira
would be Is it a threat? No? Are you threatening?
I glad I know he would be our Jimmy. He
would make things happen. James P. Hoff Uh, the one
that the current team's church president. Either one I'm not
saying get rid of him burying a giant stadium from saying,
IRA would make it happen. He would break legs. It
(01:10):
need be. There's a leg breaking goon. Um. So for
those of you who have already seen the title of
this you are you are you understand the banter? I
guess if you have no idea what we're talking about,
I'll bet you guessed by now that we're talking about
labor unions. It's a good one man, that we had
(01:32):
this request a lot last year from when the whole
Wisconsin Scott Walker things, I know, and we're just now
getting to it because the Scott Walker thing is like
my intro. Well, let's hear it. So do you remember
last year in Wisconsin. Yes, there was this big hubbub
that was going on. A lot of people were wondering
(01:53):
if this is going to be like the beginning of
the Arab Spring in the United States. This is going
to be the flash point for it because Governor Scott
Walker was accused of trying to deunionize the public sector
employees State Employees UM through a little bit of legislation
that he was trying to introduce. That is very true,
(02:15):
and it caused quite a stir like thousands of protesters. Yeah,
there was some serious protests going on UM and at
the heart of this whole thing was some legislation where
he was trying to get the public sector employees unions
UM to get their union members e g. The public
or i e. The public sector employees I E means
(02:37):
that is e g is for example. But I realized
that uh, to basically pay in half of their pensions, UM,
to give up some other concessions like um, if they
were going to get a raise, it had to be
through public referendum. Yeah, anything over the rate of inflation,
I think yeah, UM. But probably the biggest one was
(03:00):
that they were stripped of their ability to collectively bargain.
And it worked, it got pushed through, and now if
you are a state employee union member in Wisconsin, you
can't collectively bargain anymore, which means you are effectively neutered
as a union member. In a lot of ways. That
(03:21):
is one of the hallmarks of the unions. And depending
on where you come from, what you believe who raised you,
whether or not your grandpa was still alive when you
were old enough to understand what he was talking about,
UM that. I think that largely depends on how you
feel about unions. A lot of people think they're a
(03:41):
good thing. A lot of people think they're bad. A
lot of people think they're necessary, A lot of people
think they're evil. A lot of people think they're necessary evil,
and in fact they're kind of America as it stands
as kind of split down the middle these days. A
pew pole that was taken during this whole bub in Wisconsin,
(04:02):
UM showed that of Americans had a positive view of
organized labor, which I found surprising. You thought that was high, Yeah,
I was. I was surprised because the the decline of
union has also been attended by a change in perception
towards them, you know, like they're kind of bad, or
(04:22):
that they hamstring business is another big one. UM. But
they also found that still believe unions are needed to
improve working people's lives so necessary. Evil. I nailed it,
you did, And unsurprisingly, a lot of times your feelings
on unions are drawn along political lines these days. They're
(04:42):
often expecially of being like the an organizing backbone for
the Democratic Party. Sure, but that's not always true, Like
very frequently unions throw their waiting their support behind Republicans
as well. At any rate, let's get to the bottom
of what all this is. Are our unions good? We're
(05:03):
probably going to avoid this kind of qualitative descriptor and
instead just kind of stick to the facts and let
the people decide. Power to the people to decide whether
unions are good or not. I think that's a good move. Josh. Uh,
So we got stats. We'll get to those later unions josh. Uh.
(05:25):
Industrial revolution is kind of where actually we go back further,
which we will with what medieval times. Yeah, the the
trade guilds. Trade guilds sort of where the beginnings seeds
of unions and uh. They originally sort of came about
though just too uh swap techniques and recipes and uh.
(05:48):
Then that sort of evolved a bit into hey, why
don't we get together and also share aside from our knowledge,
get together and maybe share expertise on how to how
to do things better and get better wages maybe or
fixed prices. That's one before they figured out that that
was um, immoral. This is medieval Europe a long time ago. Yeah. Uh.
(06:12):
And the trade guilds, um, we're definitely the origin of unions.
It's just a bunch of workers getting together and figuring
out because it is essentially what a union is that
they have um more strength than numbers, um. And it's
also an indication of workers understanding their value in the
(06:32):
production process that what they're essentially doing in return for
their salary was producing a profit. For business. Do you
have labor in business? Right? And UM, that gives them
a certain sense of value, whereas UH, and a lot
of situations, workers feel like, you know, they're very grateful
(06:53):
for their job and they don't want to make any
waves or anything like that, and they're not fully aware
of their value UM and unions. One of the roles
that unions plays to point out to a worker, Hey,
you're doing something in return. This isn't some sort of
welfare situation that you're involved in. You're producing labor and
that has value and certain rights as well. Exactly. All right,
(07:16):
So flash forward a bit to the Industrial Revolution nineteenth century. Uh,
things moved away a little bit from agriculture. UH, and
agricultural jobs moved into the factories, as we all know,
and kind of right off the bat, factories weren't a
good scene for fair wages and safe conditions and kids
(07:37):
working in factories and women and children not being paid
as much as men. Um. Triangle shirtwaist fire. That was
a big turning point. What was the triangle shirtwaist company
fire where the working conditions were really really dangerous? That
it was a clothing company, clothing manufacturer, I think in
Chicago or New York, I can't remember. Um, and it
(08:00):
caught fire, the factory did because there was all this
fabric in the air and it just ignited in the
whole place went up and all of these women had
to jump to their deaths. And UM, that kind of
brought in, brought working conditions into a limelight and help
the union. Um sentiment. I guess a flash point if
(08:22):
you will, exactly from your favorite Mr Cladwell the heath
flash point, tipping point, tipping point, good lord, get it together, Chuck, okay,
I've got it together now, tipping point. I had to
take a little break. Uh. In the nineteenth century, they
(08:42):
would do things called striking. Yeah, they still do today,
but back then it was a more uh contentious and
violent affair than it is today. Like people died, bombs
went off, guns were shot. There was and it was
on both sides too, I mean, like the workers were striking.
(09:03):
The point was the whole was the same, where we're
not working anymore and you're not going to make any
money because we're not producing the product that you need
to go sell. Right. Um. But during these times, like
the National Guard would show up, or um, the cops
would show up, or maybe the Pinkerton Detective Agency would
(09:23):
show up and just start beating the tar out of
the striking workers in order to scare them back into working. Uh.
Workers also would um defend themselves. Uh. There was this one.
I can't remember what strik it was. I just read
about it, where like the workers managed to like chase
the cops off because they were they were shooting two
(09:44):
pound hinges in these oversized sling shots like at the cops.
And I can imagine getting hit by a two pound hinge.
Was a hinge factory, I had to have them. But yeah,
so the strikes were very violent. People like you said,
would die and the cops like why couldn't the cotton
ball factory had been Uh but not funny though, because
(10:05):
people did die. Uh, not making light of it. Like
at the Haymarket riot for incidents for incidents, that was
a big one for instance. That was a turning point,
a flash point, if you will. It was early May, um,
there was a nationwide strike saying we only want to
work eight hours a day. Um, And in Chicago's Haymarket
there was a violent protest. UM. Not a lot of
(10:27):
people were there because the weather, thank goodness, because someone
threw a bomb into the crowd. Yeah, went off, and
shots were fired by the cops, maybe by the protesters.
Probably they were not just striking labors, but they were
anarchists there, and uh, you know this anarchist their trouble. Well, Um,
(10:48):
this is one of the places where in the public
imagination at least that anarchists and socialists became married to
labor like pro labor. Um, and it's always kind of
haunted labor unions. Is that idea? But it was born
out of this era, if not this riot, I'm sure. Uh.
(11:08):
In the end, eight people were charged and convicted. Um.
The labor leaders tried to get them out, saying this
is not fair. One of the people committed suicide by
placing a stick of dynamite in his mouth in prison,
and uh. In the end, in a few years later,
the governor of Illinois granted a full pardon to the
(11:30):
remaining three convicted, and that ended up leading to an
observance of May Day or Labor Day in other countries. Right,
May first, it is supposed to be labor Day. Um.
This whole affair, though, you left out that four of
the guys who were convicted were hanged, and then one
guy committed suicide, and then three were but they were
(11:51):
charged with like basically agitating violence. Um. This was back
when free speech wasn't protected quite as much as it
is out right. Um. But the they and they were
pardoned and as a result, this whole Mayday thing, this
Labor Day thing, came up about in May one. But
then within like five years Grover Cleveland was like, well,
(12:11):
this is kind of a sordid, like scary association with labor.
Let's just celebrate labor and I'm going to move it to.
Um the first Saturday, now, the first Monday, Monday in September,
it was Saturday, be no good, wouldn't get off work? Exactly? Uh?
Did he move it to to disassociate from that? Interesting specifically,
(12:32):
So that's why you can't wear white after September September exactly.
That's exactly the origin of that. All right, So maybe
let's talk about some of the basics of a labor union, josh. Um.
There's many different kinds, and like you said, it's all
about strength and numbers to get together to form what's
(12:53):
called a bargaining unit um with an elected leader to
deal with the employer right, because I mean, think about it.
If you are, if you have somebody who's advocating for
your success, for your rights, higher wages, better conditions, whatever
it might be. Um, you are removing yourself to a
(13:14):
certain extent from that negotiation. So it's a little less
sticky for you because you're not talking to your employer.
You're not saying, I really want some more money. Somebody
else is going These guys are making a bunch of
money for you, and you need to share it a
little better like an agent exactly right in a way.
And at the same time, you also have that element
(13:37):
of that bargaining unit being a collective bargaining unit, meaning
there's that strengthen numbers, so it's a bunch of people
becoming satisfied at the same time. And implied in there
is if you don't do this, then you're gonna lose
a bunch of people all at once and you're gonna
have some trouble. Right And Uh, they do this uh
(13:57):
agreement in the form of the c b A collective
bardying Agreement, and any fan of any professional sports will
understand what a c b A is and how tinuous
they can be. Uh. Once you have negotiated this agreement,
and everyone on the employer sizes, you know, we can
live with these terms. And everyone on the employee side said, yeah,
(14:18):
we can live with this. We both give a little bit.
They sign it, and uh, it is set for a
certain period of time and you cannot break the c
BA on either side without there being legal action or
grievance is filed, which usually means an arbitrator will come
in and say, you know, let me get involved. UM.
You I feel like just hit the nail on the head. Though,
(14:40):
for an ideal union presence in business, everyone give a
little you know, you can't have UM too much for
on one side or the other. But I think that
that's kind of the history of UM. The presence of
unions in business in America, it's been If you look
over time, it's maybe even down, but if you look
(15:02):
at in any specific decade, it's more on one side
than the other as far as who's in the beneficial
position or who's asking more, who's extracting more? Like UM.
Samuel Gompers, who who got together the American Federation of Labor,
I think when he was asked what the a f
L wanted, his answer was more. Yeah. Yeah, but at
(15:26):
the same time you have to say, well, business isn't
gonna just say just give it away. Very rarely do they. Um.
The whole presence of unions is to extract that. At
least that was the original idea of them. Yeah, you know. Uh, unions,
like any organization, costs a little money to run. Um,
(15:47):
so you have to pay dues. It's a membership thing. Um.
If I was in the Screen Actors Guilled, which I'm not,
I would pay dues to the Screen Actors Guilled every
year to keep my membership current and then they would
go fight for me and they would have a staff
that gets paid out of that money. Um. I love
in here that this is dues vary, but many are
(16:08):
around fifty dollars a month. What a deal? Yeah, I
think it's it's completely varies depending on what union you're in.
I don't know that you can put an average number,
or maybe you can if you average it, well, if
you counted them all up. And I don't think that's
what they did here. Um, it was fifty dollars a month. Um.
Act Now. Uh. They're also supposed to be democracies with
(16:29):
elected officials, elected leaders who UM take action based on
referendums and votes and basically just using UM voting to
take the pulse of the union members to see what
they want to do. Ideally, that's how it works. Yeah,
I get the feeling that doesn't always work that way
throughout history. Yeah, especially once the mob got involved, which
(16:52):
we'll get to UM a lot of times. You can
be uh local union member, which is sort of like
being a fraternity member of a larger national charter. Uh.
And if you're a local union, that means that you
maybe work in that same business sector, but you're employed
by a different company. But it's like, hey, I'm in
(17:15):
the and I keep going back to film business stuff
because they were lousy with unions still are like hey,
I'm I work in the art department. I'm a prop
sky so I'm a member of the local I can't
remember the number union here in Atlanta, but it's a
national charter probably pushed out of l A, not mistaken.
It's like UM, a chapter of a fraternity or a sorority. Yeah,
(17:38):
which is what I said. Yeah, did you say fraternity
a sorority? No, you didn't, that's a fraternity. You didn't.
You didn't add sorority. No, no, good point authorities as well, chuck, Um,
what's the point of all this? I think we've kind
of touched on a little bit of it, like and
especially in the strength and numbers thing. But there's other
(17:59):
benefit it's too being in a union. Correct. Yeah. Um,
should we throw out some stats here? I think this
is high time for stats. Your wages, For one, your
median weekly income, it's gonna be as a union member,
about nine hundred and forty dollars. Uh, it's gonna be
about seven hundred and thirty dollars if you're non union. UM,
(18:22):
let me see her. You've got some about healthcare? Correct? Oh? Yeah,
So eight eight percent of union workers and this is
from the Department of Labor. This isn't like from the
A F L C, I O or anything. UM percent
of UM union workers have health coverage. Of non union
workers don't do. UM. It's the same with dental plans
(18:46):
and the disparities even more pent of non union workers
have dental plans, where something like sixty six percent have
a dental plan. If you're a member of a union, UM,
half of union jobs have vision yeah coverage, and only
about a quarter of non union jobs, UH have it,
(19:07):
which in reading this also I was kind of like, man,
we have pretty good benefits here Discovery. Yeah, we do.
You know, Uh, if you're a minority, if you're a woman,
African American or Latino, you're gonna make more money. Women
earn about nine thousand more a year if you're in
a union, African Americans eight thousand more year, and Latinos
close to twelve thousand more year if you're a union member.
(19:29):
So aside from uh, safe working conditions and health insurance
and things like that, which are great, wages are really
the big deal, right Wages benefits UM pensions are another
huge um and they're also there to um protect workers
(19:50):
from being unjustly fired. So like we're non union and
we could if somebody could come in here and say,
you know what, I didn't the way that you looked
at your boss. I saw you scowling. You're fired. You're fired,
you're fired, you're fired. And we'd be like, you can't
do that, and they'd be like, oh, yes we can,
(20:11):
and that would be that right. Um. There was like
a big hubbub in Florida about some uh some workers
that all wore orange either depending on who you ask
because they were all going happy already together that night,
or because they were um simulating a prisoner garb to
um protest the working conditions at this law firm, which
(20:33):
is really what they were doing, and like twelve of
them were fired. They were just taking into a conference
room and the guy was like, you're all fired and
that's that. And they're like, you can't fire us for
wearing an orange shirt, and actually, yes, very much so.
The since it's a work right to work state or
an at will work state right to work um, the
(20:53):
the the the employer very much can fire you for
wearing something that's seemingly arbitrary, is wearing orange. If you're
a union member, that is not the case. The union
protects you from unjust dismissal and basically you if you
feel like you've been fired for wearing orange, you can
go to your union rep and a big stink comes about.
(21:15):
That's another big one is protecting them. But I also
feel like here is a good point to mention a
lot of the criticisms of unions because that same protection
from unjust dismissal um Unions are frequently criticized for that
extending to workers who perform poorly, if like, it's part
(21:36):
of that give I think with unions among labor to say, okay,
yes we're gonna protect you, but you have to be productive,
or you have to be good at your job or whatever. Right,
don't hide under the shield of the union just to
go phone in your your job every day and collect
(21:56):
your paycheck exactly and you know, flaunt that protect action.
That's not what it's there for. UM. Another big criticism
is that union, just the presence of unions in any
country harms economic progress on the whole by hamstringing business
and making it less competitive among countries that don't have unions. UM.
(22:18):
And so for states that have state employee unions, a
big one is that UM, state employee pensions can be
a drain on UM tight state economies. Uh. That's another
big one too. So there's criticisms of unions that are
very legitimate true, But again I think it comes down to,
like where your political affiliation is. Well, yeah, I mean
(22:42):
these days, UH, Republicans are more likely to not be
in favor of unions, and they have consistently been called
the backbone of the Democratic Party. That wasn't always the case, though,
UM in nineteen fifties, h Republican President Dwight Eisenhower UM
said that you and to have a secure place in
our industrial life. Only a handful of reactionaries harbor the
(23:04):
ugly thought of breaking unions and depriving working men and
women of the right to join the union of their choice.
And also throughout history, unions have kind of dabbled outside
their own labor negotiations and protection to fight for things
like UH medicare, social security, civil rights. Civil rights is
(23:27):
a big one. UM. I think Missouri Congressman Richard Boeling
said quote, we would have never passed the Civil Rights
Act without labor. They had the muscle. The other civil
rights groups did not. So there, you know, you don't
want to see anyone's strong arm, but there is certainly
something to be said for strength and numbers, especially when
(23:49):
it comes to something like the Civil Rights Act. UM.
The who was Eisenhower who had that quote about union rights. UM.
Eisenhower's speaking at a time that was just after the
peak of union membership. In ve UM, thirty five of
(24:10):
all non agricultural workers, which is like everybody but farmers,
UM belonged to unions. Now it's down to eleven point
eight percent. Yeah, and UM the public sector thirty seven percent.
But where they're really getting hurt is the private sector.
Less than seven percent of the private sector is unionized
(24:30):
these days. And there's a lot of people that, UH say,
a lot of the problems that we have in Washington
and a lot of the financial troubles we've had in
this country have been to a certain degree, UM because
of the non unionizing of like the rust belt in
the private sector. So UM to sociologist Bruce Western and
(24:54):
Jake Rosenfeld actually wrote a paper that said that, UM,
the decline of organized labor unions UM from the nineteen
seventies on can account for as much as a third
of them increase in UH income inequality in the US,
which has been significant, And they can attribute a third
(25:15):
of that increase just to the decline of labor. Well,
and I think it also coincided with in the nineteen seventies. UH.
Some say that big business really went hard at Washington
for the not for the first time, but in a
way that they never had before, and that changed the
landscape of the distribution of wealth in this country. Yeah,
(25:37):
and that's a really interesting UM point, Chuck, Like we
were raised after that period. But so that's just kind
of like our you know, we The Secret of My
success or, UM American Psycho, you know, all those great
movies about the eighties or set in the eighties, Like
that's just the way it was, like all these like
(25:59):
you just go after money and like you spend that
money on cocaine and pinstripe suits, you know, in Maserati's
or whatever. Um. And so we were kind of raised
with that sentiment. But there was a time prior to
the nineteen seventies where it was labor who was running
the charge. It was the unions and they were fully
in control, and business figured out how to regroup and
(26:21):
reassert itself. And that's the age that we're in now. UM.
So back to Eisenhower, though when he was talking, he
was kind of carrying on a tradition where the U. S.
Government figured out that Okay, there is a um, there's
a balance of power that has to be struck between
labor and business because business is part of this economic engine.
(26:45):
Labor helps fuel economic engine. But they really kind of
represent two different sectors of the the US, not just
economy economy, but the population. And we need to keep
them happy. We need to strike this balance. So the
federal government got involved starting in ninety five live with
the National Labor Relations Act, and they basically said, Okay,
we can't have strikes where you guys are shooting two
(27:07):
pound hinges at cops, and we can't have strikes where
cops are like murdering, uh, striking workers. Let's get to
the heart of this matter and figure out how to
strike a happy balance between what labor wants and what
business wants and progress from there. And it was a
really smart thing to do, but they figured out that
(27:27):
it was very much like Homer trying to keep pinching
lobster alive with the goldfish in that fresh water tank,
you know, adding salt, adding water, um. And it's been
that was kind of the mark of the twentieth century
in an American economic history, was that adding the salt
and adding the water over time through legislation. Well, in
(27:48):
the nl R A was like you said, the first one.
And prior to that they companies didn't even have to
recognize a union or negotiate with a union leader. So
this actually require by law that they not necessarily they
give workers what they want. But they had to at
least negotiate in good faith and sit down to table
with them. Yeah, which effectively said it brought unions out
(28:10):
of the dark and legalized them and gave them a
legal voice in legal recourse. That's right. And to enforce that,
they soon passed the National Labor Relations Board to oversee,
uh what was going on with n l R A
and UM. The article points out here that they accomplished
three things. Um. It allowed workers to have elections to
(28:33):
you know, elect their own union leaders. UM established laws
protecting employees from discrimination based on union activity, so like
are you union, well, we don't want to hire you.
That kind of thing, or even worse, like in the
case of Ford Motor Company led Forward Security Wing led
by Harry Bennett, a two thousand man strong goon squad.
(28:56):
They used to like beat up workers, beat up like organizers,
beat up union reps um, and do it like on camera.
They really were kind of above the law in a
lot of ways. But this was definitely target that was
targeted at guys like that for the goons. Yeah. Um,
and this kind of sneaks by, but important, Uh. An
(29:17):
important thing to note here is an l R I
also protected collective bargaining even if you're not in a union,
and the ability to bargain for better conditions for all workers.
So I mean it's it's the unions was one of
the main things. But it protected everybody, but not everybody.
There are a bunch of groups that were left out
(29:38):
of this. Agricultural workers UM, domestic service workers UM, federal,
state and local government employees, which obviously when when a
different way, UM, railroad and airline employees, that one kind
of became important. Like we talked about in the air
traffic control one UM under Reagan when he fired all
(29:59):
the traffic controllers you know who went on strike. Yeah,
and that's important. UM. I guess was that the TAFT
Hartley that ensured yeah, tapped Hartley Act came along in
nineteen seven, or the Labor Management Relations Act, and one
of the important things it did was said, you know what,
if there's any strike that's gonna put the public health
and danger, then we can issue an eighty day injunction
(30:21):
that basically says you cannot strike. And in the case
of the I guess was did that put the country
in danger? Necessarily, I put the country's economy and danger.
But at the same time Reagan didn't have file an
injunction through the UM relations Board. He fired work. You're
(30:41):
fired man, that guy, I know? Uh? And what else
did that? Oh? At the outlawed secondary boycott's the Taft
Hartley Labor Act, which was a big deal because the
example they use here in this article is really good.
Like let's say you're a brewery and you're striking against
your employer, or you might have a boycott against the
(31:01):
glass company that makes the beer bottles, just to put
the strong arm on the company from another direction. And
you can't do that. It's called the squeeze. Can't do
the squeeze. You can't as a union, but consumers frequently
do that kind of It's like UM trying to get
like Rush Limbaugh off there boycotted a lot of people
(31:22):
boycotted his UM advertisers until they said, you know what, Okay,
well we'll stop advertising with him, and then all of
a sudden, Russia Limbaugh has the double squeeze on him,
same with them. I can't remember. There was some special
interest group, some pack that was getting funding from like McDonald's, Wendy's,
(31:45):
a bunch of people and UM because of their alleged
unfair and um very much pro business only practices. UM,
like all of these companies is kind of abandoned them recently.
Really yeah, alec A l EC, I don't remember what
it stands for. No, no, no, no, okay, you sure? Yes? Uh,
(32:11):
the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of Josh, what's
that all about? Well, this was during a time when um,
the winds had really shifted towards not only the unions
having the uh, the labor um business under their thumb,
they also had their union members under their thumb. The
(32:32):
mob was involved the the democracy um where the democratic
basis of unions had eroded, and uh, there was a
lot of shady stuff going on. Um. This what I
thought was cool was rather than the federal government going, oh, well,
then we need to re reinvigorate the power given to
(32:53):
business under these union laws, instead they went and invested
more power in union members. That's right. Yeah, Like you
couldn't use union dues anymore to promote one candidate over
another in the union. For union, the elections were really
pretty heavily monitored from that point on. Uh, every single
(33:13):
union member has to be notified by mail at least
fifteen days before the election, like you can't sneak an
election by them, which probably used to happen in the
old days. UM. To to increase transparency in the whole
union thing, there was a lot of UM disclosure and
reporting requirements that were added, and not just for the
unions but for also like employers, consultants. They want to
(33:36):
know where the money was going and basically they wanted
to see how the MOB was involved as a big one. Well,
in speaking of money UM, I don't think we pointed
out that a lot of times UM unions will have
strike funds and some of the money that you pay
into it will actually pay you when you go on
strike to keep you from going hungry. It's like Affleck.
(34:00):
You know that Gilbert Godfrey didn't do that anymore. I
don't think I know. And I wonder how ironic would
it be if he had Affleck insurance and that it
kicked in Whence Affleck fired him. Interesting, why do you
I think he got fired because he wanted too much money? No? No,
he got fired for making Twitter jokes about UM. The
Japanese tsunami like the day of Yeah, I thought it
(34:23):
was a money issue. Yeah, I'm worried about the sense
of humor in this country in the direction that's going,
like there's stand up comedians have always almost always been
allowed to some they're exempted from a lot of the
standards that average joes are held to, you know, like
(34:43):
their stand up comedians that's their job. Sometimes they make
tasteless jokes and all that stuff. Yeah, they'll go over
the line and they'll just go people go oh, and
they'll go what too soon? And then right exactly, and
then people will be like, yes, it is um But
there seems to be it seems to be open season
on comedians well because of platforms that they've never had before,
(35:04):
probably like Twitter. I guess all of a sudden, that's
like your official statement instead of a joke he made
or yeah, and the audience is much much wider and
much more um varied and diverse too. So I beg
you for god read so pissed off. I would imagine so,
because I mean, you've got tell me there's like ten
thou people lining up voice actors to go act for
(35:26):
a huge page. I think he just made a pretty
good argument for yourself that wasn't as good as but
but I mean, and the problem is I realize what's
at risk is you know, cultural sensitivity, even individual sensitivity
towards people who are going to be offended or hurt,
but they're also there has to be a balance between
that and I mean the other thing that that risk
(35:48):
is like our national sense of humor, which is really important.
It's one of the things you could be like, well,
it's just a stupid joke. No, Like our ability to
take a joke is a very vital and important thing
about keeping us from like all, you know, killing ourselves
and stand One of the roles that stand up comedians provide,
or any kind of comedian provides, is to keep that
(36:09):
healthy and vital and going agreed, There's nothing more of
a turn off to me than when you see a
humorless celebrity, like when Ricky Gervais is doing a thing
in the Golden Clubes and you see like the people
out there that just are offended by this. I'm like,
come on, man, yeah, I don't know. I I think
for yourself, I can see Ricky Gervais being We'll make
(36:32):
him the sacrificial lamp leak over God for you alone.
You know, man, that was a sidebar, Yes, it was.
Are we talking about labor unions. I don't remember labor
unions today, Josh, you mentioned the a f l C
I Oh. Um, A lot of people might not know
that that is actually a collection to labor federation made
up of fifty four member unions ten million strong. That's
(36:56):
a lot of people change to win as sort of
a new one two thousand five, it was formed, but
it isn't also a labor federation encompassing seven unions in
six million workers. Yeah. The A f L that was
founded by Samuel Gompers who I mentioned earlier, and he
got some cigar makers and some other industrial laborers together
(37:17):
to form that. And then that was in the late
nineteenth century, and I can't remember exactly when, but maybe
in the forties of the fifties. Uh. He got together
with the c I O to form the a f
l C I oh because he loves cigars. U A
W is a huge one. Autoworkers. Yeah, they have something
like um one point four million members. Uh No, I'm sorry.
(37:40):
The Teamsters has one point four million members and they're
the ones who are probably the most well known by
the average job thanks to one Jimmy Hoffa. Do you
know his story? A little bit here there. Um. The
whole mob involvement I think with them, with any union
was they really is that there's a bunch of guys
(38:02):
UM who are sitting on enormous piles of money and
let's see how much of that we can steal or
get their hands on or used to build ourselves casinos.
And Jimmy Hoffa was in with these guys and he
just went missing right in. Yeah. I mean, I don't
think it's any secret what happened to him, but they
definitely don't know exactly what happened. And that's the whole point,
(38:25):
Wasn't it was a secret what happened to Well, he
was snuffed out. Oh I don't. I don't think he
you know, I just had a heart attack while hiking
in the wilderness and his body decomposed naturally. Well, he
was supposedly going. He was last seen waiting on to
mafia associates. It's kind of good giveaway too. But his son,
(38:46):
James P. Hoffa Um has really kind of brought the
family name back tremendously. He's the head of the Teamsters today.
R Yes he is. He's the president of the Teamsters
Union UM and is doing a lot of work toward
um relegitimizing um unions again country, which is pretty cool. Well,
(39:08):
anyone who's ever been on a film set and has
seen a two hundred and seventy five pound man eating
a doughnut sitting in his truck, you can say I've
met a teamster, and they they do great work, and
they're basically there's a I can't remember the number, but
they're there. If you're an industrial worker, you're basically eligible
(39:30):
to be a teamster, and in just about any kind
of industry. I'm gonna get hate mail for that. Oh
you'll be fine. There's like two guys that you described
who listened to this podcast, so you get two pieces
of hate mail. If I was a teamster, I would
do nothing but listen to this podcast because you're just
sitting a rapp That's not true. Teams do great work,
but on film sets is sort of the old joke
(39:52):
is that like they'll park the truck and then they
sit in it until they leave. In the truck, you
know them that There was another since reference just came
up with them. The one where that film for Radioactive
Man comes to town and Homer tries to see who
can out lazy, the teamsters, good stuff. That is just
(40:14):
a stereotype. Although yeah, but stereotypes are there for a reason, right,
has not funny? Isn't that funny? What else? I don't
have anything else? You get anything else? Um? No, I
guess I think we covered pretty much everything. Yeah, it's
a nice broad overview of people can and like you
said early on, man, you hit it on the head,
(40:36):
my friend, whether or not you are pro union or
anti union largely depends on your family's background. Yeah, it's
a it's a very tried and true a thing through
through families, through generations that you know, people feel very
strongly about it that are involved in unions or like
(40:57):
my actually my parents were in the teachers union. Oh yeah, yeah,
you're a union kid. Huh. Yeah, But that that wasn't
like factory stuff, Like I never heard them besides complaining
about not making up money, which every teacher should complain about. Um.
And if you don't have any kind of passionate feelings
about it whatsoever, I would advise you to look into it. Yeah.
(41:20):
And if you do have passionate feelings about it, I
think a great exercise would be to explore how the
other side sees it and see if it changes your
mind one way or the other. Look at you. Um,
you can do that by reading this fascinating article that
we just based this podcast on, Um, how unions work.
(41:41):
You can type in the search bar at house tofforce
dot com. You can also go into WAPO. There was
a pretty cool um editorial. That's the Washington Post. By
the way. That's right, Um, the Wisconsin union fight isn't
about benefits, it's about labor's influence. From March six eleven.
That's a good article. That was a good article too.
And I already said search bar, which means it's time
(42:01):
for a listener mail. You know, our buddy Joe Garden
was he's a scanni. He was really upset last year.
You can tell you you can see right through his skin.
He's so pale, he's translucent. Vote Joe Garden, big craftwork guy.
(42:22):
Oh did he get tickets? No? He did a h
He promoted his own craft work. Um, I believe it
was a craftwork covers show and he got different bands
to come and play craft work. And his big deal
for Joe was it was awesome. He wore like white
suit and introduced everyone that is sweet. When was that
very recently? Did you see footage of her? Were you there? No?
(42:44):
He was just he wouldn't shut up about on Facebook
and even admitted like, guys, I know you're tired of
hearing about craftwork. That is significant Joe. Um. Yeah. There's
also I guess kind of in with the music sampling episode,
there's I think a DJ Food or a DJ Shadow
I think DJ Food Um craftwork cover mix. Yeah, there's
(43:07):
like maybe three volumes of it, and it's like just
mixing together all these people who were like sampled craft
work for those songs. Yeah. They just did a big
thing at the some museum MoMA. Yeah. Yeah, oh my god.
We you mean I tried very hard to get those tickets.
Did you try? Dude? It was such cluster. I'm not
into craftwork and this solidifies it when I saw the
(43:28):
reviews of it and it said they did like a
twenty one minute of auto ban and I was just like,
somebody put a gun to my head. Are you just
supposed to zone out and forget where you are for
a little bit where I'm not a craf work guy,
but I know people are. People don't know I'm not
a craft work guy. Either like um, but I will
say that like that would have been just a momentous,
(43:50):
just a momentous thing to see MoMA in this pretty
much Okay, like the Tupac hologram. I'm sure seeing that
at coache it was just amazing. Yeah, and a bet
way more amazing for some people than others even. All Right,
So should I read a listener mail? I guess I'm
gonna call this a good cause. We like to promote
(44:12):
these and attach it to our Labor Union episode. How appropriate,
big big fan, guys, I was just down at south
By Southwest where I caught your variety show and shook
your surprisingly supple hands. I also, I know I also
sat on a panel called Harnessing the Power of the
Benevolent Internet, something you guys, seem pretty skilled at yourselves,
(44:33):
which is why I thought you might be game to
help students across the country learn all sorts of stuff
they should know, in many cases, of stuff they need
to know. I work for a nonprofit website called donors
Choose dot org, where anyone with a dollar can give
support to classrooms and need. Teachers from all fifty states
post request for resources they feel their students need and
(44:56):
kind folks from all over the world help bring those
lessons to life. It's cool. It sounds almost really like
a Kiva for teachers. I need tickets to craft working well.
Since our founding in two thousand, we've delivered over a
hundred and ten million dollars of resources directly to public
school classrooms, supporting more than six million students. Uh. And
if you or my fellow listeners would like to help
(45:20):
you or my fellow listeners. You have listeners, fellow listeners. Okay,
we have listeners. That listener has fellow listens. Check out
the page I set up. He set up a page
with our name, and I was like, that's cool, you
can do that, but we're not, like, we can't officially,
like sign on because then it has to go through
corporate and all that stuff. Oh oh, I already signed
(45:42):
us on officially made T shirts and it didn't. So
you can go to donors choose dot org slash stuff
kids should know and um let me know if you
have any questions. And this is from Zach and he said,
by the way, we recently hired a system admin a
(46:02):
couple of months back. Drove me crazy for a few weeks.
Then I realized he sounds exactly like Josh, and he said,
I've enjoyed working with you. Josh. Who is the other
voice double for me? There's another person that was some dude. Well,
there's a writer that writes about running. He wrote one
thing about running one Clark and have been asked five
(46:25):
times if it was me? What's ironic? Now? I actually run?
You should write your own orgicle. Um, I can't remember.
There was some other voice person that did like hike
videos or something. I don't remember. Yeah, well, if okay,
who is that that was Zach? Donors choose dot org
slash kids stuff kids should know. Donors choose dot org
(46:49):
slash stuff kids should know. Indeed, Uh, if you have
a great charitable organization you want to us to let
everybody know about again, We're always happy to do that.
And if I sound like somebody, let me know because
it's driving me crazy. Who it is. I've heard from
like a bunch of people. You sound just like this
or whatever? Yeah? Remember? Or I want to hear from
(47:09):
people who have um actively been on a worker strike,
or if you have been a scab as they called them,
and been a strike buster, or if you've ever been
beaten up by the cops. We want to hear about
that too, Yes, and anarchists, any anarchists out there, We're
(47:29):
always interested in hearing from anarchists. I guess I got
shipped down by the cops and happens one night. If
you get beat up their difference. No, but they like
threw me against the wall and like we're kicking my
legs out from under me, and yeah, it was weird.
And then they had just left. Are you sure there
are cops and not just some eternity boys dressed up
(47:50):
as appens police in a car me and my three friends.
I don't know what they thought we were doing, but
they they got out of there really click. I'll say
that they must have thought you were somebody else, Kevin Smith,
or the reality of their situation hit them and they
realized that what they were doing was wrong. Maybe. Uh.
You can communicate with Chuck and I electronically via Twitter
(48:12):
at s y SK podcast that's our handle, uh, Facebook
dot com slash stuff you Should Know, or you can
send us an email to Stuff podcast at Discovery dot
com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Does it how stuff works dot Com brought to you
(48:40):
by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, Are
you
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