How Labor Unions Work

talking about better paper podcasters. Yeah, as a matter of fact, we could get together with like Adam Curry and um Joe Rogan and maybe even Ira and form like some sort of local He would be our Jimmy Hoffa. Ira would be Is it a threat? No? Are you threatening? I glad I know he would be our Jimmy. He would make things happen. James P. Hoff Uh, the one that the current team's church president. Either one I'm not saying get rid of him burying a giant stadium from saying,

IRA would make it happen. He would break legs. It need be. There's a leg breaking goon. Um. So for those of you who have already seen the title of this you are you are you understand the banter? I guess if you have no idea what we're talking about, I'll bet you guessed by now that we're talking about

labor unions. It's a good one man, that we had this request a lot last year from when the whole Wisconsin Scott Walker things, I know, and we're just now getting to it because the Scott Walker thing is like my intro. Well, let's hear it. So do you remember last year in Wisconsin. Yes, there was this big hubbub that was going on. A lot of people were wondering if this is going to be like the beginning of

the Arab Spring in the United States. This is going to be the flash point for it because Governor Scott Walker was accused of trying to deunionize the public sector employees State Employees UM through a little bit of legislation that he was trying to introduce. That is very true,

and it caused quite a stir like thousands of protesters. Yeah, there was some serious protests going on UM and at the heart of this whole thing was some legislation where he was trying to get the public sector employees unions UM to get their union members e g. The public or i e. The public sector employees I E means

that is e g is for example. But I realized that uh, to basically pay in half of their pensions, UM, to give up some other concessions like um, if they were going to get a raise, it had to be through public referendum. Yeah, anything over the rate of inflation, I think yeah, UM. But probably the biggest one was that they were stripped of their ability to collectively bargain.

And it worked, it got pushed through, and now if you are a state employee union member in Wisconsin, you can't collectively bargain anymore, which means you are effectively neutered as a union member. In a lot of ways. That is one of the hallmarks of the unions. And depending on where you come from, what you believe who raised you, whether or not your grandpa was still alive when you were old enough to understand what he was talking about, UM that. I think that largely depends on how you

feel about unions. A lot of people think they're a good thing. A lot of people think they're bad. A lot of people think they're necessary, A lot of people think they're evil. A lot of people think they're necessary evil, and in fact they're kind of America as it stands as kind of split down the middle these days. A pew pole that was taken during this whole bub in Wisconsin, UM showed that of Americans had a positive view of

organized labor, which I found surprising. You thought that was high, Yeah, I was. I was surprised because the the decline of union has also been attended by a change in perception towards them, you know, like they're kind of bad, or that they hamstring business is another big one. UM. But they also found that still believe unions are needed to improve working people's lives so necessary. Evil. I nailed it, you did, And unsurprisingly, a lot of times your feelings

on unions are drawn along political lines these days. They're often expecially of being like the an organizing backbone for the Democratic Party. Sure, but that's not always true, Like very frequently unions throw their waiting their support behind Republicans as well. At any rate, let's get to the bottom of what all this is. Are our unions good? We're probably going to avoid this kind of qualitative descriptor and instead just kind of stick to the facts and let

the people decide. Power to the people to decide whether unions are good or not. I think that's a good move. Josh. Uh, So we got stats. We'll get to those later unions josh. Uh. Industrial revolution is kind of where actually we go back further, which we will with what medieval times. Yeah, the the trade guilds. Trade guilds sort of where the beginnings seeds of unions and uh. They originally sort of came about though just too uh swap techniques and recipes and uh.

Then that sort of evolved a bit into hey, why don't we get together and also share aside from our knowledge, get together and maybe share expertise on how to how to do things better and get better wages maybe or fixed prices. That's one before they figured out that that was um, immoral. This is medieval Europe a long time ago. Yeah. Uh. And the trade guilds, um, we're definitely the origin of unions.

It's just a bunch of workers getting together and figuring out because it is essentially what a union is that they have um more strength than numbers, um. And it's also an indication of workers understanding their value in the production process that what they're essentially doing in return for their salary was producing a profit. For business. Do you

have labor in business? Right? And UM, that gives them a certain sense of value, whereas UH, and a lot of situations, workers feel like, you know, they're very grateful for their job and they don't want to make any waves or anything like that, and they're not fully aware of their value UM and unions. One of the roles that unions plays to point out to a worker, Hey, you're doing something in return. This isn't some sort of welfare situation that you're involved in. You're producing labor and

that has value and certain rights as well. Exactly. All right, So flash forward a bit to the Industrial Revolution nineteenth century. Uh, things moved away a little bit from agriculture. UH, and agricultural jobs moved into the factories, as we all know, and kind of right off the bat, factories weren't a good scene for fair wages and safe conditions and kids working in factories and women and children not being paid as much as men. Um. Triangle shirtwaist fire. That was

a big turning point. What was the triangle shirtwaist company fire where the working conditions were really really dangerous? That it was a clothing company, clothing manufacturer, I think in Chicago or New York, I can't remember. Um, and it caught fire, the factory did because there was all this fabric in the air and it just ignited in the whole place went up and all of these women had to jump to their deaths. And UM, that kind of brought in, brought working conditions into a limelight and help

the union. Um sentiment. I guess a flash point if you will, exactly from your favorite Mr Cladwell the heath flash point, tipping point, tipping point, good lord, get it together, Chuck, okay, I've got it together now, tipping point. I had to take a little break. Uh. In the nineteenth century, they would do things called striking. Yeah, they still do today, but back then it was a more uh contentious and violent affair than it is today. Like people died, bombs

went off, guns were shot. There was and it was on both sides too, I mean, like the workers were striking. The point was the whole was the same, where we're not working anymore and you're not going to make any money because we're not producing the product that you need to go sell. Right. Um. But during these times, like the National Guard would show up, or um, the cops would show up, or maybe the Pinkerton Detective Agency would show up and just start beating the tar out of

the striking workers in order to scare them back into working. Uh. Workers also would um defend themselves. Uh. There was this one. I can't remember what strik it was. I just read about it, where like the workers managed to like chase the cops off because they were they were shooting two pound hinges in these oversized sling shots like at the cops. And I can imagine getting hit by a two pound hinge. Was a hinge factory, I had to have them. But yeah,

so the strikes were very violent. People like you said, would die and the cops like why couldn't the cotton ball factory had been Uh but not funny though, because people did die. Uh, not making light of it. Like at the Haymarket riot for incidents for incidents, that was a big one for instance. That was a turning point, a flash point, if you will. It was early May, um, there was a nationwide strike saying we only want to work eight hours a day. Um, And in Chicago's Haymarket

there was a violent protest. UM. Not a lot of people were there because the weather, thank goodness, because someone threw a bomb into the crowd. Yeah, went off, and shots were fired by the cops, maybe by the protesters. Probably they were not just striking labors, but they were anarchists there, and uh, you know this anarchist their trouble. Well, Um, this is one of the places where in the public imagination at least that anarchists and socialists became married to

labor like pro labor. Um, and it's always kind of haunted labor unions. Is that idea? But it was born out of this era, if not this riot, I'm sure. Uh. In the end, eight people were charged and convicted. Um. The labor leaders tried to get them out, saying this is not fair. One of the people committed suicide by placing a stick of dynamite in his mouth in prison,

and uh. In the end, in a few years later, the governor of Illinois granted a full pardon to the remaining three convicted, and that ended up leading to an observance of May Day or Labor Day in other countries. Right, May first, it is supposed to be labor Day. Um. This whole affair, though, you left out that four of the guys who were convicted were hanged, and then one guy committed suicide, and then three were but they were

charged with like basically agitating violence. Um. This was back when free speech wasn't protected quite as much as it is out right. Um. But the they and they were pardoned and as a result, this whole Mayday thing, this Labor Day thing, came up about in May one. But then within like five years Grover Cleveland was like, well, this is kind of a sordid, like scary association with labor. Let's just celebrate labor and I'm going to move it to.

Um the first Saturday, now, the first Monday, Monday in September, it was Saturday, be no good, wouldn't get off work? Exactly? Uh? Did he move it to to disassociate from that? Interesting specifically, So that's why you can't wear white after September September exactly. That's exactly the origin of that. All right, So maybe

let's talk about some of the basics of a labor union, josh. Um. There's many different kinds, and like you said, it's all about strength and numbers to get together to form what's called a bargaining unit um with an elected leader to deal with the employer right, because I mean, think about it. If you are, if you have somebody who's advocating for your success, for your rights, higher wages, better conditions, whatever it might be. Um, you are removing yourself to a

certain extent from that negotiation. So it's a little less sticky for you because you're not talking to your employer. You're not saying, I really want some more money. Somebody else is going These guys are making a bunch of money for you, and you need to share it a little better like an agent exactly right in a way. And at the same time, you also have that element of that bargaining unit being a collective bargaining unit, meaning there's that strengthen numbers, so it's a bunch of people

becoming satisfied at the same time. And implied in there is if you don't do this, then you're gonna lose a bunch of people all at once and you're gonna have some trouble. Right And Uh, they do this uh agreement in the form of the c b A collective bardying Agreement, and any fan of any professional sports will understand what a c b A is and how tinuous they can be. Uh. Once you have negotiated this agreement, and everyone on the employer sizes, you know, we can

live with these terms. And everyone on the employee side said, yeah, we can live with this. We both give a little bit. They sign it, and uh, it is set for a certain period of time and you cannot break the c BA on either side without there being legal action or grievance is filed, which usually means an arbitrator will come in and say, you know, let me get involved. UM.

You I feel like just hit the nail on the head. Though, for an ideal union presence in business, everyone give a little you know, you can't have UM too much for on one side or the other. But I think that that's kind of the history of UM. The presence of unions in business in America, it's been If you look over time, it's maybe even down, but if you look at in any specific decade, it's more on one side than the other as far as who's in the beneficial

position or who's asking more, who's extracting more? Like UM. Samuel Gompers, who who got together the American Federation of Labor, I think when he was asked what the a f L wanted, his answer was more. Yeah. Yeah, but at the same time you have to say, well, business isn't gonna just say just give it away. Very rarely do they. Um. The whole presence of unions is to extract that. At least that was the original idea of them. Yeah, you know. Uh, unions,

like any organization, costs a little money to run. Um, so you have to pay dues. It's a membership thing. Um. If I was in the Screen Actors Guilled, which I'm not, I would pay dues to the Screen Actors Guilled every year to keep my membership current and then they would go fight for me and they would have a staff that gets paid out of that money. Um. I love in here that this is dues vary, but many are

around fifty dollars a month. What a deal? Yeah, I think it's it's completely varies depending on what union you're in. I don't know that you can put an average number, or maybe you can if you average it, well, if you counted them all up. And I don't think that's what they did here. Um, it was fifty dollars a month. Um.

Act Now. Uh. They're also supposed to be democracies with elected officials, elected leaders who UM take action based on referendums and votes and basically just using UM voting to take the pulse of the union members to see what they want to do. Ideally, that's how it works. Yeah, I get the feeling that doesn't always work that way throughout history. Yeah, especially once the mob got involved, which we'll get to UM a lot of times. You can be uh local union member, which is sort of like

being a fraternity member of a larger national charter. Uh. And if you're a local union, that means that you maybe work in that same business sector, but you're employed by a different company. But it's like, hey, I'm in the and I keep going back to film business stuff because they were lousy with unions still are like hey,

I'm I work in the art department. I'm a prop sky so I'm a member of the local I can't remember the number union here in Atlanta, but it's a national charter probably pushed out of l A, not mistaken. It's like UM, a chapter of a fraternity or a sorority. Yeah, which is what I said. Yeah, did you say fraternity a sorority? No, you didn't, that's a fraternity. You didn't. You didn't add sorority. No, no, good point authorities as well, chuck, Um,

what's the point of all this? I think we've kind of touched on a little bit of it, like and especially in the strength and numbers thing. But there's other benefit it's too being in a union. Correct. Yeah. Um, should we throw out some stats here? I think this is high time for stats. Your wages, For one, your median weekly income, it's gonna be as a union member, about nine hundred and forty dollars. Uh, it's gonna be about seven hundred and thirty dollars if you're non union. UM,

let me see her. You've got some about healthcare? Correct? Oh? Yeah, So eight eight percent of union workers and this is from the Department of Labor. This isn't like from the A F L C, I O or anything. UM percent of UM union workers have health coverage. Of non union workers don't do. UM. It's the same with dental plans and the disparities even more pent of non union workers have dental plans, where something like sixty six percent have

a dental plan. If you're a member of a union, UM, half of union jobs have vision yeah coverage, and only about a quarter of non union jobs, UH have it, which in reading this also I was kind of like, man, we have pretty good benefits here Discovery. Yeah, we do. You know, Uh, if you're a minority, if you're a woman,

African American or Latino, you're gonna make more money. Women earn about nine thousand more a year if you're in a union, African Americans eight thousand more year, and Latinos close to twelve thousand more year if you're a union member. So aside from uh, safe working conditions and health insurance and things like that, which are great, wages are really the big deal, right Wages benefits UM pensions are another huge um and they're also there to um protect workers

from being unjustly fired. So like we're non union and we could if somebody could come in here and say, you know what, I didn't the way that you looked at your boss. I saw you scowling. You're fired. You're fired, you're fired, you're fired. And we'd be like, you can't do that, and they'd be like, oh, yes we can,

and that would be that right. Um. There was like a big hubbub in Florida about some uh some workers that all wore orange either depending on who you ask because they were all going happy already together that night, or because they were um simulating a prisoner garb to um protest the working conditions at this law firm, which is really what they were doing, and like twelve of them were fired. They were just taking into a conference room and the guy was like, you're all fired and

that's that. And they're like, you can't fire us for wearing an orange shirt, and actually, yes, very much so. The since it's a work right to work state or an at will work state right to work um, the the the the employer very much can fire you for wearing something that's seemingly arbitrary, is wearing orange. If you're

a union member, that is not the case. The union protects you from unjust dismissal and basically you if you feel like you've been fired for wearing orange, you can go to your union rep and a big stink comes about.

That's another big one is protecting them. But I also feel like here is a good point to mention a lot of the criticisms of unions because that same protection from unjust dismissal um Unions are frequently criticized for that extending to workers who perform poorly, if like, it's part of that give I think with unions among labor to say, okay, yes we're gonna protect you, but you have to be productive,

or you have to be good at your job or whatever. Right, don't hide under the shield of the union just to go phone in your your job every day and collect your paycheck exactly and you know, flaunt that protect action. That's not what it's there for. UM. Another big criticism is that union, just the presence of unions in any country harms economic progress on the whole by hamstringing business

and making it less competitive among countries that don't have unions. UM. And so for states that have state employee unions, a big one is that UM, state employee pensions can be a drain on UM tight state economies. Uh. That's another big one too. So there's criticisms of unions that are very legitimate true, But again I think it comes down to,

like where your political affiliation is. Well, yeah, I mean these days, UH, Republicans are more likely to not be in favor of unions, and they have consistently been called the backbone of the Democratic Party. That wasn't always the case, though, UM in nineteen fifties, h Republican President Dwight Eisenhower UM said that you and to have a secure place in

our industrial life. Only a handful of reactionaries harbor the ugly thought of breaking unions and depriving working men and women of the right to join the union of their choice. And also throughout history, unions have kind of dabbled outside their own labor negotiations and protection to fight for things like UH medicare, social security, civil rights. Civil rights is a big one. UM. I think Missouri Congressman Richard Boeling said quote, we would have never passed the Civil Rights

Act without labor. They had the muscle. The other civil rights groups did not. So there, you know, you don't want to see anyone's strong arm, but there is certainly something to be said for strength and numbers, especially when it comes to something like the Civil Rights Act. UM. The who was Eisenhower who had that quote about union rights. UM. Eisenhower's speaking at a time that was just after the

peak of union membership. In ve UM, thirty five of all non agricultural workers, which is like everybody but farmers, UM belonged to unions. Now it's down to eleven point eight percent. Yeah, and UM the public sector thirty seven percent. But where they're really getting hurt is the private sector. Less than seven percent of the private sector is unionized

these days. And there's a lot of people that, UH say, a lot of the problems that we have in Washington and a lot of the financial troubles we've had in this country have been to a certain degree, UM because of the non unionizing of like the rust belt in

the private sector. So UM to sociologist Bruce Western and Jake Rosenfeld actually wrote a paper that said that, UM, the decline of organized labor unions UM from the nineteen seventies on can account for as much as a third of them increase in UH income inequality in the US, which has been significant, And they can attribute a third of that increase just to the decline of labor. Well,

and I think it also coincided with in the nineteen seventies. UH. Some say that big business really went hard at Washington for the not for the first time, but in a way that they never had before, and that changed the landscape of the distribution of wealth in this country. Yeah, and that's a really interesting UM point, Chuck, Like we

were raised after that period. But so that's just kind of like our you know, we The Secret of My success or, UM American Psycho, you know, all those great movies about the eighties or set in the eighties, Like that's just the way it was, like all these like you just go after money and like you spend that money on cocaine and pinstripe suits, you know, in Maserati's or whatever. Um. And so we were kind of raised

with that sentiment. But there was a time prior to the nineteen seventies where it was labor who was running the charge. It was the unions and they were fully in control, and business figured out how to regroup and

reassert itself. And that's the age that we're in now. UM. So back to Eisenhower, though when he was talking, he was kind of carrying on a tradition where the U. S. Government figured out that Okay, there is a um, there's a balance of power that has to be struck between labor and business because business is part of this economic engine. Labor helps fuel economic engine. But they really kind of represent two different sectors of the the US, not just

economy economy, but the population. And we need to keep them happy. We need to strike this balance. So the federal government got involved starting in ninety five live with the National Labor Relations Act, and they basically said, Okay, we can't have strikes where you guys are shooting two pound hinges at cops, and we can't have strikes where

cops are like murdering, uh, striking workers. Let's get to the heart of this matter and figure out how to strike a happy balance between what labor wants and what business wants and progress from there. And it was a really smart thing to do, but they figured out that it was very much like Homer trying to keep pinching lobster alive with the goldfish in that fresh water tank,

you know, adding salt, adding water, um. And it's been that was kind of the mark of the twentieth century in an American economic history, was that adding the salt and adding the water over time through legislation. Well, in the nl R A was like you said, the first one. And prior to that they companies didn't even have to recognize a union or negotiate with a union leader. So this actually require by law that they not necessarily they

give workers what they want. But they had to at least negotiate in good faith and sit down to table with them. Yeah, which effectively said it brought unions out of the dark and legalized them and gave them a legal voice in legal recourse. That's right. And to enforce that, they soon passed the National Labor Relations Board to oversee, uh what was going on with n l R A and UM. The article points out here that they accomplished three things. Um. It allowed workers to have elections to

you know, elect their own union leaders. UM established laws protecting employees from discrimination based on union activity, so like are you union, well, we don't want to hire you. That kind of thing, or even worse, like in the case of Ford Motor Company led Forward Security Wing led by Harry Bennett, a two thousand man strong goon squad. They used to like beat up workers, beat up like organizers, beat up union reps um, and do it like on camera. They really were kind of above the law in a

lot of ways. But this was definitely target that was targeted at guys like that for the goons. Yeah. Um, and this kind of sneaks by, but important, Uh. An important thing to note here is an l R I also protected collective bargaining even if you're not in a union, and the ability to bargain for better conditions for all workers. So I mean it's it's the unions was one of the main things. But it protected everybody, but not everybody. There are a bunch of groups that were left out

of this. Agricultural workers UM, domestic service workers UM, federal, state and local government employees, which obviously when when a different way, UM, railroad and airline employees, that one kind of became important. Like we talked about in the air traffic control one UM under Reagan when he fired all the traffic controllers you know who went on strike. Yeah,

and that's important. UM. I guess was that the TAFT Hartley that ensured yeah, tapped Hartley Act came along in nineteen seven, or the Labor Management Relations Act, and one of the important things it did was said, you know what, if there's any strike that's gonna put the public health and danger, then we can issue an eighty day injunction that basically says you cannot strike. And in the case of the I guess was did that put the country

in danger? Necessarily, I put the country's economy and danger. But at the same time Reagan didn't have file an injunction through the UM relations Board. He fired work. You're fired man, that guy, I know? Uh? And what else did that? Oh? At the outlawed secondary boycott's the Taft Hartley Labor Act, which was a big deal because the example they use here in this article is really good.

Like let's say you're a brewery and you're striking against your employer, or you might have a boycott against the glass company that makes the beer bottles, just to put the strong arm on the company from another direction. And you can't do that. It's called the squeeze. Can't do

the squeeze. You can't as a union, but consumers frequently do that kind of It's like UM trying to get like Rush Limbaugh off there boycotted a lot of people boycotted his UM advertisers until they said, you know what, Okay, well we'll stop advertising with him, and then all of a sudden, Russia Limbaugh has the double squeeze on him,

same with them. I can't remember. There was some special interest group, some pack that was getting funding from like McDonald's, Wendy's, a bunch of people and UM because of their alleged unfair and um very much pro business only practices. UM, like all of these companies is kind of abandoned them recently. Really yeah, alec A l EC, I don't remember what it stands for. No, no, no, no, okay, you sure? Yes? Uh, the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of Josh, what's

that all about? Well, this was during a time when um, the winds had really shifted towards not only the unions having the uh, the labor um business under their thumb, they also had their union members under their thumb. The mob was involved the the democracy um where the democratic basis of unions had eroded, and uh, there was a

lot of shady stuff going on. Um. This what I thought was cool was rather than the federal government going, oh, well, then we need to re reinvigorate the power given to business under these union laws, instead they went and invested more power in union members. That's right. Yeah, Like you couldn't use union dues anymore to promote one candidate over another in the union. For union, the elections were really

pretty heavily monitored from that point on. Uh, every single union member has to be notified by mail at least fifteen days before the election, like you can't sneak an election by them, which probably used to happen in the old days. UM. To to increase transparency in the whole union thing, there was a lot of UM disclosure and reporting requirements that were added, and not just for the

unions but for also like employers, consultants. They want to know where the money was going and basically they wanted to see how the MOB was involved as a big one. Well, in speaking of money UM, I don't think we pointed out that a lot of times UM unions will have strike funds and some of the money that you pay into it will actually pay you when you go on strike to keep you from going hungry. It's like Affleck. You know that Gilbert Godfrey didn't do that anymore. I

don't think I know. And I wonder how ironic would it be if he had Affleck insurance and that it kicked in Whence Affleck fired him. Interesting, why do you I think he got fired because he wanted too much money? No? No, he got fired for making Twitter jokes about UM. The Japanese tsunami like the day of Yeah, I thought it

was a money issue. Yeah, I'm worried about the sense of humor in this country in the direction that's going, like there's stand up comedians have always almost always been allowed to some they're exempted from a lot of the standards that average joes are held to, you know, like their stand up comedians that's their job. Sometimes they make tasteless jokes and all that stuff. Yeah, they'll go over the line and they'll just go people go oh, and

they'll go what too soon? And then right exactly, and then people will be like, yes, it is um But there seems to be it seems to be open season on comedians well because of platforms that they've never had before, probably like Twitter. I guess all of a sudden, that's like your official statement instead of a joke he made or yeah, and the audience is much much wider and much more um varied and diverse too. So I beg

you for god read so pissed off. I would imagine so, because I mean, you've got tell me there's like ten thou people lining up voice actors to go act for

a huge page. I think he just made a pretty good argument for yourself that wasn't as good as but but I mean, and the problem is I realize what's at risk is you know, cultural sensitivity, even individual sensitivity towards people who are going to be offended or hurt, but they're also there has to be a balance between that and I mean the other thing that that risk is like our national sense of humor, which is really important. It's one of the things you could be like, well,

it's just a stupid joke. No, Like our ability to take a joke is a very vital and important thing about keeping us from like all, you know, killing ourselves and stand One of the roles that stand up comedians provide, or any kind of comedian provides, is to keep that healthy and vital and going agreed, There's nothing more of a turn off to me than when you see a humorless celebrity, like when Ricky Gervais is doing a thing in the Golden Clubes and you see like the people

out there that just are offended by this. I'm like, come on, man, yeah, I don't know. I I think for yourself, I can see Ricky Gervais being We'll make him the sacrificial lamp leak over God for you alone. You know, man, that was a sidebar, Yes, it was. Are we talking about labor unions. I don't remember labor unions today, Josh, you mentioned the a f l C I Oh. Um, A lot of people might not know that that is actually a collection to labor federation made

up of fifty four member unions ten million strong. That's a lot of people change to win as sort of a new one two thousand five, it was formed, but it isn't also a labor federation encompassing seven unions in six million workers. Yeah. The A f L that was founded by Samuel Gompers who I mentioned earlier, and he got some cigar makers and some other industrial laborers together to form that. And then that was in the late nineteenth century, and I can't remember exactly when, but maybe

in the forties of the fifties. Uh. He got together with the c I O to form the a f l C I oh because he loves cigars. U A W is a huge one. Autoworkers. Yeah, they have something like um one point four million members. Uh No, I'm sorry. The Teamsters has one point four million members and they're the ones who are probably the most well known by the average job thanks to one Jimmy Hoffa. Do you

know his story? A little bit here there. Um. The whole mob involvement I think with them, with any union was they really is that there's a bunch of guys UM who are sitting on enormous piles of money and let's see how much of that we can steal or get their hands on or used to build ourselves casinos. And Jimmy Hoffa was in with these guys and he just went missing right in. Yeah. I mean, I don't think it's any secret what happened to him, but they

definitely don't know exactly what happened. And that's the whole point, Wasn't it was a secret what happened to Well, he was snuffed out. Oh I don't. I don't think he you know, I just had a heart attack while hiking in the wilderness and his body decomposed naturally. Well, he was supposedly going. He was last seen waiting on to mafia associates. It's kind of good giveaway too. But his son, James P. Hoffa Um has really kind of brought the

family name back tremendously. He's the head of the Teamsters today. R Yes he is. He's the president of the Teamsters Union UM and is doing a lot of work toward um relegitimizing um unions again country, which is pretty cool. Well, anyone who's ever been on a film set and has seen a two hundred and seventy five pound man eating a doughnut sitting in his truck, you can say I've met a teamster, and they they do great work, and they're basically there's a I can't remember the number, but

they're there. If you're an industrial worker, you're basically eligible to be a teamster, and in just about any kind of industry. I'm gonna get hate mail for that. Oh you'll be fine. There's like two guys that you described who listened to this podcast, so you get two pieces of hate mail. If I was a teamster, I would do nothing but listen to this podcast because you're just

sitting a rapp That's not true. Teams do great work, but on film sets is sort of the old joke is that like they'll park the truck and then they sit in it until they leave. In the truck, you know them that There was another since reference just came up with them. The one where that film for Radioactive Man comes to town and Homer tries to see who can out lazy, the teamsters, good stuff. That is just a stereotype. Although yeah, but stereotypes are there for a reason, right,

has not funny? Isn't that funny? What else? I don't have anything else? You get anything else? Um? No, I guess I think we covered pretty much everything. Yeah, it's a nice broad overview of people can and like you said early on, man, you hit it on the head, my friend, whether or not you are pro union or

anti union largely depends on your family's background. Yeah, it's a it's a very tried and true a thing through through families, through generations that you know, people feel very strongly about it that are involved in unions or like my actually my parents were in the teachers union. Oh yeah, yeah, you're a union kid. Huh. Yeah, But that that wasn't like factory stuff, Like I never heard them besides complaining

about not making up money, which every teacher should complain about. Um. And if you don't have any kind of passionate feelings about it whatsoever, I would advise you to look into it. Yeah. And if you do have passionate feelings about it, I think a great exercise would be to explore how the other side sees it and see if it changes your mind one way or the other. Look at you. Um, you can do that by reading this fascinating article that we just based this podcast on, Um, how unions work.

You can type in the search bar at house tofforce dot com. You can also go into WAPO. There was a pretty cool um editorial. That's the Washington Post. By the way. That's right, Um, the Wisconsin union fight isn't about benefits, it's about labor's influence. From March six eleven. That's a good article. That was a good article too. And I already said search bar, which means it's time for a listener mail. You know, our buddy Joe Garden was he's a scanni. He was really upset last year.

You can tell you you can see right through his skin. He's so pale, he's translucent. Vote Joe Garden, big craftwork guy. Oh did he get tickets? No? He did a h He promoted his own craft work. Um, I believe it was a craftwork covers show and he got different bands to come and play craft work. And his big deal for Joe was it was awesome. He wore like white suit and introduced everyone that is sweet. When was that very recently? Did you see footage of her? Were you there? No?

He was just he wouldn't shut up about on Facebook and even admitted like, guys, I know you're tired of hearing about craftwork. That is significant Joe. Um. Yeah. There's also I guess kind of in with the music sampling episode, there's I think a DJ Food or a DJ Shadow I think DJ Food Um craftwork cover mix. Yeah, there's like maybe three volumes of it, and it's like just mixing together all these people who were like sampled craft work for those songs. Yeah. They just did a big

thing at the some museum MoMA. Yeah. Yeah, oh my god. We you mean I tried very hard to get those tickets. Did you try? Dude? It was such cluster. I'm not into craftwork and this solidifies it when I saw the reviews of it and it said they did like a twenty one minute of auto ban and I was just like, somebody put a gun to my head. Are you just supposed to zone out and forget where you are for a little bit where I'm not a craf work guy, but I know people are. People don't know I'm not

a craft work guy. Either like um, but I will say that like that would have been just a momentous, just a momentous thing to see MoMA in this pretty much Okay, like the Tupac hologram. I'm sure seeing that at coache it was just amazing. Yeah, and a bet way more amazing for some people than others even. All Right, So should I read a listener mail? I guess I'm gonna call this a good cause. We like to promote

these and attach it to our Labor Union episode. How appropriate, big big fan, guys, I was just down at south By Southwest where I caught your variety show and shook your surprisingly supple hands. I also, I know I also sat on a panel called Harnessing the Power of the Benevolent Internet, something you guys, seem pretty skilled at yourselves, which is why I thought you might be game to help students across the country learn all sorts of stuff they should know, in many cases, of stuff they need

to know. I work for a nonprofit website called donors Choose dot org, where anyone with a dollar can give support to classrooms and need. Teachers from all fifty states post request for resources they feel their students need and kind folks from all over the world help bring those lessons to life. It's cool. It sounds almost really like a Kiva for teachers. I need tickets to craft working well.

Since our founding in two thousand, we've delivered over a hundred and ten million dollars of resources directly to public school classrooms, supporting more than six million students. Uh. And if you or my fellow listeners would like to help you or my fellow listeners. You have listeners, fellow listeners. Okay, we have listeners. That listener has fellow listens. Check out

the page I set up. He set up a page with our name, and I was like, that's cool, you can do that, but we're not, like, we can't officially, like sign on because then it has to go through corporate and all that stuff. Oh oh, I already signed us on officially made T shirts and it didn't. So you can go to donors choose dot org slash stuff kids should know and um let me know if you have any questions. And this is from Zach and he said, by the way, we recently hired a system admin a

couple of months back. Drove me crazy for a few weeks. Then I realized he sounds exactly like Josh, and he said, I've enjoyed working with you. Josh. Who is the other voice double for me? There's another person that was some dude. Well, there's a writer that writes about running. He wrote one thing about running one Clark and have been asked five times if it was me? What's ironic? Now? I actually run? You should write your own orgicle. Um, I can't remember.

There was some other voice person that did like hike videos or something. I don't remember. Yeah, well, if okay, who is that that was Zach? Donors choose dot org slash kids stuff kids should know. Donors choose dot org slash stuff kids should know. Indeed, Uh, if you have a great charitable organization you want to us to let everybody know about again, We're always happy to do that. And if I sound like somebody, let me know because it's driving me crazy. Who it is. I've heard from

like a bunch of people. You sound just like this or whatever? Yeah? Remember? Or I want to hear from people who have um actively been on a worker strike, or if you have been a scab as they called them, and been a strike buster, or if you've ever been beaten up by the cops. We want to hear about that too, Yes, and anarchists, any anarchists out there, We're always interested in hearing from anarchists. I guess I got shipped down by the cops and happens one night. If

you get beat up their difference. No, but they like threw me against the wall and like we're kicking my legs out from under me, and yeah, it was weird. And then they had just left. Are you sure there are cops and not just some eternity boys dressed up as appens police in a car me and my three friends. I don't know what they thought we were doing, but

they they got out of there really click. I'll say that they must have thought you were somebody else, Kevin Smith, or the reality of their situation hit them and they realized that what they were doing was wrong. Maybe. Uh. You can communicate with Chuck and I electronically via Twitter at s y SK podcast that's our handle, uh, Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know, or you can send us an email to Stuff podcast at Discovery dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.

Does it how stuff works dot Com brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, Are you