Rep. Jake Auchincloss & Kim Kelly

represents Massachusetts fourth Congressional District. Welcome to Fast Politics. Representative Jake ochanclass like to be so we are in this new congressional reality. Republicans have this razor stin majority. Are they in disarray? And I think as we mark the eighteenth Congress, it's important to look back on the hundred and seventeenth Congress, which is the most most bipartisan Congress

in my lifetime. We did infrastructure, we did science and semiconductors, we did clean energy, we did Ukraine, a gun safety, all of it bipartisan, just historic, generational investments in our future. And now the GOP is looking to hold the gavel and the initiative is with them. They have a fork in the road. They can take up that mantle and

reach across the aisle and say here are ideas. Let's try to get stuff done with votes from both parties, or they can cater to their hard right, their conspiracy theorizing authoritarian wing of the party and have political theater for two years. I've seen polling and reporting that shows that the American people actually just want you guys to get stuff done. But it strikes me that the Republican

primary sort of base does not. Are the Republicans in Congress going to be able to stand up to their race. That's a question for the Republicans in Congress. What I will say is when we had the gavel in the seventeen Congress, we delivered results. We delivered infrastructure investments that are going to guarantee clean water for every kid in this country for example, upgrade transit, invest in basic research and development that makes our economy more productive for generations

to come, the biggest, boldest climate action in history. So we delivered results where possible, We work with Republicans where they were in transigent like on climate action. We did it with our own votes, but we got stuffed, and I think that's why you saw us over overperform in the midterms, and again the GOP is going to have to do some internal reflection on whether it wants to be a serious party of governance or whether it just

wants to cater to its hard right wing. What we saw in the omnibus negotiations is that even the GOP and the Senate didn't take Kevin McCarthy seriously. He wasn't even invited to the big Kids table to negotiate. That's embarrassing for him. That's a bad sign for the seriousness of the GOP conference under a g a pe speaker in the eighteenth Congress. But I do hope that they try to get some serious legislating done because we've got work to do, particularly on lowering toss for working families.

So Democrats are now in the minority, even though it's a small minority. I mean, how does everything change now? Explain to us from my dad, I think people would love to know, like just the mechanics of how things change. Well, the mechanics of how things change is that we don't have committee chairmanships anymore. The GOP has the chairs, and that means that the pipeline of legislation going from origination from you know, a good idea, and drafting all the way to the floor for a vote is a lot

harder for Democrats. That's really the primary prerogative of of being the speaker is that you control that pipeline of legislation to the floor for a vote, which means that you really need Republicans on board to deliver wins. And here again is where I go back to, you know, the goop having to decide for itself whether it wants to be serious or not. In my district, people are energized and in hent on continuing climate action and clean energy investments. We we don't we can't take two years

off because Democrats are in the minority. We've got Paris Accord goals to hit. We've got you know, one point seven degrees celsius by twenty fifty goal to achieve. It's just not acceptable to me or to my constituents to say, well, you know, we're in the minority, so we're gonna not work anymore on this issue. Not we gotta keep working. The same thing on gun safety, same thing on housing and healthcare costs. These things are near and present priorities.

Maybe we're not hitting home runs, but we got to hit singles and double Still, you have never been in the minority in your time in Congress. I mean, and now you're in this Congress that is right now, McCarthy is still trying to figure out a way to put together the votes. He's got this okay buttons which stand for only Kevin I mean d I will say that the okay buttons are an over building of his merit for that position. I mean, I guess mat was taken right.

It's such a small majority. I mean, there are Republicans who have won in Biden districts. I mean, do you know these people? Do you think there are back ventures who we don't know about who might make the journey, or do you think that's really just West wing fan fiction. It's my job to try to find out. It's my job to represent my district's values and to advance their priorities.

And in order to do that with four and thirty four other members of the House of Representatives at a time when Republicans are in charge of the House, it's my job to go and try to find out in good faith and if I hear back in good faith, hey, I also care about lowering healthcare costs. Here's how I'd go about it. You know, I'd use health saving accounts, doctor bles, do shopping and things that are more kind of considered center right proposals. Great, like, let's have that debate.

If I hear in response instead, I'm sorry, we're too busy. We're doing this investigation into a private citizen's lap top designed to americ the president. Well, we're going to find that. This Democratic caucus, it's worth noting half of it has been elected since we've got energetic, young leadership. This Democratic Caucus is fit and fighting. People have been through tough campaigns. They came a political age during the Trump years. They

know why they're in office. They know what they stand for. They know what's worth fighting for and losing over. We're not going to f around. We are going to hold the Republicans to account to protect our democracy, to protect women's rights, and to advance common sense measures at lower costs and help us compete against China. What are you excited that you think you can get done in this brave new world where Steve Schools is the speaker. I want to beginning to make progress on clean energy and

healthcare issues, which are critical to my constituents. I think that there are solid incremental progress to be made on both front for workforce development and permitting issues for clean energy projects that you might be able to get some Republican support for. For a way to make our healthcare system more transparent and to have more of a fiducieri

responsibility to patients as opposed to pairs of providers. I think that there are ways that we can move the ball forward there that I'm going to be aggressively exploring. I think we have the f a A, the Aviation Administration re authorization coming up. That's an opportunity I think to get some bipartisan work on that tends to be a bipartisan bill. There's pathways of opportunity here. Can you please not make it so there's only one pilot per flight.

I happened to be the daughter of the author of the book Fear of Flying, so I do have some anxiety here. But like we've had such a good run of like planes not crashing, why mess with that? Safety is always going to be the paramount consideration for any f a A policy. Safety is always going to be number one. We're not going to do anything that would decrimend safety by even one iota. So talk to me about the leadership, because this is a bold new leadership.

I mean, we don't have You know, Nancy Pelosi was the leader for a long time, and you know, people had complaints, as they always do about leadership, but she was very, very very effective. Even her worst critics said that what does this new leadership look like? And talk to me about that. Kim Jeffreys will be our our leader. Katherine Clark, my neighbor here in Massachusetts, will be with and then Pete Aguilar from California will be number three

a caucus chair. And the Democratic Caucus is energized and unified behind these three. I think we know them. They have risen through our ranks through relationships and hard work, and they have I think the trust and the confidence of the caucus right now, and we are very excited to make a Keem Jeffreys the Speaker of the House. In One of the things that Pelosi had to deal with is that it's not just MAGA and no maga. It's like some people are very left, some people are

more center, some people are part of no labels. I mean, how do you manage I mean, are you concerned about having to sort of juggle all of those groups. Of course, you've gotta juggle diff and emphasies and priorities within a big tang caucus. I think though that story is a very popular story with the media. Everyone loves the sort

of Dems and disarray storyline. Again, though, like I, I go back to the vent Congress when I actually came to get stuck done with a very tight vote count, when you had to have left and center on the same page, And I think our track record just speaks for itself. Everything from infrastructure to ukrainate, the gun safety legislation,

to clean energy investments, to science and semiconductors. Like the pace and productivity of the dred seventeen alies the notion that somehow Dems can't line up and deliver for the American people. We did, we will again when we get the gabble. We're gonna have vigorous debate, as we should, because that makes legislation better. But right now we have a party in the Democratic side of the House that knows and has shown what it stands for to the

American people. We want to make this economy work for everybody, and we want to protect democracy, and we've got a GOP that is having a pretty biggerest internal debate about whether it actually thinks democracy is the path forward. And until that story changes, I think the spotlight needs to

be on the GOP and it's internal issues. There are things like TikTok where they don't necessarily it doesn't necessarily cut on partisan lines, right, I mean, are there things like that that you feel like you guys can get going with right away in this House. Well, the Omnibus included a measure to fan TikTok from government phones, I believe,

and I think that's a reasonable step forward. We should have severe concerns about industries that need to be decoupled from the Chinese Communist Party, telecoms, the A p I supply chain for pharmaceuticals. Obviously, you know, military contracting, semiconductor manufacturing in the nation of one point four billion people. We're not going to just stop trading all together. I

don't think that serves the American consumer well. But we do need to aggressively decouple industries that are of significant econo coomic energy or national security to the United States and make clear that we do not want our personally identifiable information or critical notes of our supply chain to be subject to the Chinese Communist Party. Right, your district is very tech heavy. By district is very tech heavy. America is very technically I mean right, Twitter is now

subject to the whims of Elon Musk. Do you think there needs to be more regulation in tech and more more importantly almost do you think that there can be some kind of reproache mont with the right and a sort of bipartisan or nonpartisan tech regulation. I think my friend and colleague Rocana has done a very nice job of explicating this issue. I think these social media platforms Twitter,

probably most acutely, but Facebook and Instagram as well. Yes, they're private companies, but they are also functionally their information utilities in the same way that the broadcast providers were in the heyday of TV. And with the designation comes accountability and responsibility the leading reporters accounts without a clear, transparent, accountable process for doing so and explaining why you're doing so,

it's totally unacceptable. Totally unacceptable. We're not well served by having big tech put its thumb on the scale of political discourse in this country, and we're also not well served by having politicians way in on the nash nations of big tech and there in the way that they are how they have internal processes for dissemining information. Because in both situations, I worry that we politicize what really

should be a utility for information dissemination. So I really think Row has done a nice job of laying this out. It's certainly going to be a live area of debate. Have you talked to Republicans who you think could get on board with us, because you only need, like, you know, a very small number I have. I don't. I don't know that this is a cleanly partisan issue though in regulation. Yeah, that's what I'm That's why I think so. Yeah, I think we're going to see the camps on this issue

for very differently. I think there's gonna be geographic considerations. I think there's going to be ideological considerations that are not necessarily partisan. It's it's still developing, but I wouldn't just count on it being the verses are now. Thank you so much. This is so interesting. I hope you'll come back. Kim Kelly is the author of Fight Like How The Untold History of American Labor, Welcome Too Fast, politics Kim Kelly, Well, thank you so much for having me, Molly.

We're seeing a lot of striking. The Pittsburgh Post Gauzette, the fort Worth to Start Telegram, and the New York Times all on strike end of December. Talk to us about why is this happening within large groups and what are they striking for. Well, we're coming up on the end of the year, and that means that a lot of contracts, like unique contracts that have been negotiated are

coming They're coming up. It's time to renegotiate. And also, I mean a lot of these places, like workers have been negotiating or trying to negotiate new contracts for a long time. I think The New York Times has taken

them months and months and months. And it's been a whole acrimonious process for a lot of different places because it's tough to negotiate and bargaining union contract because invariably across industries, no matter what's really happening, doesn't matter if you're like a barista or a coal miner or working at the New York Times, there's usually this tension of like, Okay, my co workers and I we need better wages, better

working conditions. There's certain things about our job we need to improve, and the bosses are invariably saying, well, I mean, think about the bottom line. We don't want to give you these things. We would like to keep those profits for ourselves and secure our own improve those positions. So we're going to fight you on it. And so we're seeing this happen. I mean, we've been seeing it happened for hundreds of years, but right now it is it

does feel like a very striky kind of season. I mean, thousands upon thousands of workers are on strike right now from California to Alabama to New York City, and I think people are just fed up. They're sick and tired of being overworked and underpaid and told that they don't count. And I think the past couple of years there's been the shifting consciousness, especially that you know, so much of our labor is essential, so many of our jobs are essential,

but we're not treated like we matter. And one of the most effective engines that we had to change that is by organizing collectively, by unionizing, by fighting for a contract, by hitting the picket line. So it's you know, we we've been workers have been been doing this for a very long time, but right now it does feel like there's a very specific moment happening that everybody's coming to

have had. And also one thing that I think is really important too, is that a lot of these strikes, in these union drives and campaigns, they're getting a lot of attention right like we're talking about this on your podcast, Like we're seeing lots of media coverage. They a lot of unions have kind of harnessed the power of social media to get their stories out there. Like that is

not just having in a vacuum. It's not something that people can ignore as easily as they perhaps could have been or could have done decades before or years before when there was a less labor curious press. But right now post October, where everyone's trying to get in on everyone with most labor stores, and I think it's great. Like, so, there have been some really amazing labor stories. The one that I'm very conscious of is this Starbucks story. Will

you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, I mean, it's been such a big year for Starbucks Workers United. The past couple of years have been just an absolute wildfire for that organizing effort. Hundreds of Starbucks stores are not unionized. Some of them are trying to get to the bargaining tables Starbucks, Starbucks, it's very anti union. They've been busting the hell out of this effort the entire time.

They fired organizers, they've retaliated, they've tried to intimidate. Howard Schultz has been publicly given statements about how he doesn't think unions are a good staying, especially for his baby. Like they've been up against the wall for this entire time, but they still kept going. Kind of hilarious that this guy, like big Democrat. Yeah, it was supposed to be Hillary Clinton's labor secretary. Can you imagine that timeline? My god,

and it's it's it's sort of funny. Yeah, I mean, it's crazy that anyone wanted him to ever be anyone's labor secretary is amazing. What a dick. And I mean it's sort of funny in another way because Starbucks has become this the shorthand for like the pampered liberal right, like oh my latte, I gotta get my star Bees. But the workers there who are dealing with low wages

and poor working conditions and dangerous issues at work. They're still being busted as if they were working for Jay Gould in the eighteen hundreds, like so insane, But they're still going and it's being led. One of the things I think is so important and notable about the Starbucks Workers United struggles that it's being led predominantly by younger workers, by black and round workers, queer and trans workers, like people who are younger, who have been told that their

labor and their opinions and their identity doesn't matter. Yeah, they're leading this movement, which is good. I mean, that sounds good. Now, we love to see it. The two biggest stories of the fall in my mind are the Starbucks unionizing and also Howard Schultz just showing us who he really is. And then this Amazon union. Let's talk

about that. Oh yeah, that's amazing. I mean they've had they've had a little bit of a tough year after you know, that big historic, incredible victory that I was a labor union had at their Staten Island facility where they won the union. The unionized that facility. There have been efforts and union votes at other facilities. Another one I think is Staten Island. I think there's an effort

in Kentucky. There's been a couple of other places that have tried to kind of recreate their magic right and organized with them, and those efforts have unfortunately not been successful,

but that organizing is continuing. You know. The incredible visibility of their win and of the people involved, Chris Smalls and Dirk Palmore, Angelico Maldondo, like, they have given so many people hope, and they have done such a great job of showing the importance of multi racial, multi lingual, multigender, multigenerational solidarity when comes to organizing these big workplaces against these big richer than God evil all the arcs. Yeah,

it's amazing to me though. The it's the younger people who understand labor right, and then they're bringing along the older people. It depends. I mean, that's why it's so important to approach us from a multigenerational standpoint, right, because younger folks they have the fire, they have perhaps more progressive viewpoints, they're ready to go out there and burn it all down. And then older folks maybe have the institutional knowledge and then experience the wisdom and when you

work together, that's how you win. I mean, this is why it's so significant seeing the teamsters who are about as established a union as you can get, who have been partnering and supporting the Amazon labor union because they're recognizing, Okay, these younger folks, these newer folks, they we need that energy. Like, let's throw some resources at I would see what they do. That's what Workers United did with Starbucks, and that's why they're being so successful. I think that's the magic, the

magic solution, right, work together a list of people. So let's talk about the train unions. Sorry, I need you to explain to us what's happening there. A bunch of bullshit. Basically, it seems like I just published today I say that the Baffler going into the many ways in which it was bullshit. Basically, the sticking point here, and I think this is an important thing to focus on, is that they they need more sick days, right. I mean, this is hardly like they're being greedy. They are like lived

through a pandemic and can't get sick days. Actually, Aaron Gordon, a reporter at Motherboard who has covered this for a while, he made a good point that it's it's definitely sick days, but it's bigger than that. It's the lack of time, like the lack of control that these workers have their on calle. Any given moment, you have a ninety minutes to get to work, whether you're sick, you're at your

kid's birthday, doesn't matter. They're treated like robots. And a lot of that comes down to this PSR system, like precision precision scheduling railroading at all. It's an acrotim but it's a system that's in place that it basically was put in place after the railroads cut about thirty of their workforce six years ago. And so now these people who were working on multiple person cruise before, now it's

one person, it's two people. Everything is stretched so thin and so tight that if one person needs to go home because they have a cold, well that throws the whole thing out of whack. So the railroad companies do not want to give the workers any flexibility, They don't want to give them any autonomy, and they really don't

want to give them sick days. Right now, I think the current contract that while it's now being forced down their throats by the buying administration, that was negotiated in part between thanks to this this kind of federal mediation that took place on top of the negotiations that were happening with the rail companies and the and the unions.

I think they get one personal day that they have to schedule like thirty days in advance, and they get a couple of days where they can go to the doctor that they have to schedule a month in advance. Like it's just very They got decent wages out of it, they got I think, okay, health care protections, But the way they're being treated like they're just cogs in a machine. That's what's really driving so much of the brutality of

what's happening. And the fact that Congress felt the need to step in and avert a strike because it would have hurt the economy, would have caused economic pain. That's what strikes are for. That's why people go on strike. They're not supposed to be fun for anybody. We also have right now the new schools on strike. De Oh, that's getting so ugly too, Yeah, Will you explain that?

It just kind of goes to show that no matter how publicly progressive or enlightened or even like radical and institution likes to paint itself as being when it comes down to paying their workers, that's when all like the

neo con Republican Reagan vibes start coming out. Because of adjuncts and other academic workers at the New School, which is like this very allegedly progressive institution in New York City, they have been on strike because they're trying to win decent wages and they're trying to win but our benefits all of the things that people go on strike for that you would think a nice liberal institution and be like, Okay, you are the reason that our students excel. You're the

reason our institution runs. Yeah, we can give you a race. But the New School has just dug in and fought back. And I think just yesterday they put out a statement saying they were stopping, but they're cutting the workers striking workers health insurance, and they were threatening to punish staff other staff members who were, you know, standing a solidarity

with them and not showing up to work. Like it's become this knockdown, drag out fight, and it's like, do you do you see what you're doing to your own brand? Like people can see you well. And I also feel like with the New School This is not corporate greed. This is some other weirdness, right, because there's no corporate to be greedy for. Right. Yeah, it's I don't know

what cut type. It's some type of greed, and it's some type of I think some of it comes down to and maybe this is maybe a little bit of spit bawling, but I think some of it is both classism and also some of these progressive institutions that talk about that care about culture and art and it's a passion project for you to work here. Like they don't think that workers. They think workers should feel lucky to be there, like, oh, you get the opportunity to be

part of our community. Yeah, okay, well I still I still gotta pay rent in New York City, Like my my boss to my landlord doesn't care about cultural value. They care about dollars and dollars and cents. I mean, do you think these strikers will get what they want? I mean, I hope. So that's the whole point, right, And I think the fact that some of these these actions are getting so much publicity and getting support from the public, I think that is a very big deal.

Especially I mean the New York Times going on a one day walk out, that's going to get a ton of publicity, and as it's a warning strike on their end, they're not going on a prolonged strike yet, but they're showing what could happen if they did. I think one of the biggest points of going on strike is to strike fear into your boss's heart and show just how important you are, just how much you matter. And that's

what these workers are doing. And as long as people support them and donate to their strike funds and show up to their picket line, they're gonna show that, you know, people value us, they say you're all worth the fact that you don't as a problem, and just keep exerting pressure and hopefully bring them to the table. Because these are just a few of the big strikes happening right now. Tell us any other big strikes that we should be aware of. Oh man, right now, there's forty eight thousand

University of California workers on strike in California. That was getting wild too. I think just the other day seventeen strikers were arrested for occupying UH school officials office. Like they're going hard in California. I've been covering this strike in rural Alabama for the past almost two years now, the Warrior met coal strike. Yeah, for twenty months now. Uh, coal miners in rural Alabama have been on strike against their Wall Street venture capital backed coal bosses, trying to

get a decent contract. Twenty months and they haven't gotten very much attention. But they're still out here. You know. Earlier this year, fifty thousand nurses in Minnesota went out on strike. We had an art museum strike here in Philly. There's always something happening, and yeah, it's just matter of paying attention. Please plug your book. Yeah, My book Fight Like Hell, The Untold History of American Labor, came out

earlier this year. It's my first one. I think of it as kind of a marginalized people's history of labor in the US, So it focuses specifically on the struggles and strikes and triumphs of women, queer workers, black, brown, Indigenous Asian workers, trans workers, disabled workers, sex workers, incarcerated workers, everybody who doesn't necessarily get those big headlines throughout history, but has always been here and has always had to

fight the hardest to push us towards whatever pieces of progress. We've actually made and it's out known. I'm the paperback comes out this summer. Oh I love this. Thank you so much, Kim. This was fantastic. I hope you'll come back and talk about all the other stuff that's going on. Yes, I am always available to be your strike correspondent. Excellent. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to your the best minds

and politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.