It, it could happen. Here the podcast where things happen and sometimes things maybe don't happen, And once again the thing maybe not happening is the strike at UPS. Yeah, so stuff has happened since we lash recorded. And also there was the thing that happened in the middle of the recording,
which was the announcement of the tentative agreement. And so to talk more about what's been happening since and what's sort of in this deal because we now know more details about it is once again Rehee Smith and Oliver Rose, who are to rank and file UPS teamsters, and once again they do not represent the union, are speaking as individuals, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, but welcome back.
Yeah, I'm good to be back.
Yeah, thanks for having us on again.
Yeah, I'm glad. I'm happy to talk to you. So all right, so last time we found out in the middle of recording that there is a deal struck, and I guess I wanted to start by talking a bit about what's been happening since then and what the sort of what sort of organizing has been happening, what the sort of union bureaucracy has been doing.
Yeah, it's a Well, it's been kind of kind of crazy. Basically, you know, we had that highlight reel that we all got, and then it was a bit before we got the actual contract, at least like a few days. And since then, you know, you're in union bureaucracy has been promoting these contract Q and A sessions and stuff like that, and they had three of them last Sunday and one of them this Monday, and voting has opened up. Uh yeah, it's it's been a bit, been a bit uh crazy feeling,
to be honest. Uh, yeah, yeah, it's been wild.
Yeah. Of course, you know, while we're recording, you know, we get the tenet of an agreement DRAP and you know it's framed as you know, this big historic uh you know, this game changer. So and you know, of course, for the first day, we just had what was in the press release. Even some of that language was a little bit confusing. Wasn't until Team Series, where a democratic union also had their own like press release clarified some language.
And then you know we're kind of just like, okay, we'll get you know, we're told we'll be getting the kind of agreement language next week and chance to you know, debrief with the local, but really like the the I think it was the following day the actual language comes out, you know, and some of the things where it's you know, there's like a promise with the uh all the general wage increases going on top of those market rate adjustments
we're speaking about, which are basically wages that are that ups can you know, add or even remove that's not actually tied to the contract wages and you know, so one of the things was, yeah, getting those raises on top, but there was no contract language you know in there, which definitely caused I think a lot of confusion concern
among rank and file members. And it actually took one of the locals, uh, you know, having a no endorsement before we even saw this memorandum of understanding between the company and the IBT, you know, guaranteeing this was going to happen, you know, that we would be getting those raises on top. It was just kind of one of those things where you know, there was this kind of really vague language that was used and I think definitely caused you know, people to not really fully understand, you know,
what was going on. Specially I think it was about seventy five percent of part timers are currently have a market rate adjustment. You know, that's kind of a very big portion of the workforce.
Yeah, it was a gonna be honest, it was a real it was kind of a real calm shit show, uh, from from union leadership releasing the information.
Uh, in the way they did.
It absolutely led to a lot of misunderstandings about what was in the contract, which you know, kind of spread like wildfire. And the union response to what I think is a lot of just genuine misunderstanding is to just label it all as misinformation from people that have, you know, their their own agendas, right, and you can't you can't like trust those people. You can only trust what's what's
coming from the union. And Yeah, that definitely didn't inspire trust from the people that were leaning no, because in between a lot of these like and there is definitely was some misunderstanding about what was initially into the in the contract, but there is also genuine critique about certain
things that are in the contract. Right, And so instead of like substantly substantively like looking at these genuine critiques, we're all forced in the situation of sorting out what is quote unquote misinformation or you know, more accurately, people not understanding legalese and also a bad role out of information versus Okay, but what is in the contract that really needs improvement? And instead of like substantially getting into the ladder, it's just been a pure focus on the former.
And yeah, it's it's been, it's been kind of tense.
Uh.
It seems like, you know, it seems like there's a real mix, it's real kind of even even uh, how rank and vile members are responding to this contract. You know, some have kind of bought in full sale that this is a historic contract, and others, you know, you know, such as myself, like, you know, there's still things in this contract that to me are unacceptable and it's going to be interesting to see where it goes.
Yeah, I mean, you know, I kind of feel like it's hard to get a gauge of where everyone's at. And of course I only have the you know, kind of my local experience in my specific shift. You know, definitely, Yeah, I haven't I haven't come across you know, someone I work with yet, you know who's totally just like, yeah,
this is superstoric, this is you know, game changing. Uh, you know, as they were saying, or the union was saying, a lot of people, you know, especially long timers, like yeah, this is a really good contract with you know, the best I've seen, uh, you know, in my days here. And then there's you know, there's been another few other people who are like, yeah, I'm gonna vote yes, but it really doesn't really seem like you know, it's matching, you know, the framing of you know, this historic contract.
And then also know this, I mean, other people who are just kind of like, none, this seems I mean I was kind of like too little, too late, Like the games aren't quite there. Yeah, it's there's there's raises. They're also kind of done in a weird way where they're more or less like kind of front loaded towards the first and last year, and everything in the middle is a lot lower to the point actually where and it gets confusing because everyone's kind of at a different
rate with those market rate adjustments. You know, the more you're making from you know, that supplemental pay, the worse this is going to keep with inflation to the point where it's kind of you're only actually going to be just above inflation towards the end of the contract, especially one of the definitely one of the weaker things in the contract is all new hires or current people without
seniority are going to be on a different tier. And this is where the part timer inside warehouse positions, so you know the Yeah, so if you have seniority, it's minimum of twenty one an hour to start, and that goes up to twenty five seventy five an hour, versus those new hires or no seniority employees are going to be out twenty one with the progression to twenty three the fifty cent raises and of course, uh, you know, once you know, tack on the average you know, a
little bit over three percent inflation, you know, I can kind of quickly see, uh, it's those new members who are getting the worst part of the deal.
Yeah, And that comes to I think another thing that is like I don't know, so when this was all first happening, and I've seen this like a lot from people talking about this is people talking about this is like a contract that like ends the tier systems, and that just like doesn't seem to be true at all.
Yeah, And so one of the things, so there's the yeah, I believe we spoke to this last time. The two two four is what it's called, where it's a combo driver and inside warehouse position and most of the time, you know, they were just more or less practically full time drivers, except for a few times where you know, they much like earlier this year they tried to transition
them to mostly like inside full time. But so the thing is, yeah, those will all get you know, converted to the package car drivers with that, I believe, with that raid or at least very similar.
Yeah.
Yeah, so we did get rid of the twenty two fours, and that was the big promise, you know, going into this contract fight. But yeah, no, there are definitely still remaining tiers within ups. You know, there's this new one that's been created, which is the you know, the tier between the what they call the unborn. That's how they refer to people that have not yet been hired by ups that have like stipulations in the contract, right, Yeah,
they call them the unborn. It's it's kind of funny, and you know, their whole thing is that they just have a completely different wage progression than the rest of us do. But in addition to that tier which was introduced, you know, there are tiers elsewhere. Sometimes it's a tier between the hubs, like all of the hubs are making different MRAs and stuff like that. But additionally, there are some hubs that don't have a daily guarantee of hours
like regular hubs do, like for instance, air hubs. Right, So like that's another basically another tier, because it's you know, people doing the same work but not guaranteed the same things. And yeah, yeah, so there's definitely tiers remaining in this contract for sure, and it's really unfortunate to see that the one existing didn't get addressed and that they just created a whole new one, even though they are adamantly insisting it is not here.
Yeah, that's you know, this goes back to I believe the nineteen eighty two contract, which is when the full time and part time pay was changed to different different tiers, with part time getting like four dollars less than full time which was I think twelve twelve an hour back in eighty two versus eight an hour for the part timers. You know, So that's continued, you know, across all these decades.
And so now with the current contract, provided you're getting paid the contract minimums, yeah, you're looking at full time inside warehouse their top rate going to thirty six dollars an hour, I believe, and then you're gonna have part timers who have seniority just below twenty six an hour, and then you're gonna have those people who weren't quite in the door yet at twenty three. And of course, you know, it's doing more or less the you know,
the same work the inside. You know, you're doing your loading, unloading, sorting, the other you know, various positions there. And of course you know, one of the things I've seen, you know, particularly online, I haven't heard this on the shop floor. It's just like, oh, well, you know they're working more, so of course they're going to get paid more. But it's like, okay, well, yeah, they have more hours, so they would get more paid, but that doesn't mean that
they should be at a higher hourly rate. Yeah. Plus there's going to be other things too, like the pension of CRUL and you know, vacation time where you're working more, you're going to get more of that too. It's kind of has its own reward. There's really no reason to have, you know, like a ten dollars discrepancy for that type of work performed.
Also, I was doing some quick math in the background, and the nineteen eighty two I wagees like thirty six dollars an hour and with inflation. Now, so that's historic. That's fun.
Yeah, I don't know.
I think it's when I think about, you know, this union being touted as historic, I like actually think about, like what are the actual historic wins of the labor movement? And you know, I'm thinking about, like, you know, the right to a five day work week. Meanwhile, this historic contract, you know it ended six day punches, but that's that's not a new historical thing. That was something we lost
and then regained with this contract. So it's you know, in my mind, it's not really breaking any barriers or like you know, blowing anyone's minds, you know, especially when we have Sean Faye of the UAWD who is talking about, you know, one of their demands is a thirty two hour work week, right like he's he's advocating that every worker needs a forty percent an increase in pay because the CEO got a forty percent increase in pay.
And yeah, it's just.
Yeah, are our contract just you know, it isn't at that level by any means.
When you said we're historic, you know, like I think there could be times where you can, you know, call something historic before it stands the test of time. But this is kind of like, Okay, this is kind of I feel like the contract, you know, you would expect a union to bargain. Maybe it's I mean partly it's historic because it just really hasn't been really any gains and so it's kind of like, Okay, you got us wage increases, isn't that kind of just like what you should be doing? Yeah?
Well, I mean, I mean this is this has been there's been like this has been like the there's been a bunch of unions in the last like maybe like eight months who have like settled and been like we've gotten historic races, And it's like, I don't know, it's the thing that seems actually historic about it is essentially averting like averting this massive strike wave.
Yeah. One of the things I wanted to add was, you know, especially with those combo positions, you know, ending that tier. That was something that was introduced in the previous contract, which rank and file members voted down. It was a no vote, but it was just because of this uh, you know, kind of obscure you know rule in the constitution where it's just like, oh, fifty percent of people don't vote, then it required the two thirds
you know, no vote. So you know that was just completely you know, over overruled by the union, like we're going to do this anyways, So kind of you know, it's good that we righted that wrong. You know, it's good to reduce a tier. Of course, I'm not gonna knock that, but just kind of those things where it's like, yeah, but membership already didn't want that, or at least.
You guys did this. Yeah, you guys did you guys introduced this in the first place, like come on, yeah.
Yeah.
It's also worth noting that the twenty two to four position, you know, it wasn't working for our members, but it also wasn't working for the company either. They were having significant trouble trying to fill all the shifts that we were needed and required by the position, and to the point that workers ended up kind of being slotted into one or the other with like really bad schedules, and it wasn't it wasn't working for either, is the thing.
So it is it's great that we got rid of it, but it seems like it was somewhat of an easy thing to win. It made mutual sense, right, and yeah, yeah, it's just there were you know, there were bigger there could have been bigger fights over other things in this contract that weren't pursued, right, So.
Yeah, I mean that's that's the thing. From everything that I've seen from me, it seems like it seems like the goal of this contract is to get a contract that's like exactly good enough to get like fifty one percent of the vote in a contract to avoid UPS having to like actually deal with a contract that a strip would produce.
Mm hm oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah.
It's kind of the I mean whether I mean probably intentional where it's just like you know, it's like just good enough, you know, to maybe warrant like a yes vote, and especially i mean in contact of you know, the last however many contracts. But it's kind of one of those things where it's like, okay, by comparison, it's good, but again, you know, I don't think it quite goes far enough either on the wage side, you know, on the on the wages or you know, especially one of
the issues I've been focused on a lot. Is the heat protections.
Yeah, can we can we talk about well, specifically the heat protections, but then also kind of talk a bit about what's what is in the contract and what like isn't in the contract that should be. Oh yeah, you can start with the heat production stuff.
Yeah. So one of the things. So they'll be rolling out air conditioners in the uh All trucks package cars purchase, I believe after August of the next year, and they'll be kind of distributing them by zones and current ones will be retrofitted with my heat shields and events. I'm not quite sure how effective that'll be. One of the
things for the inside people, you know it's there. You know, they'll be installing you know, tens of thousands of more fans, which you know, I'm not gonna lie that that will feel really nice because those trailers just get so hot and stuffy. There's no airflow, especially like if it's been sitting for a while, you open the door, it's just like a last of heat. But the problem with fans is they're only so effective, particularly once it reaches ninety
five degrees. They don't do anything, and so you know there's a lot of places where it'll probably feel nice and it might help to some degree, but you know, especially like right now in you know, like the Southwest and the south where you've just had these you know, one hundred and ten plus degree days, you know, like over a month, like that's not going to do really do much, especially if you're anywhere, depending on if you've got dry heat or you know, higher humidity in the
latter fans can and sometimes make it worse. I'm also worried it's going to kind of be like this kind of like a comparison to a like security theater, but like more like safety theater, where it's this appearance of doing something to say like, look, we're doing this thing. It's going to keep you safe. But whether that's you know, actually true or not, well, I mean, we'll kind of
find out. But definitely I'm pretty worried about, you know, what's going to happen, especially in the next five years.
We already have and I think it was the it was it, it was the World Meteorological Organization, you know, now has a their researchers have like a ninety eight percent certainty that we're going to reach a high mark for global warming before twenty twenty seven, so you know, and I'm pretty sure last July was already the the hottest month on record globally, and it's something to read.
There's in I think in that report of like a sixty six percent chance of passing that album one point five degrees celsius warming global warming between now in twenty twenty seven. So it's kind of one of those things where, you know, I don't think we necessarily have five years to wait to you know, address this contract language and add further protections. Especially we've got other unions like the
International Longshorn Warehouse Union. They had an article that's talking about their heat protections, which have things like stewards that are equipped with heat monitoring equipment versus the current contract language for us would be they can just use like the OSHA app or you know, like weather service to check you know, like a weather station versus like the actual specific conditions you're working in. Yeah. Yeah, that seems like there'd.
Be a huge it seems like there's a huge discrepancy there because like the indoor temperatures and temperatures in these trailers are way hotter than like the reported conditions.
Yeah, and it can be like five to ten degrees hotter. At least I bought a little thermometer and hydrometer, hygrometer something like that, whatever measures humidity, because that's kind of how because there are states with heat protections, there's like
seven of them. A lot of times they're using the heat index when you're factoring in the temperature and humidity to get the feelds like temperature and yeah, with the il WU, you know, they're also getting rest breaks as part of their contract language, which I believe two or three states have those of the seven total that actually have heat protections. And you know, the ile WU is kind of talking about even though they have heat protections that kind of match or even kind of exceed partly
what some of the states have. You know, they're kind of saying, this isn't enough for the current extreme heat we're facing.
Yeah, I mean, and you know, talked about us on the show before. But like whatever heat protections get negotiated in a contract, like the company is going to basically the instant negotiations are over, is going to figure out what the well a, what the cheapest possible way to do this is with the shittiest equipment and then be like try to They're going to immediately try to figure out like how you know, like how how to actually
subvert it. And you know, this is this is the thing we've seen all over the world, even in places that have sort of national heat protection laws, is that you know, even even if you have a law, or even if you have a thing in a contract, even if you have something in your contract, it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be enforced. And that requires a you know, it requires like a pretty significant degree of
organization to make sure it stays enforced. And that's you know that that's true both of stuff that's in contract and stuff that's like legally required, and so like if if if, if, if the thing that they're nominally required to do is still insufficient, it's going to end up being way worse than that on the ground.
Yeah, we're seeing that with art i mean, existing heat protections at the state level, where they're you know, falling short, and especially you know there's either you know, there's kind of loopholes or even just kind of like murky language that makes it really hard to enforce. In some cases.
Do not have a good transition, but it's hot. Yeah, here here are some ads that are i don't know, hopefully not making the climate worse. And we're back. So outside of the sort of of the experience around heat, what else has been going? Like, what else is in the contract that there's been sort of dispute over.
So if you look online, and this is an instance of not really quite understanding what's in the contract. But if you go online, a lot of people think that there are pension freezes in the contract. And once again, I think we can contribute this misunderstanding to a calm strategy failure as well as a lack of open bargaining. The con the dot COM's the pension contribution rate has decreased, but money is still going in to the pension fund,
not as much as it was, is my understanding. The way the union broke it down for me was like, there's a dollar and twenty five cents of that dollar is going to healthcare, twenty five cents of that dollar is going to the pension, and then fifty cents of
it is going to wages. And I'm gonna be honest with you, I don't super understand all this money stuff either, but we yeah, they showed us a thing where like the contra visions are going to keep happening, other things that have been in the kind of in the like what we've all what people have been thinking about is the full time jobs, which I know we talked a lot about on the last one, and uh yeah, that's it.
I think we we were using the seventy five hundred for newly created jobs, but apparently the contract also specifically requires them to actually fill the twenty two thousand some full time jobs that exist that they just have not been filling. But even with that additional twenty two thousand, that's still roughly thirty thousand full time jobs that is for the full time work for the whole workforce of
three hundred and forty thousand people. And something I learned is that full time drivers can bid into those positions and get them because they will likely have the seniority to do so. Because that's how we determine how to fill jobs. It's by seniority, you know, how long have you been there? And usually you know, I think that makes sense, but you know, that really just contributes to the to the long long wait of part timers trying to get full time work.
Right, and.
Yeah, like the thing like kind of related to that. You know, we have these like if you have a market rate adjustment and you get your two seventy five, for me, that's going to be twenty six seventy five an hour. And that looks great until you remember that we are part time. It is like we are supposed
to work half a work week. I work less than because of the hub that I am at, which is not great, but you know, we need the hours and there's not the there isn't enough jobs, and that's stimulated by this contract.
I think that there probably could be a lot more jobs.
Yeah, I want to see something about that specifically too, which is that like when when like you random listener who's not working at ups, whenever you see someone like talking about a wage number and it's for part timers, Like if if you want to try to figure out can this person's your vibe? You need to divide that number by two at like at the very least divide up by two, possibly divide it by more. Because again, like they don't, no one, no one's like if you're
a part timer, like obviously, yeah you're not. You're not getting the hours that you know, that that that you that you would normally you know, if if you can't just immediately convert that to what would the salary be if you work, if you got like forty hours a week or whatever, like you can't do that. I've seen a lot I've seen this a lot, a lot, like
on the internet. I've seen pundits talking about it like this, and it's just like a incomprehensible misunderstanding of the act of like how how this stuff actually works for you to be going like, oh, look at all this money that people are making, assuming that like you know, and then and then using calculations that are based on like someone working full time, which is most of the workforce, like a significant significant majority of the workforce is not
is not working full time and will not be even after this contract.
Yes, yeah, it's yeah, it's estimated there are sixty percent of the workforce is is part timers.
So yeah, no, that is a that is a huge issue.
You know, a lot of people also, like when this is brought up, a lot of people like to then say, well, you know, get a second job, but our jobs aren't flexible. Like first of all, fuck fuck having a second job. I am kind of staunchly opposed to the entire concept.
But even if I wasn't, this job is not flexible enough to account for a second job, not unless you never want to sleep in your second job is when you should be like sleeping because you know, we have our start times, those are given to us a week in advance, but we don't know when our end times are because the end times are when we run out
of packages. So you know, some days, you know, like in my hub, it's always just going to be the two hours, but like in other hubs, you could be there, you know, you could be trying to get your three and a half hour daily guarantee, like employing that when they're trying to send you home, or you could be there six seven hours, and you know, how how how is another employer supposed to operate with that? You know, you call in like three times saying like, oh, I
can't actually leave my first job. You're not going to have that second job much longer. So yeah, in addition to the lack of full time jobs, the way this job is makes a second one impossible. So a lot of our part timers really are relying on that on that part time wage to get them through and picking up doubles when they can, which means you kind of end up having a ten hour day because there's like about a two hour like space of time in between
the shifts. So yeah, yeah, it's uh yeah, those are those are some some of the big issues.
So yeah, that's one of my worries. You know, if I've about you know, if I want to go full time or not, is you know, can be at least in the hub I work at, I would say usually I'm getting like twenty four hours a week, you know, if I'm going full time, but double that because now I'm working two shifts. But also you know, got to have that like hour or two of wait time between shifts. You know, it's just a lot of time to be spending at work, especially on paid time at work. That
is that is the worst. You know, it's not quite long enough stretch to like go home or at least you know you have a decent commute to work. And you know, another thing kind of came to my mind a little earlier earlier was that and it sounds like at least talking with new hires, that this is still continuing, which is kind of this really deceptive hiring practice where the hours are posted. When I got the job, you know,
it was posted as part time. For get it was something like, uh, I don't know, I'm not to four, but you know, had that schedule for five days a week, seven hour shifts, thirty five hours a week times. By the twenty six starting pay, I was like, oh, perfect, I'll be making like, you know, somewhere like mid forty thousand. That's that's livable at least for my specific you know circumstances. But then of course get there and you know the yeah,
we get two days notice for a start time. It's posted on our either you know, end of the week, so don't know exactly when I'm working, you know, until right before the next week, and you know, at least there an orientation. Soone asked, oh, like, what's actually the end time. I was just like, oh, well, when the last package is loaded. Of course, if you know what when the next shift starts, you can kind of get a better idea of when you'll actually be out of there.
But still it's just kind of it's, you know, it's this claim flexibility, but it's very difficult, you know, to actually work a second job or even know they offer tuition reimbursement, and there's a number of students who have had you know, a hard time actually like you know, getting the time off to attend their classes. And I also second anywhere that's part time work that offers tuition reimbursement.
You know, I would say this an expected expectation that Okay, well you're going to school and you're working part time. You would think the wages then should at least you know, provide enough for rent, food, gas, textbooks, all that.
Yeah, to piggyback off of what Oliver just said regarding you know, like this is a wage that is good for you know, their situation when they were assuming it was at the you know, thirty five hours a week.
You know.
Another thing to think about is a lot of these part timers, you know, they have families, they have significant others that they're caring for. Like, you know, a lot of people look at this wage and one make the faulty assumption that you talked about earlier by multiplying it by forty to get the forty and then they assume that's for just that one person.
And like, there are part timers of every age, right, and they all have their.
Own their own families and stuff like that that they are expected to care for as well. So like when you look at all of this and the you know, the rate of inflation and the way the economy is, and you take all of these things into account, like the gains that are provided for in this contract is not enough when you consider the whole of everyone.
Who works at UPS.
You know, it's leaving behind families, right, Like yeah, it's it's wild.
Yeah. And I think another thing that isn't talked about that much in terms of this is like the actual physical effect on your body of doing this kind of work, because this is like I don't know, this kind of work is intense enough that I mean there's there's there's very rare risk of injury, and there's also I mean just like you know, over the course of time, doing this kind of shit is going to like fuck up your body, and you know, like part part of the
sort of bargain of like like part part of the bargain of this work is that you're getting you know, it's it's in some ways, like it's in some ways like you could think about it like if you're a middle of a football player, like you're gonna get your fucking brain destroyed by just repeated head trauma, right, and you know, so, so there's only a limited amount of
time your body can physically handle this. And it's like, yeah, okay, it looks like you're getting a lot of money in a very short amount of time, but you have to, you know, you have to live with the sort of physical consequences of what happened of what happened to you on that job getting the money. So that money also like not just doesn't just have to get you through like now, right, like it also it has to also essentially be compensation to the physical damage that you're doing
to your body by doing this shit. And you know, I think I think it. I think like these ways look even worse when you look at like, you know, when you when you think of it in terms of you know, in in in like in like not even not just in terms of immediate rent, but like in in the really long term of having to you know, live with the sort of physical damage that you take from doing this stuff.
Yeah, and that's fine. I just had a coworker talking about that today actually, And because that's I mean, there are a lot of like college age kids you know, the early twenties. They at least from you know, my experience of notes kind of usually they're kind of like the quick turnover. I feel like a lot of people are staying more like their you know, thirties forties. You know,
we have people older older than that too. On my line, I think part of that's just like kind of we understand the importance of i mean a gold tier uh health insurance plant and a pension. But you know, of course with uh, you know, being older, Uh, it's gonna you know, have even more of an effect on the body.
And yeah, I know I've heard people talking about this where it's just like, oh, well, it's just part time or it's you know, entry level you know, quote unquote, Uh you don't need a degree for this, Like why do you think you should be paid more? And it's like, well, it's it's brutal. I mean, we get a ten minute break, we're working up to six hours. That is it Why they don't have to do a lunch break. I don't know.
It seems like ups just always gets there their way, and uh that's you know, like state, local, bederal law that they don't care. Yeah, even this last contract and there's so many violations. Of course, you know, we got to whether you know this is yes or no, whatever the next contract is. You know, that's going to be a big part of the fight, is just holding them accountable and to the terms.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Like I you know, I've had coworkers out on you know, workers comp for like you know, doing physical therapy for the injuries that they got on the job for like months at a time. Right, these like, you know, we're sitting around loading boxes all day. And some of them are very light, but some of them are really fucking heavy.
Some of them are really awkward to hold. They're weirdly shaped.
Like there are some boxes where, like they tell you about ups, tells you about methods, the eight keys of lifting and lowering that you know should make it safe, but like there are some boxes where it's impossible to follow those those methods the absolute bane of my existence, and I recognize them every time I see them. I swear to God, these things must be just filled with lead, because you look at them and it's a very small box.
You know, it's not more than like.
Probably twelve inches long, you know, know, like no, not even twelve inches, probably more like seven inches long, you know, like six seven inches wide and then like two and a half inches you know deep, And that should be a very easy box, but it's like filled with lead and for whatever reason, it can weigh like thirty five to fifty pounds Jesus, And it's like one that box is too small to like have a team lift on because you can't have two people around something like that.
And like, you know, when you pick up a box, you're supposed to keep the natural curve of your back, but do not over extend the curve. And you have to for those like packages like that, right, Like there's not a way to position yourself to lift them safely, and you kind of have to a little bit jerk up, which they tell you not to do, but that's the
only way to get leverage on it. And yeah, like and you know, I've been in trailers where like a box like that was loaded precariously, like just slightly my head, and one time it came crashing down and I like neoed out of the way, like I was like in the fucking matrix, and I was just like, oh, if I had just been a little bit less responsive, that could have been a very serious head injury for me,
and so yeah, the risk of like very severe injury. Like, you know, I busted my face open on a grate outside of where the what we call the cans, which are like the things that have all the packages. They bring them to the bay doors. I was unloading and I had to go between them, and I like.
There was motor oil spilled.
I tripped and I like smashed my open my face open on a fucking grate and had to get stitches. Like it's yeah, no, the safety involved with this job is not extremely guaranteed, and yeah, the risk of injury is high and we should be preemptively compensated for that.
Yeah, it's like and even somehow if you managed to go like your whole career without a single injury, you know, there's well at least like more the kind of like accidental injury because it's still it's a lot of repetitive motion and you're gonna, I mean, eventually it's gonna take its tall.
Right, we're doing, We're doing, We're doing some more ads.
Yeah by things.
All right, we are back. So I guess I know. Another aspect of this that I wanted to talk about has been the sort of broader strategy of trying to avoid strikes, and this has been both sort of to some extent run by union, to some extent like imposed from the top down. One of the things I wanted to talk about, Yeah, I think a sort of kind of underdiscussed aspect of what's been happening in the last sort of year or so has been Biden's willingness to
get involved in strikes. Earlier, you know, Obama eventually got involved in a couple of strikes during his tenure, but he tended to not get involved until like a strike had been going on for like nine months or whatever. And Biden's been taking like a very very proactive approach to sort of I don't know, strike mitigation, I guess is the sort of like sanitized term you taker to there,
like keeping labor piece. But he seems to have a sort of you know, he's to be getting very very involved, very quickly in trying to make sure that strikes don't happen.
And you know the consequence of this is that we didn't get the rail strike that we should have gotten, and there's there's been a few other strikes that has sort of been averted, and I wanted to ask, I guess how you're thinking about this strike, not just sort of in terms of like the immediate benefits, but in terms terms of what it would actually mean if like another major strike sort of get shut down before we can get going in a year that is, I mean
still even if the strike doesn't happen, a pretty sort of full year in labor terms.
Yeah, yeah, well one, I guess I got to say thank you to the most pro labor president.
Of our life. Yeah. No, he Yeah, you're absolutely right.
He does seem to be getting involved early and mitigating them. If I was, if I had to speculate, I you know, he's very concerned about this whole economy thing that we keep talking about, right, and he doesn't want to see any big shocks to the economy. And you know that's
something where I guess I disagree. I think, you know, I think a shock to the economy that is brought about by workers going on strike is a reminds them of what they have and what they move and what they create, right, And I think, yeah, the ruling class, you know, our politicians and the capitalists who own our politicians, they they don't want us to experience that, you know, like I remember even during the you know, the Trump administration,
when you know, it was when during the government shutdown and Sarah Nelson got all the flight attendants to do a sick out and stuff like that, and kind of just like that the government shutdown had ended and they all went back to do government things, whatever those government
things are. And you know, like people on Twitter, you know, they were talking about like, yeah, this is like workers have power to affect not only their own work conditions, but they can have broad implications on society, on the political climate, on what's going on. And yeah, there was absolutely, I think a contingent of centrist liberals that were like
really frightened by that idea. You know, they like they like a society in which the right people with who went to the right schools and all of that, like where they are the ones that are in charge, and they are the ones that are shaping history with the pen strokes on like you know, whatever bills they're legislating, And yeah, I think they have a vested interest in making sure that workers don't get to experience that sense of autonomy that they can experience by going on strike
and by seeing you know, exactly what kind of power they have and what it does, because they don't want it. They don't want it to get beyond what's going on in the workplace.
They barely want it there, you know.
Like so, yeah, yeah, I think there is a vested interest, And yeah, I have not I've been able to see it confirmed, but I have seen in articles where they will say that, you know, Sean O'Brien had met with President Biden, but then there isn't a link click through, so I can't figure out what the initial thing is. But I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised, Like, and it's
it's a it's a damn shame. It's you know, it's a shame that the president of our local union, you know, should that have happened to come to it?
Right.
Yeah, that's the thing where it's like it's been really hard to get reliable information. And it's also possible they were sort of behind the scenes talks that we just don't know about. But you know, the place we know this happened is we know this happened between the rail strikes. There was a lot of pressure from rail unions to like like on on their rank and file to like get to just like sign on to some kind of agreement.
And I think I think this is something that you know, in terms of sort of political repression, like it's something that's not understood in the same way, but like that is also still like that, like that that like negotiating behind the scenes, are putting pressure on and then you know, eventually Biden does just actively like mandate that the strike can't happen, right Like that is like that I will argue that that is in fact a full of strike breaking.
M M agree.
And I think I think people are tend to be less but but you know, specifically, the ability to sort of cut deals with unions, like this is something that the Republicans have like aren't like really good at. Like it's not it's not an ability that they really have. It's it's something that like is largely limited to the Democrats.
And but you know, but this this means that they have sort of they have a unique capacity to repress social movements that isn't as obvious as sort of like you know, just like a bunch of strike breakers showing
up or the cop showing up. But is there all the same And I think is in some ways more dangerous because you know, like you get these arguments with like with the rail strike, where like technically eventually Biden was able to get some kind of deal through for some sick time, right, but you know, and you have this sort of like liberal conception of what labor is where they're like, oh, well, everyone was wrong to like be mad at Biden for this, like they got the
thing eventually. But you know, the problem here isn't it isn't just you know, strikes aren't just about the immediate thing that you're fighting for, right, like, they're they're also about like moving the class as a whole. They're about the experience of striking. They're about and then you know, and they're also about the fact that you will get
a better deal if you win a strike. Then you will if you get like, you know, if if you get one of these sort of like negotiated deals like cut in the back room by Biden and like seventeen
unions in the Manufacturer's Association. And so I think, I think I think it's important to understand that, you know, the like there is a fundamental sort of difference between like liberalism sort of conception of you know, you you achieve material gains, and it doesn't really matter what the process is, right, or you know, the process is like
you go through the legislative domain. There's an actual difference between that and the things that happens DRAE to strike, which is, you know, there's there's an actual process of like the building of power of workers and you know, building the autonomy of the class itself. And I don't know,
I think I think those are very different. And I think I think a lot of what we've been seeing here is an attempt both by unions themselves, by and you know, by by business leaders, and also by like the president and the Democratic Party to try to make sure that this doesn't happen and that they can sort of contain this really explosive labor moments and prevent it from sort of turning into more.
Yeah, I think that's very true. I think that you know, the unions, you know, have long been divorced from their original roots. Is like, you know, this was a communist, socialist This sprung out of communism, socialism, anarchism. It was about workers banding together to not only collectively bargained just for the workplaces, but for society wide issues, right, unions used to be explicitly political, and I you know, as we've like seen this rise in political conscience, you know,
over like this last decade. The ruling class and you know, the entrenched union bureaucrats that have long been you know, divorced from those origins, I think, have a very vested interest and you know, not having labor go back to those roots to and stuff like that, you know, it threatens it obviously, the working or the ruling class power, excuse me, And you know it threatens your union bureaucrat jobs when workers start like demanding more from like what the labor movement can provide for them.
Right.
So I think that's all, that's all very true, And it's just that this is another avenue where collective change is possible, and the state and capital will always clamp down on any avenue where change can be achieved through those means. So I think that's really really what we're seeing here.
Yeah, And I don't know, I mean, I think I think another thing that's worth pointing out is that like part of the reason that like part of the reason that you know, if you if you go back to sort of like when when the error of the sort of decline of unionism happened, right, Like, part of the reason why the Reagan era repression worked was that a lot of these unions had already sort of hollowed out the radical core of like what had been their union organizers.
They had purged, you know, like the CIO, I mean even back as there's always like the forties, like the CIO purged like all of its leftist members, and you know, you got these successive like these these successive sort of iterations of unionism that were less and less militant, and you know, like you can you can you can literally see what the result of that has been, right, like
union density down to like six percent. And so you know, if if if if, if it keeps going like this and we keep getting these sort of like sustained efforts to make sure that it never redevelops again, Like yeah, like it's we're gonna we're gonna be stuck there.
Yeah, And I mean it's just yeah, I mean, specific to those ups contracts. Can absolutely see that, you know, by looking at the wage growth you know, through the last forty years, or maybe the lack thereof more of the stagnating wages just you know, between either you know, Union of fish are you know, even in the you know, Biden coming in. I think it's like, you know, more or less like these people who aren't going you know, who didn't enter the economy, uh, you know within the
last you know decade or two. You know, I don't know at all really what what our experiences are. Uh you know what kind of challenges and struggles and burdens were facing. And I mean especially and not prepared at all for you know, this world with a drastically changing climate.
Yeah.
Yeah, and then like you know, also to go back to like you know, the decline of you know, how unions have operated you know, over these last like for for some decades.
Right.
I think this is something I talked about a lot, and I talked about it, I think on the last podcast. But you know, once the the organized left was kind of purged out of all of these unions, you know, unions kind of became about a service mall.
And you know that's when the union.
Leadership, you know does you know, like you on the floor are enforcing your contract, You're bringing your grievances to the union, and the union is getting something done about them.
Right.
And I think you.
Know, that model in and of itself is indicative of a decline of a collective action, right, that reduces the union to Yeah, that's the entity you're going you go to when there is an issue in the enforcement of your contract and they negotiate a new contract for you, and you know, that's that's the service model type, right, And that's like what we're seeing a lot of. That's what like, you know, a lot of the business unions do and stuff like that. Some of them do it
better than others, you know. But then there's also the organizing model, where you use the union as it means to make your members militant, and they do contract enforcement on the floor and they like you know, organ i protests at their work site, and they like you know, they get involved in you know, issues outside of the work site, right, And I think, yeah, like watching the service model kind of prevail over these last you know, some decades over the organizing model is just yeah, it's
absolutely just another sign of collective action being stamped down wherever it can be.
You know, there's this an interesting thing with the there's an interesting thing with the service model that I see a lot where it's like, you know, when when when when you're getting like sort of union inoculation, uh like stuff, right, they'll be like, ah, like the management is going to tell you that like the union is an outside force and it's not. The union is actually you. And it's like this is true. But also like, damn, I wonder where the idea that the union is an outside force
it is not actually you came from. Like it couldn't you know, it's it's like it could it couldn't possibly have anything to do with the way you run your union, Like yeah.
Absolutely, absolutely, Yeah.
I think we were talking about that last time, like the kind of like the lack of onboarding engagement by the union. Yeah, I mean especially you know, I mean yeah, I mean I know this. I mean other union members too, where like does kind of feel like they're like, oh, I don't have all these benefits or higher pay or or you know, we're thinking about striking, but we don't even have a strike bund. You know, we don't know
how exactly well weather the storm. I mean that's something I hear you know, a lot on the shop floor. It's like when talking about you know, our union, you know, it's it's always the union, I know, I say that a ton too, But I mean I kind of feel like the language we just use like day to day talking about it, you know, I kind of there's not like inherent separation when it's like, oh, it's the union,
it's the some you know, it's this outside thing. It's not oh, it's a collection of all you know, rank and filement, whereas it's us.
Yeah, and it doesn't. But the thing is, yeah, it doesn't become that unless you have a really high level of participation and then also like a systemic effort to make sure that to make sure everyone is involved and to make sure that you know, the the union functions in such a way that even that that like you
know that that decisions of membership action matters. And I don't know, I think I think I think it's really I think it's really easy to you know, in this moment where unions are incredibly like you know, with the totally the actual amount of like unions in the US is really small, and also simultaneously, like you know, we're seeing a sort of reservience of union organizing. I think it's really really easy to sort of fall into this trap and like be be completely uncritical of the way
that unions have functions. Because again, like if the current model of unions that exists right now, like if that stuff worked, like we wouldn't be in in in the sort of conditions that we're in now. And that calls for you know, like that that that calls for collective action, and you know one of the things that calls for is being willing to go on strike.
Yeah, absolutely, Yeah.
Do you two have anything else that you wanted to add?
Yeah, no, because like something that you know, when I think about, like, you know, how do we get back to like this sort of you know where a union is, you know, we are the union. A union is a like is a collective of workers advocating for their rights. Right they are banding together, you know, they're negotiating together. And when I think about you know, the Teamsters, you know, and how they operate right now. And you know, we just had that big reform slate when where Seawn O'Brien
won and then you know, delivered us this contract. And you know, Shaun O'Brien did do like they they did in TDU did do other good things. They got rid of that constitutional rule that Oliver mentioned earlier. But I think you know, when we talk about like bringing down that barrier between the union and the members, the next most obvious step for me is that we need to get to open bargaining in this union. And frankly, I think open bargaining, or the fact that this bargaining was closed,
you know, is behind it's behind closed doors. You know, there were NDAs signed, there were rank and file members there, but they also couldn't tell us about it because of those you know, NDAs. Open bargaining is what's going to solve this, because this, like the whole fiasco about this tentative agreement and now all the kind of resulting hostility that is felt between members and leadership and members and even other members.
I think it's you know, like.
So much of this is due to a failure of comms and the fact that we did not know what was being discussed in these negotiations at any time, except for the vague highlights that they could tell us about, right, and then you know, they release a highlight reel that has very confusing language. They eventually do release the contract, but not all of the memorandums of understanding that would
help us understand what is actually in that contract. And you know, they're releasing all of this information in a way that is going to result in people not understanding what's in it. And I really do think open bargaining is the next step that you know, reformers in this union need to be advocating and organizing for.
Because that this has just kind of.
Been a real ship show, to be honest, and I yeah, I think it's a comms failure to be perfectly honest.
So yeah, yeah, and I would I would absolutely agree with that, you know, and I know like there was there was a IBT webinar with Sean O'Brien, and you know he even spoke to misinformation, but didn't you know, elaborate on what it was or you know, how or why it's wrong. It's just like, hey, you've got our emails, addresses, phone numbers. We're here on this webinar. Like you can
correct the record anytime, you know. It's uh, if you're worried about something that's not true and may may or may not influence people's votes, like you can do something about that. Like you you have a lot of money, you have you know, a comms team to use it. It's you know, just talk to your members like they're
real people. Uh, you know, we can we can understand shit. Uh, you don't gotta just you know, get get angry or even kind of like I was saying earlier, where it's just like it's almost just like feels like this framing where anything you know that's a dissenting view or a critique you know, so oh, it's just it's almost information. Don't don't pay any attention to it.
Yeah, which is you know, I don't know, like I I've seen this in a couple of I don't know, like just I've seen this in a couple of sort of union things we've coverled on this show. Is like, I don't know, and and an incredible unwillingness of union leadership to even like consider a position is not their own and to just sort of like immediately, you know, when confronted with another things just immediately attempt to completely
delegitimate them. And that sucks. Yeah, it's just not a not a great way to run a union.
No, no, you definitely you know.
And I've been seeing this this uh this closing like sort of rank around around leadership, right, and it's not something that inspires trust in union leadership.
Whatsoever. Right, Like, you know, you could be a member that you.
Know doesn't understand something, just has a question and then you kind of getting and you kind of just.
End up being stonewalled.
And you know, you're told, well, you know, go to this meeting where we're going to explain things and dah da da da da da da da dah. And it's like, yeah, but you know, I have you on the phone, now, can you explain it now? And you know, and it's as it's like they're taking all of these concerns as a personal blow to their ego, right Like they're taking it personally, as if people having concerns about what this contract does and does not stipulate is like an attack
on their moral character. And it's just really fucking frustrating. I gotta be real with you. And you know it doesn't say a lot for the overall democratic nature of the union either, right, Like you know this is like you know, you're kind of being told, well, you know, keep your opinions to yourself, accept our word for it.
Like you can vote however you want.
You know, this is one number one vote, but you know you can't be going online talking about it. You like can't be going talking to your coworkers about it because you don't have all the information, you're not understanding it correctly, and it's just like, well, can you get better at explaining it?
Can you not react this way?
Like can we have like a thing where like we can just like fucking talk about what's in it and what's not in it? And yeah, it's it's just again been real fucking frustrating.
Yeah. Yeah. It's another thing I mean too, is you know, any contract language maybe it should either be more clear or concise, or if it's going to be more on the legal east side, you know, put out a little like contract like explainer guide maybe especially around key language or language that they know is maybe vague or going
to cause you know, issues of like understanding it. And even you know, one one other thing about like you know, open bargaining was you know, looking at the ib T press release, you know there's one paragraph and it starts rank and final members served on the committee for the
first time. It continues on later saying you know, our hard work has finally paid or our hard work has paid off, and you know, and goes on to them say, you know, this is the most historic contract we've ever had, so kind of seems like right there where it's like, well, if limited member participation found by NDA has led to this historic contract, maybe it's time to involve all of us.
Yep.
And also, you know, the rank and file that are on these committees are appointed by leadership, so we don't we don't get to choose who these people are. And it's like leadership absolutely just has the ability to be like, well, I'm gonna, you know, appoint the ones that I like the most, that I have the best relationship with, that I know thinks the sun kind of shines out of my ass. And yeah, there's just this absolutely overall lack
of a democratic lack of a democratic internal culture. You know, we elect you know, our officers, most of them, but.
We don't elect stewards.
We don't really we don't elect our business agents or like anything like that. We vote on our contracts and that's it, you know, at our union meetings. I've had one union meeting where we did a vote that was introduced by leadership. Right, It's just it's, yeah, it's not the most democratic culture. And that's another thing that that needs to change as well.
Yeah, and I mean I think that goes back to a sort of like, you know, a fundamental political conflict, which is like, is democracy when you vote for someone else to make every decision? Or is democracy when people collectively make decisions themselves? And the sort of slipperydus of those two things causes you know, like causes you know, allows people who essentially want to be the only ones who ever get to make decisions to be able to claim that they are in favor of democracy or whatever.
But you know mean like mean that they get to make all decisions after they get elected, and not mean actual people's make decisions for themselves.
Yeah, yes, I need a more song who says it's more of a delegate role than a you know, representative.
Okay, I guess, I guess my My final thing is I yeah, you you two are both encouraging are going to encourage people to vote no on this contract for it, the the the the surely long list of both technical, procedural, I material and like broadly social reasons.
Yeah, it's correct. I'll be Yeah, I'll be voting no and also advocating for that and also I mean just also advocating people to vote as well.
Yes, big same on that low union participation and sends a bad message to the company. So definitely definitely doing both and continuing to have those conversations on the shop floors with folks explaining my concerns and stuff like that. But yeah, no, I'm I'm also going to be voting no on this contract as well.
Yeah, so that is Yeah, I guess I guess that that that is our coverage of this. There is still time for there is still time for there to actually be a striker, for this contract to fail and for people to fight for a better one. And yeah, I wish both of you two good luck in fighting this and yeah, and thank you both for coming on.
Yeah, yeah, thanks so much for having us.
I was excited to give you guys an update about all the crazy shit we talked about in the first episode.
Yeah, I'm glad, glad, glad we've got.
To talk about it a pleasure of being And yeah, appreciate the time.
Yeah, do you do you have anything to plug before.
You know, a yes or no vote. Solidarity all all workers and everyone on the shop floor. And you know, we'll got to keep on fighting for better conditions.
Yeah, and you too, dear listener, can fight for better conditions in your own workplace. And yeah, if one day, one day, fight for a world we don't have workplaces like this at all.
Amen, hallelujah.
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