I knew the only way to write a Trump movie for me was to write a movie that had nothing to do with the present day. I thought, any time you're approaching current Trump, you're going to dangerously tread into SNL The apprentice screenwriter, a Gabe Sherman on the on writing podcast. the board didn't stop there.
They created a new standard of organizing, a new option for unions to organize, which was that a union can request recognition directly from an employer after obtaining, um, proof of majority operating engineers, local three house counsel, Jenning, Lauer, and local three political director. Chris Snyder.
Join the breaking ground podcast to discuss the impact that presidential elections have on working people's legal rights in the ability of unions like operating engineers, local three to defend or promote their membership's rights. it's been, you know, Extremely positive where the government is going after more mergers, trying to block more mergers, trying to block them for better reasons. For instance, trying to block mergers because they would be bad for workers is something that is.
Had for decades, was like unheard of for writers' Guild of America, west senior research and public policy director, Laura blems Smith joins Christina Wu on the third and Fairfax podcast to talk about the union's policy priorities.
when you look historically back to 1970, in this modern era of collective bargaining, well over half of the pay raises that letter carriers have gotten in terms of dollar amounts, percentages, is due to COLA they've put a band aid on the problem, and they've absolutely failed to make any attempt to solve the actual problem, or even address it, which is the monopoly that Galls has on all of our, almost all of our uniform vendors, and that's the root cause of the hype.
just insanely high prices of all of our uniform items right we wrap up today's show with two takes on the tentative agreement between the letter carriers and the us postal service. First we'll hear from letter carriers, president Brian, Renfro on you are the current resident, the letter carrier as podcast. Then. on the workroom floor podcast hosts say round table discussion on the proposed contract. That's all ahead on this week's edition of the labor radio podcast weekly. Here's the show.
Thanks, Chris. Social media guy Harold Phillips here, folks, and, uh, you can probably tell I'm not doing my best. The change in the weather here in the Pacific Northwest and burning the candle at both ends, well, they, they kind of caught up to me. If you're like me and you want to stay in the loop on what's going on in the labor movement, but you have to take A day or two off in bed? There's a great way you can do that. You know what I'm talking about. Labor radio shows and podcasts.
Check out some of these shows you should know for October 20th, 2024. Rick and Brian share stories on UE's victory against academic bosses, Unite Here's hotel strike expansion, the UAW calling for a mass strike on May 1st, 2028, and more on We Rise Fighting. Speaking of that mass strike Dan, Lena, and John look at growing the coalition for a Mayday 2028 general strike, the way workers are fighting back against AI, Canadian Walmart workers unionizing, and more on work stoppage.
On the Valley Labor Report, Jacob and Adam talk with UE and UFCW members about engaging union members, react to the latest from Trump and Vance, and more. Janine Lau and Chris Snyder look at the impact presidential elections have on working people's legal rights and the ability of unions to defend their membership's rights and privileges on breaking ground.
And Kevin Stewart discusses the possibility that Donald Trump may once again impose tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum on Labour Radio Canada. And if you're looking for more episodes of Labour Radio shows and podcasts to tide you over while you're Taking a hiatus? You know how to find them. Search for the hashtag LaborRadioPod on Facebook, Instagram, or Still calling it Twitter, Elon. Or, follow the Labor Radio Podcast Network at LaborRadioNet. Okay, Chris. Back to you.
I'm gonna go lay down. You're listening to On Writing, a podcast from the Writers Guild of America East. In each episode, you'll hear from the union members who create the film, TV series, podcasts, and news stories that define our culture. We'll discuss everything from inspirations and creative process to how to build a successful career in media and entertainment.
I'm your host, Greg Iwinski, and today I'm speaking with Gabe Sherman, writer of The Apprentice, a feature film that looks at Donald Trump in the 70s and 80s as he's being mentored by Roy Cohn. Gabe, thank you so much for coming. Good to be here. Excited to talk to you about your career and this film and everything in between. I wanted to start the film in a very different place than we end up.
And just actually stepping back from that, I knew the only way to write a Trump movie for me was to write a movie that had nothing to do with the present day. I thought, any time you're approaching current Trump, you're going to dangerously tread into SNL territory. It's just, he is so omnipresent. He's on every screen. He's on our phones. He's, you know, you cannot escape him.
And no matter how brilliant an actor or talented, a writer or director, it's, it will be very hard to do a present day version of Trump that doesn't feel the way he does. Like, like comedy because he's, he's everywhere. So I was like, okay, that's not possible. But I was like the, where did he come from? This sort of origin story question, I started to get really interesting because he's a much younger person, right?
If we, if we end the story when he's in his late thirties, that's physically and Emotionally still a very different person than a 75 year old man now. So I thought that could prevent the uncanny valley of it descending into impressionism or sketch comedy. So that was one thing I thought, okay, let's do Trump early years. True genesis or the origin of this film was that I covered Trump's 2016 presidential campaign for New York Magazine. You know, I interviewed him.
I traveled to Mar a Lago, went on the road and, and, uh, when I was covering the campaign, people who worked for him, you know, since the eighties, like Roger Stone, you know, said that, you know, you know, that Trump was just using the rhetorical techniques that Roy Cohn had taught him, you know, attack, attack, attack, deny everything, never admit and always claim victory, you know, those three rules. And, um, as you said, right, he did that after the 2020 election. No, I didn't lose.
And so I was like, okay, well, that's, That relationship, this mentor protege story, is sort of the kernel of a, of a movie, right?
And, and then I, you know, so I did more research, you know, it has this sort of tragic Shakespearean arc where, you know, as, as Donald's fame rises by, you know, employing Roy's lessons, Roy's power declines because he's being investigated by the IRS for not paying seven million dollars in taxes, and his boyfriend gets AIDS and, and dies of AIDS, and then Roy, uh, you know, famously gets AIDS and denies it, says it's liver cancer, but his health fails.
And as this, as Roy's, you know, star, it's sort of a star is born arc, right? As Donald's star is going up, Roy's going down, and Roy's real moment of need, Donald cuts him loose. You know, Donald's famously a germaphobe, didn't want to be around Roy with AIDS and hired new lawyers. There was this famous quote, I think it was in Wayne Barrett's book about Trump, but Roy was quoted as saying, like, I can't believe he's doing this to me. You know, Donald pisses ice water.
And I was thinking to myself, I was like, If, you know, Roy Cohn's like widely considered, you know, to be one of the most evil people of the 20th century, If that person feels that Trump is betraying him, what does that say about Trump? And so I thought it was like a, a really good kind of contrasting, if the audience could feel some like small bit of sympathy or empathy for Roy, it would really make them think like, wow, like, you know, Roy's bad, but look at this guy.
Gabe, thank you so much for coming by. All right, be well. On Writing is a production of the Writers Guild of America East. Thanks for listening. Until next time, write on. Whether you're listening to this via iTunes, or you're watching this on YouTube, thanks for joining Local 3's podcast, Breaking Ground, where we discuss all things labor, labor history, politics, and organizing as it relates to Operating Engineers Local 3, the largest construction trades local in North America.
We are over 40, 000 members strong today. Seeing as how Election Day is on November 5th, we have just a few key issues to discuss, um, ahead of that important day. To help us get deeper into the issues that are affecting working families during this election cycle, I'm happy to have on the show today Local 3's Political Director Chris Snyder and our Union's House Counsel Janine Lau. Welcome to you both. Thank you.
I know there was a ruling regarding CMEX to, um, can you talk a little bit about that, Janine? Yes. So on August 25th, 2023, the board issued a decision in, um, CMEX construction materials specific LLC. And, but the background is that, um, there was a union election at CMEX and CMEX committed. You know, over a dozen unfair labor practices. So what was considered unlawful conduct, um, like intimidating workers and yeah, there was, there was a whole, a whole host of things.
Um, terminate, uh, also also through discipline. Yeah, but it happened during what the board calls the critical period, which is the period between the point where the petition is filed, the election petition is filed and the election takes place. So that is, it's classic. We see it all the time. That's when employers.
You know, increase wages for workers or they do any other number of things, but, um, the board recognized, uh, that in the past, the traditional remedy is that, um, if there is a violation that they will, uh, toss out the results of the election and, um, and order a rerun election.
So. The board recognized that the impact of these when the remedy is merely a rerun election is that it just delays bargaining and ultimately it's chills the it has a chilling effect on the workplace that, um, that doesn't is not always recovered from a rerun election, you know, when the harm was done and also a disincentive disincentivizes employers. from committing these unfair labor practices.
It doesn't give them a reason not to commit them because now they've successfully delayed the union election. And even if the union is successful in this next round, they've delayed bargaining. They delayed getting a first contract. And so, you The board realized that this is not, uh, an effective enforcement tool against employers to prevent them from doing it in the future. And so the board created a new standard.
And in that case, they ordered not just a rerun, I mean, not a rerun election, but a bargaining order. So they said, CMEX, um, you are now ordered to bargain with the union. And that was huge. It was huge. And the way, what I'm hearing is that. It, the unfair labor practices were so egregious in this circumstance that instead of rerunning election, they just, they ordered the, the union recognized as the bargaining unit and they ordered them to bargain. Right, right, right.
So that's a, that's a, that's a, a complete watershed moment. It is. And the ability to organize in America, this is like, it's a real, a new gold standard for organizing is, Yeah, it really is. And then, um, the board didn't stop there. They created a new standard of organizing, a new option for unions to organize, which was that a union can request recognition directly from an employer after obtaining, um, proof of majority support.
So after getting majority of authorization cards signed, they can, um, Tell the employer, you know, we have a majority support and we are requesting recognition and the employer can then accept it. They don't have to file a petition. The union doesn't have to file a petition.
CMEX created this new path where you don't even need to have an agreement for, you could just, Bring the information to the employer that you have majority support, and the employer can decide at that point to recognize a union and bargain with the union. So such a huge contrast then between these two administrations, just from your very specific standpoint, like you've seen the consequences on a day to day basis.
The anti union NLRB council versus the one that, um, the Biden administration appointed with Abruzzo. So I think it's safe to say, right, that Trump and Vance are anti union. Oh, yes. Absolutely. And they didn't say it themselves out of their mouth. We saw it in practice with cases involving operating engineers. So thank you guys. Thank you. Okay. Welcome to 3rd and Fairfax official podcast of the Writers Guild of America West.
I'm your host, Brian Gary on this episode with the 2024 elections, just a few weeks away. The campaign season is in full swing WGA West senior research and public policy director, Laura Blum Smith joins Christina Wu and the two talk about the WGA West's policy priorities for this cycle. So, um, the entertainment industry is, in its history, sort of has this perennial issue of companies trying to grab control of it through different mechanisms.
So you named several of the sort of key historical issues. instances of that. So we had movie studios try to use control and ownership of movie theaters to determine what viewers were able to see and what was then, you know, theatrical exhibition, the dominant market for content. Then you have, uh, broadcast networks try to use their control of distribution of content.
At the time there, you know, the three networks were basically what Uh, use that very broad control to influence what content was being produced, what could be made and shown on those networks. And the government has historically been sort of concerned with those attempts to monopolize media. Uh, in the form of, you know, these breakup efforts.
So the Paramount Consent Decrees were, uh, structural separation between the movie studios and the movie theaters in reaction to that attempt to monopolize. The FinCEN, which is short for the Financial Interest and Syndication Rules, were similarly uh, required that broadcast networks not monopolize. Own the programming that they distributed in prime time, and that opened up competition among producers of content.
So those were, you know, reactions of the government seeing companies are attempting to assert that control that violates antitrust law or. Various other sort of government rules about media markets. We're going to break that up. So the those instances, of course, are Some decades in the past, uh, the FinCEN rules were more or less abandoned in the 90s.
Um, the paramount consent decrees remained in effect, sort of had been gradually weakened, and then were finally completely, uh, overturned during the Trump administration. Um, but the sort of, So, the backdrop to that shift is that for many decades, there was sort of a, a, a turn away from aggressive antitrust enforcement. And the government was sort of allowing. Many very harmful mergers was not pursuing anti competitive behavior of very powerful companies.
And so, particularly under the Biden administration, there has been a real shift in terms of how people are thinking about antitrust law and enforcement. And it's been, you know, Extremely positive where the government is going after more mergers, trying to block more mergers, trying to block them for better reasons. For instance, trying to block mergers because they would be bad for workers is something that is. Had for decades, was like unheard of for decades.
And so, uh, we have really been, the Writers Guild, and our policy program I think has really been a player in that shift. We've engaged in this space for a very long time. We have been kind of telling, uh, The narrative of the media industry as this, like, poster child for the failures of antitrust and the harm to writers and to the industry from consolidation, it's been, uh, very gratifying to see You know, it feels like there has started to be a real shift.
So that's something that we have advocated for and are going to continue to advocate for. Thanks for listening to this episode of 3rd Fairfax. And see you next time. Hello, brothers, sisters, and friends, and welcome to You Are the Current Resident podcast. This is the official podcast of the National Association of Letter Carriers, the union that represents 280, 000 active and retired city letter carriers employed by the United States Postal Service.
I'm Ed Morgan, and with me as always is our national president, Brian Renfro. Hey, Brian, how are you today? Good. Hey, Eddie, doing great. Happy to be back on the podcast. I know we've got a topic today. A lot of people have been anxiously waiting to hear about, and I've been anxiously, uh, I don't know about waiting, but ready to talk about. Terrific. So, uh, what are we here to talk about today?
Yeah, so we, uh, just this week reached a tentative agreement with the Postal Service on our new collective bargaining agreement that would cover our about 200, 000 active city letter carriers that we are privileged to represent. All right, so let's get into the nitty gritty here. Brian. Uh, how long is this contract gonna be for? the agreement is effective May 20th of the last year retroactively, And it will run through November 7th, 2026. let's start with the general.
The general wage increases. There are three. The first one is effective November 18th of last year, so November 18th of 2023, 1. 3 percent. The second will be effective November 23rd of this year at 1. 3 percent. Should this agreement be ratified, both of those would be paid retroactively. I'll talk a little bit more about back pay here in just a minute. And then the third would be a 1. 3 percent increase on November 22nd of 2025.
I think it's worth pointing out how does that compare to previous agreements and those Three agreement that those three general increases are, you know, if you average it, which obviously is 1. 3 percent is is on average the highest general increases we have had since the 2006 agreement, which was was bargained prior to. the recession in 2009, which had a traumatic impact on the Postal Service. So 1. 3 percent each year with the general wage increases.
The next piece, which is in addition to those general wage increases, is our cost of living adjustments or COLAs. And our COLA is something that when we go into bargaining is potentially the most important thing. for us to maintain. When you look historically back to 1970, in this modern era of collective bargaining, well over half of the pay raises that letter carriers have gotten in terms of dollar amounts, percentages, is due to COLA.
And when we see inflation, and we have seen over the last couple of years, really, I guess three years now, as a result of COVID and whatever else, significant inflation. In this agreement, we were able to maintain our COLA formula, which, um, really translates directly from inflation measured by something called the Consumer price Index to pay increases. So let's talk about back pay a little bit.
Back pay, number one, the thing I want to be clear about is all those increases I just talked about. The general increases of 2023, the one that's going to happen in 2024, coming up here in a few weeks in November, those, the three COLAs, probably at least one COLA next year based on the timing of our ratification, all of that's included in back pay. It is what you may call full back pay. There is no reduction.
There is no lump sums every single hour minute that anybody work after any of those increases went into effect retroactively. You will be paid full back pay for that. The coal is in some contracts in years past. We've just as results negotiations, there's been lump sums paid rather than rolling it into the, you know, into our base pay. That is not the case. It is all rolled into our base pay. It is 100%. back pay for a lot of our members out there.
That is going to be a significant amount of money. I want to thank you all for listening to this episode of you are the current resident podcast. As always, may your steward be by your side and may your union have your back. Thanks for listening. All right, everybody, welcome back to On the Workroom Floor. We have a very special episode. We are joined by four other people today, and it's going to be a lot of fun.
We're going to go over our tentative agreement or at least what was released about it and sit around and just kind of round table it, I guess. So I will let everybody introduce themselves. My name is Dane Tober. I am a shop steward, uh, at a branch 380 Trenton, New Jersey. Uh, my name is Mallory Sutton. I am a steward at a branch 383 Paducah, Kentucky. Hi, I'm Michelle Behrenseth. You can see me as Michie on Discord and various other social media websites.
Uh, I am the current Branch President on Bismarck North Dakota Branch 957. Greg Donaldson, Branch 88, Galesburg, Illinois, Branch President, far too busy. Ryan Decker, otherwise known as Upper Decker on Discord, Branch 836, Chop Steward. Y'all come, y'all come see me. And don't forget everybody, Elliot Simmons, co host. I am here to, uh, thank you all for coming today. Um, I'm really happy to talk about this cause quite frankly, I am pissed. And we're all drinking. We're all drinking.
We all got our drinks out to celebrate or mourn. As it was, I guess. Whatever. Let's, uh, let's jump right into it. Uh, who wants to go first and kick us off? Well, I set aside on our little document we made, I made a positives, uh, place, uh, positives and negatives place, and then a negatives place. So I figured we should start with the positives just to get like a good little positive feeling and then start hating on everything. Alright, sounds good. Start us off then.
Uh, okay. Step A, A, A and B. We'll move up to step C. So, those steps are gonna get a sizable wage increase just right off the bat. That's cool for them, I guess. Um, put the Step P wage is increased by a thousand in addition to wage increases and COLAs, so those higher up guys are just going to get a thousand right off the bat, I guess. Um, and full back pay. So, yeah, there's that. Um, if anybody else wants to continue with positives, you can, or I can read them all. I don't care.
The next part that I didn't really like, uh, you talked about liking the electronic grievance system, uh, for one, Not all offices have access to computers for carriers. If you're in a real small installation, you're not getting access to a computer and it's going to be through a postal computer. It's not going to be through like an NALC server. Uh, you know, also they can kind of control what we do on it.
Because if they're not letting us get on the computer to actually put in the, put in the time request, put in the information request, we try doing it on our own, the next thing you know they're going to say, well they didn't, they didn't do the electronic system. It's an invalid grievance because they didn't do it the right way. It's going to happen. I'm, uh, so the labor management meetings. Occurring twice a month, I'm my office my branch. We have a whole lot of little outside offices.
I thought it was over Greg. I just want to correct. Oh, twice a year twice a year. Yeah, sorry twice a year. Um, my branch has a whole lot of little outside offices. So all like.
This is fine for the larger branches that have full time officers, but for the smaller branches who don't have full time officers and we're seeing more and more the push to merge defunct branches into smaller places, I'm a little concerned this is going to push more branches into a defunct status because they won't have the time or the resources to actually Have all of these labor management meetings twice a year. It doesn't seem that much until you're meeting with God.
I know of one branch in region three. That's I want to say has like 40 different outside offices. Uh, my issue right now, the uniform allowance was the amount, uh, By 2026, they have it up to what? 549? So it's a 50 increase over the course of two years. Um, that's not enough. You still have items that cost more than a single, single uniform allowance that are, some people find necessary. You know, I, what, what, what are they saying?
Like, oh, you can carry it over so you can afford it next year. Yeah, no, that, that's a crack of shit. That just means next year you don't get your much needed new pair of shoes that you've worn out after walking 16 miles a day. They've put a band aid on the problem, and they've absolutely failed to make any attempt to solve the actual problem, or even address it, which is the monopoly that Galls has on all of our, almost all of our uniform vendors, and that's the root cause of the hype.
just insanely high prices of all of our uniform items right now. It's because all of the companies are owned by one parent company and they can charge whatever they want. And we don't really have a say in it because they own all of them. So if there's, they, they need to do something about that problem rather than just give them a few more bucks. Well, what's, what are the company's going to do? They're just going to raise up their prices another 20 a shirt. Another 40 a pair of pants.
Who cares? thanks everybody. Have good night. All right, folks that is going to do it for this week's edition of the labor radio podcast, weekly, just a small sample of the amazing programs arid over the last week. On. More than two. 200. Labor radio when pod care shows, they are all part of the labor radio podcast network shows the. The focus on. On working people. As issues. And concerns. We have got links. Links to all. All the networks. Work shows labor radio network.org.
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This podcast is recorded under a sag AFTRA collective bargaining agreement. The LIBOR radio podcast weekly edited this week by Patrick Dickson. I produced the show. And our social media guru always and forever is Mr. Harold Phillips. For the labor radio podcasts weekly. This has been Chris Garlock. Stay active and stay tuned to your local labor radio podcast show. We will see you. Next week.