From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called me Ben. We are joined as always with our super producer Alexis code named dot Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you, You are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. This is our weekly listener Males segment fellow conspiracy realist, but it is a little bit different in some ways. It's more like an episode. Here's what happens. Every so often, Matt Nolan, I will do an episode that genuinely sparks a ground swell of responses, feedback, and it don'ts Sometimes eight mail, firsthand experience and more. And so for this week's listener mail segment, we wanted to focus on one conversation that clearly hit home with a lot of our fellow listeners. Here the Facts. A few weeks ago, we did a two part series on controversy, facts, fiction myths surrounding both unions and union busting and UH it gets into some weird places. You can listen to it now. We talked about the history of unions in the West, from their roots and guild systems up to the present day. I want to shout out ridiculous history. Uh, Noel, You and I did an episode on some Pinkerton related stuff which you should very much check out. There's a deep dive right which episodes were those I don't recall, but it's just such a common trope in in history, especially when it comes to rich people trying to wield control over the less fortunate with an iron fist. The Pinkerton's essentially served as like a private police force who could do everything from bust unions to intimidate essentially like mafioso type activities like you know, uh, you better pay your what do you call it protection fee or else would be a shame of something happened to that nice little shotgun shock of yours exactly. We did look at the union busting the people who want to prevent unions from happening historically. We also looked at some of the corruption and dark side of unions. So we wanted to really take a full picture look at this thing and give you everything we could find when it comes to what can go wrong right when you're either trying to form a union or when you're trying to break up a union or prevent one from forming. Yeah. Absolutely, because we already knew going into this that we're unfortunately multiple cases of corruption and conspiracy, both amid union busters and sometimes amid unions. Uh, entirely unrelated. Want to extend particular thanks to our fellow conspiracy realist in the world of TV and film production, many of whom shared hilarious scary stories about teamsters, and many many folks several reached out to be directly asking to entirely be off the record. Uh so just give it you all the acknowledgement as much as we can. Well, I mean, it's a good time to talk about this topic too, and to even follow up because in the news, you know, there was a big win when a New York branch of Amazon warehouse workers were able to unionize or voted to establish a union, and now another branch has voted to reject the union. Um but the lawyers that are working for I believe the other party are claiming all kinds of nefarious activities in terms of union busting type stuff on the part of Amazon managers. And we know that this is this kind of stuff is not beyond them, just in terms of like what they are willing to do to get things done, to get the packages you know, where they're supposed to be on time, come you know, inclement, whether life threatening situations or what have you. Um So things like disciplinary action against you know, folks that are supporting the union, all kinds of anti union rhetoric in the workplace. And you know, again this is just allegations, but I just wouldn't put it past them. Well, it's interesting. We're gonna here today insight and first hand experience from people who have been going through those processes, people who have been a part of union for years, some people who are trying to start some It's we're gonna get lots of real insight, first hand stuff from you. In fact, someone named you called in guys. Yes. Uh, And there's something I want to add here that Uh, many of many union busting activities are conspiratorial, but they're not theoretical. I mean, they did happen, they are happening now. In this exploration. You know, we took two episodes for it. Because it wanted to be transparent and objective to the best of our ability. We also knew there's much more to both sides of this proverbial coin, so we asked you for your opinions, for your insight, for your experiences, and since you're the best audience and all the podcasting you delivered. Here's where it gets crazy. We received tons of voicemails, emails, other correspondence, and before we dive in, I just gotta say I was profoundly impressed by the level of discourse. The Like you said, Matt, the stories we're about to share do not all agree, they do not all reach the same conclusions, but every single person or entity who wrote to us wrote in a unique, respectful, very well thought out response, So thank you. You know, some of these messages we had to edit for length, but we did our best to keep the substance of each one intact. Well I can we also to say that you know we have firsthand experience with this, as the I Heart Podcast Network recently unionized with the support due to the efforts of many of our colleagues, UM and I think we're all intensely proud of those folks in the work they did, and kind of proud of our company that there wasn't that kind of Amazon level of push back and uh and negativity. And it was a very even handed discussion that ultimately got both sides on the same page. But just wait till you hear what Text has to say about it. Oh, text, text has some thoughts. Get into it. Yeah, we're not going to get to everything today. But again, we we had so many responses that we wanted to dedicate this weekly listener mail segment just to this. Uh, let's start with let's jump around here, jump around. I've never mind a little bit, and I stay in my seat. Is it okay? If I don't get out in my seat, you spiritually jump, you know, metaphorically jump jump with your heart. That's what counts. Can I get Oh yes, you can always always get down, you know, usually I jump up to get down generally. Yeah. Yeah, one time I missed the bush. Jeez. All right, So Justine writes in to say, hi, guys, I was listening to or union busting episodes and I thought I right in. Since I work for a union. I currently represent classified public school employees everyone but the teachers and administrators, and I mostly negotiate contracts and handle employee grievances. There's so much I can say about unions, but I'll try to keep it brief. This is, by the way, this is a positive as a pro union message. Uh. You ask for one thing I wish everyone knew, and I have two answers. One, if you have a union, get involved, even if just going to our union meetings and making your voice heard acounts. The union is what you make of it. Two, if you don't have a union, you can still affect real change for you and your co workers if you're willing to put in the legwork. Even non unionized workers have the right to protected concerted activity. That means anytime two or more workers act collectively to improve wages or working conditions, it still counts. There's a ton of different things you could do and it works. Just google protected concerted activity and collective actions for ideas. That's it for me. Thinks for a great show. So I thought that was kind of a safer place to start, right someone who clearly works with a union and enjoys it. Thank you Justine for writing in Oh Yeah, I love Justine's concept of if you don't have a union maybe if you don't even want to have a union or plan on creating a union, but you still have workers who are working together and want to see some kind of change, you can still do something that makes a ton of sense. I just wanna again shout out those uh, those keywords that she said to Google protected, concerted activity and collective actions. That's very cool, and so that is that is obviously, as we said, that's a message from someone who finds themselves very much in support of their union, their workers organization, and they've had a great experience. What if we go to someone who had a negative experience, Yeah, let's hear from samurai. This is a pretty and handed sort of two prong approach to thinking about unions, with some good and some bad. It's probably the way we should look at most things, um Samurai rights. In my many years on this planet, I have had the chance to work with three unions. Jemco slashed Lucky Foods Food Services Union. They were both terrible, only there to support themselves and their lobbyists, provided no discernible benefit to me or any of the other members, and when we went on strike, they provided next to no benefits to us. I crossed the line and returned to working was fired as soon as the strike was over. Yikes, that is all the bad things that people say potentially can can result from unionizing. But I guess it all depends on the union and the organizing committee and uh and just the how how much you trust the work that the union has done. Can you guys dissolve some of my ignorance when when Samurai says, crossed the line that means the pickets, Yeah, broken the strike. Um, it's called being a scab, right, yeah, And so we'll we'll actually run into someone who encountered that later on in this episode. And I think one reason we we all maybe collectively aren't big fans of Uber is that the company allegedly, I mean, you know, the proof was in the pudding. It was something that could be observed acted as scabs when New York Taxi Workers Alliance Union members UM, which is an affiliate of the a f l c I O that represents many immigrants, UM, we're striking, and then Uber essentially looked at it as an opportunity to you know, fill a demand and come in there and and you know, essentially undermine those those efforts. So yeah, it's a big deal to be a striker. But if you're striking and your union is not doing anything for you, this Samurai was basically like, well, screw this, I need the work. I'm not actually working towards any benefits, so why should I bother? Um If all this is for is for you know, the lobbyists and for the interests of the union, that's so I totally get that. Okay, back to Sam c w A Communications Workers of America. Great union, though a little top heavy and hard to get answers from for complaints. Not great about raises, but not terrible either. Okay, unnamed school district president employer c s e A. I am not a teacher, but as I have mentioned to you in the past, i am an I t Stochka. This union is one of the best ones I've ever worked for good benefits, and I've had three really good raises. I do not mind paying about two a year and dues because I have made that back several fold. My main point is that if the union is there for the people and works for them, then they are great. C w A and c s A are both good examples of that. Fs W was terrible. They were more about getting the company what it wanted than the employees, which makes sense because that's an experience that I've heard relayed by many people, especially folks who have had multiple cre years or multiple gigs that found them with multiple unions. As we said in our two part episode, they're very much not all created equally, right, Like you can say the word sandwich, that could be literally thousands of different things. Not my best analogy. It's good to hear about the c s e A in particular, just because many of us listening and talking right now have family members who have been a part of a teachers union. Um you guys, Hey, we got that message from TEXTS that told you about a little kind of hinted at it earlier. You want to hear somebody who is not cool with the unions, absolutely, because we started with very pro union, We started with somewhere in the middle, and like we said, we got a lot of responses. So here's someone who found themselves very much against unions, right, Matt. Right after a quick message from our sponsors, we will hear from text. We'll be right back and we've returned and everyone I present to you text Ben, not no doc. It's your old pal text. Let me tell you unions suck. They are as you describe, little tiny thiefdoms. They are h o as for employment. Okay, it gives little tiny people big platforms and lots of money that will of the time corrupt them. Absolutely, we need to do away with unions permanently in our nation, but not for the reason you think. The reason that we need to do away with unions is the fact that they need to exist in the first place. Think about it. When there were little children losing their hands changing bobbins in the factories, unions were the answer. No, they were not federal regulation that says, hey, don't put children in dangerous situations and make them lose their hands. So instead of Amazon creating a union so that their employees don't have to pee in bottles, which frankly is horrifying and I feel terrible for those employees that have to go through that. But the fact is, collected bargaining isn't the answer. Legislation that forces companies to treat people as humans is the answer. That's it simple, is that every time a union forms, whatever their platform is, whatever the reason for existence is, probably needs to be codified into law. To event that from happening across the board. That's the failure. And so when we use unions as a stop gap, we end up with corruption. We end up with little people with big power and big money. What could go wrong? Hey, gentlemen and ladies, have yourselves a great weekend. Thanks for everything you do, such a great show. That's somebody who's saying, you know, you don't have to agree with the person. But again, what I'm saying about the discourse here is you wrote in text, and I remember what I was just as playing. I thought, oh, text text, But this it wrote in clearly anti union, UM with a different spin on it, and still wasn't lambasting anyone, wasn't, you know, obviously a reasonable guy. This is his conclusion. I don't know what do you guys think? I mean, I do feel like the the need for unions in the first place is the byproduct of a corrupt system that's built around the money first mentality that has been the legacy of this country and that continues to be UM. It's the same thing that goes into the fact that nobody can get reasonable health care unless you make a lot of money. The foundation of this country is is kind of based on enriching the super rich um and it's kind of stomping on the little guy at the expense of the little guy. So of course the little guy is gonna want some protection from this corrupt system that doesn't look after them. And because it's a byproduct of a corrupt system, it sometimes becomes corrupt itself. Well, I would also point out labor movements are responsible for things like the weekend and even uh, the eight hour work there's things that do exist. Those workers protections that do exist did come about because of organization, and that's you know, I'm not opinion here, I'm just gonna say that's a fact. Uh, those are laws to to our our callers point, those are the product of labor movement, you know, That's what I'm saying. But but not they're not something that the union itself guarantees that it requires the union. Those are things changes that have been pushed for that have been turned into law, which is what Texas point is that that's what we need to push for and not think we can solve all this stuff via unions. But labor movements are made by unions. Unions were doing labor movements, so like their long term effect was those laws. I understand what you're saying, and I agree with you functionally, but the union isn't required to have a movement. You can have a movement with or without a union. The union is a organization that has its own by laws and is its own system. I don't have to have it. Yeah, yeah, I understand. I'm saying that the labor movements that created those laws were in many cases you me empowered. Now they don't. Maybe it's a maze puzzle puzzle maze situation. They do always have to be the same thing. But I do think that's a really interesting perspective that that text has. The question. The question I would pose is how does it get to the point where it is legislation? That's the question, like, how can you do that? Look what you did, text, Look what you've done. No, I just wanted I would reiterate it's a great question, Ben, I don't have the answer for you, but it's a it's a great perspective that I don't see very often an anti union pro federal regulation standpoint right, I mean often those things. I don't know, it seems like they kind of go together in the point you're making. Often the unions are the things, or the labor movements are of the things that get change and acted in Congress, because in order to have a law, you've got to get it through that messed up labyrantine thing um. But text, I mean, I kind of agree with him in un respects that if it was on the books officially for everyone, you wouldn't need the labor union, right, But unfortunately we're not in that maybe utopian set up right now. It might be a question, yeah, where where does that if come into play? How do you how do you have something as strong as the labor movements of the past that started, you know, the worker rights that are often enjoyed today, at least in theory, How do you start that without some kind of organizing. In the past, those were union created. But but to your point, no, they don't necessarily have to be, especially in the age of social media. It could just be a bunch of people who say we want a four day work week, and if billions do and just stop showing up, you're gonna fire everybody. The technology is not there yet. You nailed something really important there then, and like, well, well, I do think there are things that unions can achieve. The individual rules that want to start a movement would take them a lot longer to to get the support to achieve, because unions have their own internal mechanisms and lobbyists, and they're are part of the system at this point in a way where they can you know, affect change in some ways if they're good. Um, but the social media angle does It's almost like, why do we need record companies anymore? When individual artists can make a SoundCloud account and get discovered and that's not easy to do, but it does happen, and then you're not beholden to this record company. So I just wonder if there is some some point to be made that the unions in the old school model are a little outdated, or maybe there's like a union two point oh that hasn't really developed yet. Um. I don't know the answer. I'm just asking a bunch of questions. We need labor, Oh God, there's plenty of that. All you have to do is look at HAFA. But but yeah, Like the question is how how does a group in acts systemic change? And it's a question that people have quarreled with throughout the majority of written human history. I mean, the United States itself was founded by a group of people asking how do we affect systemic change? But the systemic change they wanted, of course, primarily benefited them. I know that makes people that rufflesome feathers sometimes, but it is true. You know. Uh so text, I'm gona needs you to send a voicemail in responding to that statement alone. Please, Well, it's true systemic change, But this is These are the kind of conversations that we were having, and we were grateful for these. How about we go to uh an email from someone who had experience as a working union buster working with the union busting company. To do this, I know, to do this, We're gonna go to Chris and again, everybody in these conversations they're being incredibly insightful and respectful or grateful for all of these. Chris writes soon and says, Hi, guys, first off, love the show, longtime listener, first time caller. I listened to the union Busting part one episode yesterday. I used to work for a PR firm that partnered with a law firm called They were a management side union negotiating firm. Their primary interests was working with management either stop a union vote or make sure it went in their favor. And you know what I'm saying, that's me adding that not Chris. Uh. The PR firm I was with partnered with them on what language to use in communicating with the employees and how to deliver that messaging flyers, videos, websites, et cetera. This is modern day union busting, says Chris, and Uh, I'm gonna alide over some of this. I want to highlight one part. These guys, including our team he's referring to lawyers Uh that he worked with. These guys, including our team, used any dirty tricks they could to prevent a vote or make the employees think the union was not going to be good for them. They used overly can using language and math relating to fees and raises and so on to keep them off ballance. I used to say that one hundred years ago, our job was done by guys wearing ten stars carrying axe handles. Cough cough, Pinkerton's. Of course, they didn't tell me that they did this kind of work before I accepted the job. I was stuck there for a few years to support my family. It's I could get away from all these horrible people. So this guy did not have a good experience with union invusity christened Um So, yeah, that's interesting because I don't know about you guys, but I wasn't particularly expecting someone who had worked in one of these firms true write to us as well. Uh So, just to give you a sense of of how many folks are are reaching out here. People aren't just reaching out with those opinions. We had a lot of folks relating personal experience, and we have people not just from the US but around the world. All right, well here's one for kind of a more international perspective. Can admit my own ignorance and not fully realizing unions were an international phenomenon. Of course it makes sense. I just think of it as an American thing because you know, of all the corruption and horrible things that need to be dealt with. But these problems are not unique to the United States of America, though maybe they're a bit more prominent here. Um in this one Humble Podcasters perspective. Uh So, here we go from Peter. Peter says high Team. I'm writing this with my tinfoil hat on in Brisbane, Australia, loving the pod guys, keep up the great content in the non biased way you present it onto business. I worked from twenty nineteen for an m NC that manufactured fiberglass insulation. The major manufacturing plant is in Melbourne and at the time employee close to a hundred staff, many of them belong to a major manufacturing union. This union was historically very effective and winning excellent conditions and remuneration for its members working on this site. For example, completely unskilled workers were paid fifty dollars an hour, which is around double what most factory workers arend in Australia. It's more than what many skilled trades people are in the e B. A enterprise bargaining agreement came up for renewal. I'm not privy to the details of the negotiation, but I know the GM of the time was ready for to get real. As the business started to stockpile stock at locations around the country. It appears that the workers did not like what was offered, as approximately eighty eight of them walked off the job in March. The strike lasted longer than expected, I believe as a result, the business asked the sales, marketing admin and non union warehouse staff if they would relocate to Melbourne to run the manufacturing plant. I immediately agreed, as I felt it was important to keep the company going and therefore keep my job. We went in groups to Melbourne and ran the plant. This involved driving through the picket line of workers into the factory, which was pretty cool to see their faces as we entered to foil their plans. This went on for a couple of months until they agreed to come back to work. The upshot of their action was that a lot of smart people got to work in the factory and realized that there were many improvements, especially in the area of automation, that could be made. After a month or so, of the strikers were made redundant fancy talk for for fired. Um just I didn't learn that term until actually the British office. So I'm not trying to talk down to anybody. Just some people might not know what being made redundant is. For me, it was a stressful time as we had to run my sales territory as well as doing a twelve hour day of the factory hopefully a once in a lifetime experience. But I'm glad I had it. Wow. Okay, So I just want to make sure I fully understand this guy's My understanding here is that the company and the union were negotiating. Those negotiations weren't going well, so the company made the decision to relocate to a different city, and person who wrote in, Peter relocated with the with the company to continue working like essentially as a scap. Well, from what I understand, what's happening here is that there was a lot of non manufacturing staff right the ADMIN the marketing sales, and Peter was in sales. He had a sales territory. And because the negotiations went sideways and the strike occurred, the company asked people who would not ordinarily be working at the plants to go work at the plants because the union workers were striking while the negotiations were going. Yes, and those union workers were being paid more than normal. Okay, got it. And they're saying that automation and what what peters calling skilled workers actually stepped in and improved the factory. And so now we have a story from someone who participated in breaking the line. Right, So just again, it was fascinating to see how many facets of experience we got here. Record of pause for word from our spawn. Sure, and then maybe we jump back to voicemail. Huh, let's do it all right, we're back, and we're going to a message from you. Yes you, Yes, it's it's good evening, gentlemen. And of course, code named Doc, my name is you and I have been witness to some of the union hijinks your episodes of late have described, including a major retailer that I worked for that had signs plastered all over for eight hundred numbers for managers to call if any of the employees mentioned the union. We of course would get off work on our overnight shift, go out at seven o'clock in the morning for several years and referred to this as the union meeting. Uh. Doing this in front of the star role higher ups in the company resulted in our direct supervisors being pulled doing for an interrogation with the company union busters. It was quite hilarious. Feel free to use my name and voice on the air again. This is you. Thank you for your time. Have a great day union. Uh. I heard what you did there, so I mean that happens, right, That happens so often, and you don't hear about a lot of recourse taken or any options for recourse on the parts of employees. You know, I UM, in another life, very brief anecdote, I worked with a logistics company in the United States and abroad, and stuff like unions in Osha were a joke. Let me say it this way. Osha was a joke that all the upper management found unfailingly hilarious. And unions unionization was as you've depicted you a fireable offense and it's not. You know, there's not much you can do about it, depending on where you're at in life, how much money you have to self fund a legal battle, or the state you work at, like so called right to work state. Well, yeah, it is funny. You know, I've only worked in one place, been really well to places, but mostly one place. UM. And in our offices, we've always had all the ocean signage that you have to have up, you know, required by law. Yeah, yeah, and nobody looks at that. Nobody pays attention to those things. Those are laws, those are important things, and they're for you as an employee, as a worker, but they're just kind of disregarded, at least it in my experience. Often, yeah, often that seems to be the case. And you know. I. I don't know about you guys, but I don't have the visibility to say that is the case in the majority of industries or anything like that. But I know that I I see that stuff, like you said, ignored. It's a it's a dusty, laminated sign some where and nobody. Nobody really looks at it these days unless they screwed up and forgot their phone. Right, So people forget their phones, they'll read anything, you know. Yeah, when you're making coffee ving something, you're like, what am I gonna do for this three minutes? Uh? Okay? Oh shaw? What's up? What I have the right to? What is this? Man? Let's let's go to another message from somebody. Thank you for writing in Oh you, oh you you specifically you and milk Crate. Uh. Milk Crate has written to us uh to talk a little bit about this. Seems like maybe pro union, but milk Crate, as will come to find, feels that they have run into some sketchy things that go on on what they call the laborer's side of the union. Matt, you ever read an email yet? Do you want to do the honors on this one? Do you know? Milk crea Yeah, I mean, I'll read voicemail all day, but email I don't know. All Right, here, here we go this from Milk Create. They say, hey, guys, you can call me the milk Crate if you want to know more about me in the name. I can tell you the story later. But I just finished listening to your Union Busters episodes, and as an apprentice at my local, I b e W. Do we know what that is? Guys? It's the International Uh, it's the International Bureau of Elmo Winkers. Before they Tickle Me Elmo, there was the wink Me Elmo and they had a union and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Electrical Workers. I think, okay, okay, okay, I don't know what that encompasses. We're keeping all of this in please come okay if we keep it, if we keep the part where you said okay, okay, good and this all of this okay. So we're going back to Milk Create, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Yes, okay uh, and mill Create is appreciative of the story being told. This is mil creed. Although I am obviously pro union, there's some sketchy things that go on on the laborer side, depending on which local you're a part of as a union member, my goal is not to screw over my employer, but to build up their reputation as well as mine by doing a good job so that we can both continue to profit. Unfortunately, not everyone sees it that way, with some secretive groups known as fleas f l e A s within the union going so far as to sabotage jobs for the quote sake of the brotherhood. What's that's right? That's good point, um. Some locals have a tight knit personality akin to gangs, where they go so far as to say that if you don't drive a certain makeup vehicle, you'll get your tires slashed and you'll be targeted by threats and actual violence until you leave that job or that local or get an approved vehicle. Other places, like Hawaiian New York City are notoriously against having quote outsiders official union ib W members traveling for work from other locals in their jurisdictions. That makes sense, I guess in some weird way, but not allowing ib W members from another state to come in um, and they will blatantly discriminate against anyone not from their home local. The majority of the ib W isn't like this, but places and people like that do exist and are a direct result of the nature of unionizing. Oh interesting, Okay, now that's a statement, a direct result of the nature of unionizing. Yeah, please finish. I've definitely got some perspective on this. Sure. On a good note, though, the ib W has been surprisingly pro women since its conception in the late eighteen hundreds, same rate of pay from the beginning, with equal rights and representation. As far as voting in politics, most people I know have views that differ from the political party that gives us money, and we don't experience negative kickback for having our own personal opinions or voices. With everything, there's a good and a bad side, but unions are, in my humble opinion, a good thing in a world where employers can't seem to retain decent behavior towards their employees. That's a a statement too, and absolutely accurate. Look. I used to work in a in a theater um and there was a union, you know, for for theater workers, stage hands or whatever, and and a lot of the like older guys that have been in it for a long time, not all of them, but some of them just had this attitude of just like doing the bare minimum all the time, and just there was this kind of like malaise associated with well, I'm protected, therefore I don't actually have to try that hard. Um, maybe that was just my situation. It sounds like this is a product of kind of that same attitude. This is a more outward like violent kind of discrimination. But there is certain kinds of like chrony ism and sort of like you know, like you said, this kind of gang like mentality where it's like, well, I'm protected, therefore, you know, you can't mess with me. Therefore I can kind of do whatever I want. I feel if to me, well, yeah, I mean, I hear you. But to me it reads more as someone or some small groups saying don't take my or our work from us, right, like stay out of my backyard because that's where I work kind of thing. Yeah, there's that, but there's also you know, there's also the basic idea from the Journeyman of Old, which is saying, hey, if we all agree we have to be paid a living wage for this that you know, you could call it price fixing too, But if we all agreed to do this, then they can't exploit other people and so with this we are drawing to a close. We know we didn't get to everyone, fellow conspiracy realists, but it was very important to us to thank everybody to share these perspectives and to let you know that there's nothing wrong with your perspective or you know your own personal experience. Knowing can invalidate that, but it is meaningful, and perhaps we could argue even imperative to listen to people that you don't agree with with that. We we we just took some time off air to figure out what we were going to end on, and I think we the three of us unanimously voted for voicemail. Yes, a voice message from one Remy. I am a former employee of a couple of places that are now and probably the user of resince nivation efforts. Dive done some occasional knowledge awareness, class consciousness, troublemaking, et cetera. In a place site works and you know, on its space, getting the working class to work together seems like it should be very easy. You know, we just explain how our labor is valuable versus the desires of often a major corporation. But for some reason, people keep siding with the corporations. Especially when I talk to people that are maybe even older generation Gen X or you know, Boomers, that they seem to operate on this mode mentality, and I mean literally a mod mentality. Their idea of a union comes from Bob movies. But you know, when you look at today, the corporate on media still does a great job really of showing unions at the a way that's easiest to create an anti union narrative. So one thing I've noticed is that they tend to focus on strikes or labor organizing from people like nurses and teachers, because those groups are really easy to kind of scapegoat and point at the people that they are not quote like helping. Uh you know, teachers you can say out there holding the kids education hostage. With nurses you can say, there are patients that they aren't helping. Uh. So it's really easy to kind of off the skate um the actual flavor issues involved and just say, oh men, why can't they just work and you know, take care of these children and these sick people. So music a lot less focusing, I think, um on labor movements and strikes at people. It's like Starbucks and Amazon, because it's so much more cut and dry. You know, it's it's a lot easier to say, like this is about coffee or getting your pappies delivered in two days. So yeah, and then they all obviously like always play into I think this idea that millennials or younger people uh gen z don't want to work. Um, and that is part of the demonization of labor movement, is that you know, I had to suffer through this, you should too. But yeah, this is something I've noticed that really kind of makes an uphild battle sometimes for what to me, it feels like there's an easy topic to get people on it too, the pro labor side on and Remy went a little bit longer than minutes solid ending though, said yeah, because as long as if you I mean think about it, if you want to enforce some kind of inequality, as has been observed multiple times across multiple human civilizations, then you just need to keep the majority of the people at the bottom fighting each other. It doesn't matter what they're fighting about, as long as they're fighting about something and not looking at where your hands are going and what they're putting in their pockets. It is such a good point though, the way he highlights you know things like Starbucks, which is a giant corporation making bookoos of money off of something that is a luxury, you know, for for the most part middle upper middle to wealthy people. And Amazon, which is a company that obviously feeds countless billions to like you know this one shiny headed ball guy in his you know, upper management. Um all for the luxury of getting are spoiled. American asses are packages in a day and a half. Um. So it's easier to highlight, especially when you see the gross mistreatment of those employees in the insane hours and all of that stuff with the Amazon specifically, so it's an easier thing to wrap your head around. But um with like teachers unions, the idea of demonizing a teacher for wanting to not have to pay for supplies out of their own pocket, which we know still happens to this day all the time. UM to basically only be able to go into that career if you have a spouse who is making more money than you like it's like even like it's like a passion thing, and oh but they they're so passionate, they're so you know, I hate that argument. No, this is very personally I see it as unethical and unclean. I mean, I name one teacher at a public school in the United States, not even counting the ones that I'm related to her that I believe you're related to. Matt, name one that hasn't had to come out of their own funds for supplies, or that hasn't had to work on weekends or week nights. Uh. To demonize those people is unconscionable, you know what I mean? In my opinion, same with the same with Like you're gonna demonize nurses because they have to do so much of the work that doctors do for so much less pay, not so many I just it bugs me when you wait for ages at a doctor's office for your appointment. You know, the physicians assistant or the nurse comes in, does all the stuff, They draw all the blood, do all the work, and the doctor just kind of waltz is in, gives you a cursory glance, and then signs off on getting your meds refilled. Now, I'm not trying to demonize all doctors. There are doctors and specialists that we absolutely need and that that do a very specific thing. But the way our system is set up is like those people are like untouchable and they're getting paid the big bucks. I know, they work under a lot of stressful circumstances. But the ones that are actually they are doing the work, they don't have that protection, you know, and and they are treated more like lower level employees. They're the ones that are actually doing the work. And Ben, I mean to go back to your personal connection with the teacher situation. I mean, how much more important a job is there than a teacher to help make the next generation better than the current one, or to like ensure that even those who can't afford private school get a good education. And if you don't have people that are willing to just you know, do it for the passion or because they can afford it, you're not gonna have good quality candidates. Or it's just gonna be an uphill battle, a Sisiphian task, because they're gonna be so piled on with students and and extra things that they aren't getting paid for they have to pay for themselves, and it's not going to be efficient. I'm sorry, I just it's the well, there's only one answer. It's the water treatment plant supervisor to make sure everybody has water. No, I'm just I've got you know, I I thought about this idea a lot from a young age. It is something that gets to me, and I do try to be careful not to inject myself from my opinions in this show. But there's a line from Trick Daddy's Thug Holiday I'm going somewhere with this that introduces a brilliant question. He asked, how come the judges are making more than the teachers. I'm paraphrasing, but it's an excellent question. There there is a very valid argument. You don't have to say the entire system is broken, but there's a very valid argument that parts of it need to be completely read. And uh to do one last lazy car analogy. You know, a car will still run without air conditioning, but they're gonna be times you don't want to ride in that car anymore. So there are very difficult questions that have to be asked, and perhaps one of the best questions to ask when you hear different stances, do you have to ask about the source talked about this all the time. You have to ask what possible motivation that source may have, You know, like those There was a great send up in last week tonight a while back regarding union busting activities, where they had this excellent parody video. You know, it's those workplace videos that you have to watch when you're an employee getting on boarded. It's like occasionally you may hear your co workers say things like the following, and then some comes out and there's like a little Tim and Eric thing of you know, collective organizing. But we solve our problems one to one because here at Cold Glomco, we're a family. You know, there's a reason that people are spending so much time and so much money for seeing their employees to watch those videos. That's what I think we need to start asking, you know. And that's what we ask in Unions Part one and Part two, which are out now wherever you find your favorite shows. Uh. With this, we want to thank so many of our fellow conspiracy realists too many to name right now. Thank you to everyone who went on air with us. Thank you to all the people who continue to write in Stay safe out there, and if you want to be part of this weekly segment, we'd love to hear from you. We tried easy to find online, that's right, you can find us on Facebook. You can find us on What's the other One YouTube? You can find us on Twitter. We are at the handle Conspiracy Stuff on Instagram or Conspiracy Stuff Show. Check that account out. Lots of new things popping over there. Definitely not the Conspiracy Stuff Show account of Yesteryear's right. If you want to be like text and Remy and even you, why not call one eight three three st d w y t K and leave us a message, give yourself a cool nickname when you call in. Let us know if we can use your message and voice on the air, and uh, you've got three minutes. Say anything you want. 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