E536 Teamsters President Sean O'Brien

25:32We're trying to close that disparity. Right now we've got a big battle going on with United Airlines, right, which we're telling all these politicians. I don't know if you saw my statement the other day. Stay the fuck out of our business. Let us do our thing. And I always say to people, the neighborhood I grew up in, which had a lot of conflict in it, if there were two people fighting in the middle of the street and you had nothing to do with it, keep walking. It's going to end at some point one way or the other. Yeah. And that's the struggle. But our whole focus on what we've been doing as a union, and look, I'm a fourth generation team, so I love this fucking union.

26:04It's given me everything in my entire life. But the one thing that we need to do is advocate for working people. And you know what? People say, why should I join a union? Why should you join a union? because we're going to get you better wages. We're going to get you the best benefits. But more importantly, we're going to demand respect in the workplace, and we're going to fight for you day in and day out. And look, the ILA right now, that's all they're doing. That is all they're doing. They want respect. And to your point, there's no Harris, Harris is however you say it. Yeah, Princess or something.

26:36Princess, yeah. Listen, just take a look at us, whether it's the ILA or Teamsters. We're not royalty, man. We're not royalty. I've been to Boston. And they got some definitely, you'll see a broad out there wearing a Euclid jersey. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And she'll fucking. Yeah. We've got a lot of us from Boston have fucking faces for radio. Yeah. Definitely. Oh, you see a lot of, yeah, yeah. A lot of, yeah, a lot of fucking women that are just fucking vaping and just giving handjobs or whatever. But it's okay. Don't forget the tube top with the C-section. Oh, yeah, brother. Oh, dude.

27:08That's the new Teamsters logo. No, God forbid. No, we've got, listen, the teams, we've got some of the finest, hottest working women, and they're the strongest. No, I'm joking. Yeah. And look, let them fucking play baseball again, dude. You know what I'm saying? That's what I'm saying. Absolutely. I would love to see if the union had a league. Oh, it'd be nice, wouldn't it? Do you guys have a team? A baseball team? Yeah. Well, it's called the Red Sox, but I don't know if they're any good right now. Oh, yeah. They didn't make the playoffs, did they? No, they didn't. Damn. No. But actually, screw you guys.

27:35You guys have had so much luck, dude. I can't even make that much money selling cheese and stuff. What all do they have over there, Kraft? Bring it up, Kraft Goods. No, Kraft actually started, it's a unionized paper company. Oh, it is? Yeah, so it's out of Boston or Worcester, which is probably 45 miles west of Boston. The Krafts are actually very good in the community in Boston, but that's not the same family. Oh, it isn't? No. Oh, damn. Every time I've, that's crazy, because every time I'm cheering against the Pats, I'm always yelling like, fuck Lunchables and shit. And I didn't even realize that's not - Crustables.

28:10I thought it was the same guy No, no, no, no, no They're very good They're very good in the community Oh yeah I didn't know I filled out some comment cards on some of these websites I gotta go back Clean it up Especially when they had Randy Moss I was really heavy on the keys back then How funny was he? He's great, dude I went to a fishing tournament one time I should tell this story But I will And so I went to a fishing tournament one time, Randy Moss put on a fishing tournament. This is when he was with the Vikings. And you got put with like some fishermen and stuff and you would go out. It was in Minnetonka, Minnesota on the lake.

28:52And I stayed up all night drinking, right? And so I get out there and I'm like, I think we're going to be there for 30 minutes or whatever. You know, like I'm fishing with my grandparents or something. And they're like, yeah, it's a six hour thing. And I'm like, oh, dude. And I had like the whore. Like I had to go to the bathroom so bad, you know? And, um, and so I, at some point they're like, well, just pee off the side of the boat, but I don't have to pee. You know, I had to fucking do a union job, you know? And so, uh, at some point, dude, I just had to literally have them troll a little and just hang myself off the side of the boat and, and just, did you have any dude wipes for you?

29:29Oh, no, they didn't even have dude wipes then. Oh man, that might've been awful. I just had to kind of hold my legs open and let the water go through fast. It was like a redneck bidet. Yeah, yeah. Oh, God. But thank God, dude. And we didn't catch anything. I couldn't even pull a fish without having to go to the back. Like the second something would tug on there, I was like, I had damn 40 in the live well, you know. Do you think it had anything to do with what you were drinking the night before? Oh, 100%. What were you drinking? Jägermeister. It was Jägermeister, and it was disgusting. And it was, God, I just, I still can't, I can't believe that whoever, whatever company sentenced diegermeister on humanity oh terrible that's terror that's terrorism you know i don't even want to say it out loud but it's terrorism um the dock worker the who's their leader over there they're um harold daggett yeah that guy's a freaking that guy's awesome he's taking some heat oh yeah he's taking some heat good let him take some heat dude that guy is fucking awesome you know the good thing about what play this video real quick sorry to interrupt you sean i just want to hear the daggett welcome to daggett stand dude this guy's a gangster it's changing into the future they're not making millions no more they're making billions and they're spending it fast as they make it i want a piece of that for my men because when they made their most money was during kovic yeah when my men had to go to work on those peers every single day when everybody stayed home and went to work.

31:00Not my men. They died out there with the virus. We all got sick with the virus. We kept them going. From Canada to Maine to Texas, Great Lakes, Puerto Rico, now the Bahamas, everybody went to work during COVID. Nobody stayed home. Well, I want to be compensated for that. Amen. I'm not asking for the world. They know what I want they know what I want and if they don't well then I have to go into the street and we have to fight for what we rightfully deserve fuck yeah these people today don't know what a strike is when my men hit the streets from Maine to Texas every single port a lockdown you know what's gonna that's good I'll tell you and what so yeah when when they say and when he says a lockdown what it what's that would affect everything yeah the ports are just shut down there's nothing coming in or out and you know we we represent a lot of members uh that you know we we haul off the ports we the ports deliver to warehouses where it's separated load on trucks we deliver it so it's going to have an impact but you know what it's you know a little it's a short-term uh pain for long-term gain for these guys and he's 100 accurate i mean look we get paid to fight we get paid to fight for our members and that's what he's doing um look he's character uh have you spoken to him so i i haven't but um i deal with the leadership around the country um that's the only general president i haven't met that we deal with you know i know all the other general presidents around the country from all the other respective unions uh unions and um i haven't met him i mean the good news is he's he's so public right now it's it's keeping the shit away from me to be honest with you yeah huh i've been taking a lot of it lately but i'm good either way you know i'm good but uh no he's look he's he's got a right he's got the right fight yeah yeah it sounds like it sounds like they got the right guy doing it you know cast the characters he's you know straight out of the sopranos you know oh yeah i fucking hope they find some bodies in his yard oh hopefully they don't yeah yeah you're right and i shouldn't say that sorry harold i don't know i don't know what he's into you know what i'm saying but yeah yeah that's what i'm saying is dude they gotta it's just it's a that's one of the things that starts to happen is it's like if you don't think that automation there's no there's no effect to it right then it's just there's a human cost to that there's a human cost look when you go into a grocery store now right everybody's running to these self checkouts i refuse to do it i don't and i was actually in a local grocery store probably about a year ago and it was like late at night and uh you know my my I forget why I was going in there.

33:42I just got off a flight and I got something real quick. And there was an older lady standing there at the register. And I go to go to her. She's like, go over there. Go to the automation. Go over that one. Self-checkout. And she was working. I go, listen, if I go into self-checkout, you're going to lose your job. She's like, I don't give a shit. I don't like this fucking job anyway. So it was probably something she's doing. I'm like, listen, lady, I know you might not like it. But let's think about the fucking 30 other people that need a job. If I go there, then I'm putting you out of work. I don't give a shit.

34:08I'm like, the problem is it's like some people. Yeah, she's like, I'm on OnlyFans. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're not on OnlyFans. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's crazy. Elderly version. What is it? The Golden Bachelorette? Oh, yeah. I haven't watched it, but I have a little. Yeah, I'll confess I haven't either. Yeah. And I probably won't. Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah. You know, but no, it's just people. That's a good point. You don't think about it. No, you don't. And people, you know, disgruntled or like that lady might have been having a bad night, you know, whatever it was. but oh she might have been out of zins yeah she might have been yeah if you're yeah if you're working at late shift dude i put you gotta any put anything in your jaw to get you through the problem is like she was in her late 70s yeah and it just goes to show you like hey if you got in a union you got a job you got a pension you wouldn't fucking be working at 70 years old and it's like yeah and it's like you know you're pointing at you're pointing for me to go to a self-checkout and i'm like you're putting people out of work i don't give a shit fuck that it's like you know she ran out of paul malls you know what i mean yeah yeah yeah fuck that go raiders she starts fucking yelling yeah yeah she probably spends all her money on fucking tattoos yeah yeah yeah like uh marlboros and fucking scratch tickets and shit you know yeah remember they used to have those miles you would get with the marlboros remember that oh yeah yeah you'd smoke 400 000 packs of cigarettes to get a camel joe jacket that's something that you got to wear to your funeral yeah yeah yeah they put you in that thing oh yeah yeah yeah you get like Like a blender that said, keep smoking on the side of the side.

35:36It was like, I remember growing up in my neighborhood, Pepsi did this thing. And remember that story that was on fucking Netflix? The kid won a space shuttle. Yeah, the kid won a space shuttle. Right? So I remember there was a kid in my neighborhood that, you know, he was so, his kid's name was Mike Lazaro. And he was like crazy. Like, you know, you'd peel the cap off and you'd be a prize. I swear the kid had dentures by the time he was 15. He was drinking so much Pepsi trying to win a prize. He was just slurping him, huh? Yeah. Oh, it was crazy. Yeah, dude. Oh, yeah. Yeah, what prizes could you get with the Marlboro Miles?

36:06Bring up the prizes, dude. We never look at this kind of stuff, and I think this is important. Just to know back in the day you had to smoke your way. Do they have like Marlboro running sneakers? That is unbelievable. There's no way they had that. You're crazy, dude. Like a gift certificate to like a lung transplant? Swiss Army knife, a neck brace. Who the fuck wants a Marlboro neck brace? at that unbelievable hat, shirt Marlboro ventilator yeah that Marlboro thing like this we're doing good spark up those commercials are awful bring up the guy smoking through the hole in his throat and this guy is obviously from yeah this guy is obviously from Medford bring him up and there he is and that used to be a man that's how bad smoking can get guys i think that was my english teacher in high school yeah yeah yeah i owe you sometimes why dude i didn't ever i remember this kid i used to tell this story but there's this kid lived down the street from us this fella mario was his name and he was um he was italian i think or semi-italian you know and uh he used to my brother something happened my brother had to go away for the summer so suddenly I was his friend but I was younger than my brother.

37:30Did your brother go to jail? I don't know if he went to jail but he went to a place where he couldn't come back for about four months and so I got so suddenly I'm friends with Mary I would tag around with them but I wasn't right there so now I'm friends with this dude and he I don't know if this is like a union thing or not but he would like he used to defecate in his yard and make me bury it right make me put it in the ground for him So contract with the worker coat. That's why I wish I'd have known at the time because yeah, I did over probably, I did at least 112 burials for this dude, right?

38:05Over about, over that stint, over that third of the year. And, and then actually years later, he died. He drove a boat into an embankment and, uh, I wanted to be a pallbearer at his funeral. And I even wrote a letter to his mom and I was like, I'd love to put him in the ground one more time, you know? And they wouldn't let me do, But if I was in a union. Yeah. I mean, you could probably go after him for retro pay and shit. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. You know? Oh, dude, definitely. And the rose bushes in his yard? Absolutely. What are we even talking about? Prize winning, brother. Oh, Jesus Christ.

38:41They won yard of the month fucking. You definitely needed a union back then. Bro, they won yard of the month in a leap year, dude. Jesus Christ. And that's big work. And that was me doing that. And that was, listen, you contributed to that. You should be proud. But it is true. It's gotten to the point where people don't even think about the people that are doing the jobs behind the scenes, you know, and people that are going in and clocking in day to day, you know. You look at like – so we represent UPS, which is a Fortune 500 company, 340 ,000 employees, very successful company, difficult company to deal with.

39:17And 53 or 54 percent of those work as a part-timers. They work 4 in the morning till 8 or noon till 4 or whatever the case may be. And they load and unload these trucks. And prior to us completing a successful negotiation, they were making$15 per hour nationwide. Come on. You had single mothers going to work there, risking their lives during COVID. They were the unsung heroes of keeping supply chain moving. And it was a very, very credible argument that we had publicly. But the company recognized it. And during negotiations, I'm going to say, how embarrassing is it that you're making$100 billion with a B.

39:59And you have people that are on subsidized housing. You have people that are on welfare that work for you. And I'll be honest with you, like we push real hard and part-timers start out at$21 an hour. The long-term part-timers are being rewarded. They get full medical, full pensions. So, you know, they recognized, you know, that they need to take care of these folks. And a lot of pushing and prodding from us. But at the end of the day, they did the right thing by these part-timers. And who are the major groups that are pushing back against you guys? Is it lobbies? Is it politicians? is it just big business?

40:36I'll tell you, it's a combination of corporate America, and I refer to them all the time as fucking white collar criminals. Yeah. Right, that all they do is care about the bottom line of the balance sheet. Money, I say, dude. Right, right, right. And so, you know. And we'll bleep out f***s. Yeah. Just so you know that. Nobody, yeah, just don't feel uncomfortable. Yeah, I mean, fucking prostitutes. Yeah. And then you have, you know, these politicians, both sides, Democrats and Republicans. I'll be honest with you, I'm a Democrat, but they have fucked us over for the last 40 years and for once. And not all of them, but for once, we're standing up as a union, probably the only one right now, saying, what the fuck have you done for us?

41:17And I'm getting attacked from the left. And we've given, since I've been in office two and a half years, we've given the Democratic machine$15.7 million. We've given Republicans about$340 ,000, truth be told. So it's like people say the Democratic Party is the party of the working people. They're bought and paid for by big tech, those big tech companies. Yeah, tech is the new fossil fuel, man. That's what I say. Right, and you've got the Republicans who are now saying, hey, we want to be the working class party, right? And, okay, you've got a great opportunity right now to do that. And the Democrats, if 60 % of our members aren't supporting you, the fucking system is broken.

41:57They needed to fix it. Stop pointing fingers at Sean O 'Brien. Stop pointing fingers at the Teamsters Union. Look in the mirror. I mean, I had a heated debate with, heated discussion two weeks ago with Chuck Schumer. And it got fucking ugly. Chuck Schumer is a piece of shit. And it got ugly because, you know, these politicians, you know, the one thing I've learned, they fucking walk in and they tell you, I did this for you. Okay, great. Let me tell you what you haven't fucking done for us or our members. and we got into it pretty heavy and i'm like you had no problem taking 550 000 from me three weeks prior to me going on the republican national convention and then you want to be a fucking tough guy on twitter or x or whatever it is and throw shit out there about me like whatever to support their can't to support the party support the campaign the team the teamsters union has historically endorsed a candidate right right a presidential candidate and this is one of the first times two times we haven't 1976 we didn't endorse in 1996 we didn't okay so the first time in 30 years now that you guys haven't done and again the reason why we didn't endorse in 1996 clinton because we endorsed him in 92 and look he created nafta and it fucked a lot of our members over and we lost jobs as a result of it so we couldn't we couldn't endorse hole and and why would he do it though why because who are they beholden to they're not even though they say We're beholden to working people.

43:16We're beholden to middle class. We're beholden to American worker. They're beholden to, look, all these money and their next opportunity, right? Because you're not there a long time, right? And their next opportunity, it's like, what's his name? The guy that looks like fucking Bradley Cooper, the governor of California, Newsom. That guy is bought and paid for by big tech. You know, he had the opportunity to protect the general public and his constituents from AI, from autonomous vehicles, from all this bullshit that we talked about earlier. And we, the union men and women, actually got him to stay in office as a result of that recall.

44:02We went out and worked hard for him. And what's he do? He fucking vetoes all these protections against artificial intelligence, against Uber, against Lyft, all this bullshit. And these are the people that we were supporting. Are you shitting me? Seriously. So they're turning their back on you. They're turning their back on. So listen, I can't speak for any other unions, but I'm going to speak for the Teamsters Union. I represent 1.3 million members. And we've said all along, we took over, we want a return on our investment. We want to be like big business. We make an investment. We want a return.

44:33And that return with these politicians are supporting our issues. That's going to protect jobs and promote unionization throughout the whole country. And they've let us down. They've let us down. And you know what? I'm a person, I think, probably to my own fault. My mother keeps saying, you keep fighting with all these fucking politicians. You're going to get us all audited. Well, that's okay, right? Audit? I thought kill, but that's how they do it first. They better get up early, you know? Can't kill the willing. You know what I mean? Yeah, dude. I'll take my own life. Now what? You know what I'm saying?

45:00I showed you. And I'll do it on the clock. Yeah. I'll still be on the clock. You bet, dude. You don't think I'm clocking out for you, dude. I'll be on double time. Yeah, we'll let nothing run, brother. Absolutely. Yeah, but I mean, it's just people got to step up. California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed a Teamsters-backed bill that would have effectively banned autonomous trucks in the state. Wow. Yeah. And you know how many people there are in California? But what does it say? Assembly Bill 2286 would have prohibited the operation of autonomous vehicles weighing 10 ,000 pounds or more on public roads for testing, transporting goods or carrying passengers without a human safety operator physically present in the vehicle there should be somebody in the vehicle anyway it's like because that thing's also going to get hijacked dude you think ms13 isn't going to want a bunch of carrots or whatever's passing through they're gonna hot they're gonna fucking shoot dude they sent one of those little gypsy cruises with the uh it had a dots and b210 loaded up this thing it was a little r2d2 but it was like it was kind of aftermarket slightly, you know?

46:04And they had one of those rolling through the hood one time with some ice creams in it or something you could buy out of it. And 11 brothers beat the shit out of that thing. So there's no, what are they even talking about? Dude, this shit will get hijacked so quick, but then you're going to have to put a gunner on the top of the, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's just getting weird. Bring that back up, please, Trevin. Thank you, bud. It's important to note that 35 jurisdictions, including Arizona, Nevada, Texas, Washington, and the District of Columbia have already authorized the testing of heavy-duty autonomous vehicles.

46:35Wow. That's what Newsom said. California remains the only state to actively prohibit these vehicles. But it's also a huge state where there's so much agriculture and stuff. And there's a huge port over there as well, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. LA Port, Long Beach, you've got some big ports over there. So they're not on strike. They're under a different union. They're the ILWU. But same issues, I'm sure. They'll be fighting the same battle down the road. But yeah, this, this, this is, this is the stuff that, you know, we're fighting against. And look, these politicians, you know, they, they're going to realize that the constituents don't work for them.

47:08They work for the constituents. And that's, that's, that's what they have to be reminded of. And there's a lot of good ones that do a lot of great work. Like, you know, we've got a great relationship and, and our goal is to try and work bipartisan because that's the only way we're going to get shit done. Right. And, you know, there's been a line drawn in the sand and And our focus has been as a union and mine as a leader is like, look, we can fucking agree to disagree on a lot of shit and we're going to. But let's agree on the stuff that we can and get some stuff done in this country, you know, get some real, real progressive legislation that we can work together on.

47:40But, you know, the focus has been lost and the whole system is a fucking disgrace, to be honest with you. Oh, yeah. And it's time to shake these pedophiles down, dude. That's how I feel. What else does it say on here? The Teamsters Union issued a statement criticizing Newsom's veto. The vast majority of California is opposed unregulated, unaccountable driverless cars and trucks on the road, dude. Yes. There's already so many... Yeah, it's like... Because then if somebody hits you, what do you just... You can't even sue anybody? You're just what? You're like, that guy hit me and the cop's like, who?

48:12And you're like, ah, fucking nobody. Why do they need cops? What do they need cops for? Yeah. You can't write anybody up. I mean, that's another thing. public safety. It's crazy. And it's, it's like, it's going to get bad. Yeah. It's going to get ugly. And we're going to be a world of robots. If, if people like us don't step up and hold politicians accountable, look, I'll eat beans, man. I'll do what I got to do for as long as it takes brother. If there's no, yeah. As long as I got, I guess candles, I guess what else do I, yeah. We'd have to have candles, water, dude wipes, dude wipes for sure.

48:42You know, unless you're not eating, you know, unless it gets that bad, you're not wiping, you know what I'm saying? save money on both ends. But yeah, yeah, I'm going to have, we're going to have to get some stuff. Oh God. That's why we get these shirts made up, you know? Yeah. I'd love to get one of those. You're going to have one by the time I leave here today. Hey man, do you see that? See, we deliver results, not excuses. Yeah. They deliver results, not excuses. Take me through some of the decision and what it was like behind the scenes to make the choice not to endorse a candidate. Well, look, the one thing that we pride ourselves on when we took over as leaders was transparency and inclusiveness, right?

49:19So when you have 1.3 million members, it's important to make certain you understand their perspective because that's who our employer is. That's who we work for. That's who gives me the opportunity and privilege to represent them. And we went through, for the first time ever, we brought every single candidate in from the beginning. And we invited every one of them from Dr. Cornel West, all the way, former President Donald Trump, former President Biden, and then VP Harris and everybody in between. RFK, who I love that guy. I love that guy, too. That guy's awesome, man. He's the best. And we brought them all in in a roundtable, first time ever, with rank and file members, you know, eight or 10 of them from various parts of the country, various political affiliations.

50:04And we asked them specific questions that were important to us. And, you know, at the end of the day we did, we did the meetings there, then we did polling, straw polling, you know, in the union halls, and then we did electronic polling, 1.3 million of our members, QR code, where we had over 40 ,000 members participate, which is huge. And then we did, you know, scientific-based polling using the Democratic pollster that the Biden-Harris campaign used. And the only poll that that was favorable was the poll we did, the straw poll in the union halls, which was polling 44 % Biden and 38 % Trump. So the other polls were 60, 62 % Republican.

50:51And so - In favor of Trump? In favor of Trump, yes. Even we sent the electronic polling after President Biden dropped out of the race. And look, Biden's been great for unions, working people. But the reality of it is – Trevor Burrus He's gone. He's gone. He's gone. And again, it's like we've got to take into consideration our members' opinions. And I don't have the beauty of leaning one way or the other. I have to represent both Democratic members and also Republican members. And quite frankly, when I spoke at the RNC, that's when the attacks started happening from the Democratic left and the Republican right.

51:35Wait, so just to back up, just so I'm going to clear something. And so a straw poll means? It means you go to the union halls. We have 319 union halls nationwide. Okay. So you actually have an in-person meeting town hall where you get to actually control the meeting, right? You control the narrative, but our members get to vote in a secret ballot. And when you have meetings like that straw poll, usually you can put your thumb on the scale and flip it either way. We thought we were going to come out of there with Joe Biden at 80 % and the rest because there are people coming in there for the most part that show up.

52:11There are people that work on your staff. And when it only polls 44%, something's wrong. Something's broken. So that's why we started doing extensive polling. Because usually the unions are extremely democratic. Absolutely. That's what you're saying. Okay, I see what you're saying now. Yeah, absolutely. The team's first polling data shows members backed Biden 44 % to Trump's 36.3%. So that's more lopsided than usual. Well, we were thinking that it was going to be 80 % Biden because the people that show up at union halls for union meetings and any type of meetings are usually your supporters, are usually the people that are going to vote or follow your recommendations or whatever.

52:52Oh, yeah, their children dress up like plumbers and stuff for Halloween and everything. Well, we do check their membership cards, you know. Yeah. Yeah, well. And some of them get in when they're 11, teen. I'm only kidding. I'm only kidding. Okay. So at that point you realize, okay, so things are a little bit more, there's people have different opinions. There's a divide. There's a divide. There's a huge divide. So then at that point, did you make the decision to not support a candidate or support a - No, we took all the data. And historically, the Teamsters Union has never, ever endorsed a presidential candidate until after both respective conventions are concluded.

53:28Okay. So we asked to speak at the Republican and Democratic. Obviously, we spoke at the Republican. And then we didn't get invited to the Democratic National Convention. Did they get back to you? So you asked to speak at both? Yeah, they never got back to us. They never got back to us. And you email them or text them? Oh, we called them. We sent the invitation. We sent the request to speak at both conventions at the same time. And we heard from the Republican National Convention right away. Now, look, going in there was like, it wasn't easy. It was like going into an ex-girlfriend's house whose family hates you because of a bad breakup on Thanksgiving and saying, how are you all doing?

54:08Oh, wow. It wasn't a comfortable feeling.

54:15But like I said to everybody else, when we get the opportunity to highlight American workers and or Teamsters Union, we're going to do it on any and all platforms there are, whether we're welcome or we're not. And we wanted to do the same at the Democratic National Convention. We didn't get that opportunity. But, you know, so to get back to your point was after we did all the scientific polling, after the conventions, you know, we have a general executive board, which are 24 leaders from all around the country, vice presidents and presidents. Teams or leaders? Yes. They make up the general executive board.

54:46So we presented all the polling data. We had, you know, spirited debate and dialogue, very respectful. And at the end of the day, you know, there were three people that voted to endorse the Harris-Waltz campaign. And the majority of the rest of the executive board voted to not endorse and allow local unions and area joint councils to go out and, you know, endorse whoever they wanted. And, you know, again, you get criticized no matter what you do. So, but it was the right decision because, you know, both candidates, Harris and President, former President Trump, you know, didn't answer specific questions of what was important to us.

55:31So, you know. Like, for example, so which ones. So it's like our right to strike. Like right now you see the ILA on strike. We had the railroad workers when we first took over two years ago. So they're under what they call Railway Labor Act where Congress can make a recommendation to implement the contract under the process. And they did it. And our members weren't happy. They did it under the Biden administration. And one of our biggest goals moving forward because we've got this campaign with United Airlines where they're under the same process. We want the right to strike. And we can get the right to strike once we conclude the process.

56:07But a lot of times the government will intervene and they'll obviously implement a contract. So that was very important to us. Look, if we're in the middle of an RLA negotiation and we want the right to strike, are you going to support us or are you going to stop us? It wasn't a commitment from both sides on that. On either side, Republican or Democrat. On either side on that. Not even supporting your right to strike. That's crazy. That's in certain arenas under the Railway Labor Act. Airlines are under the Railway Labor Act. Railroads are under the Railway Labor Act. Trucking industry isn't. Most private sector that we represent isn't.

56:38So we still have the right to strike in other arenas. But these are important industries for us. So we didn't get commitments on that. One candidate may have been stronger on the PRO Act, obviously supporting the right to organize, supporting collective bargaining agreements. We didn't get a strong commitment from the Republican side on vetoing national right to work. And again, when you're face-to-face with people and you're asking questions – and look, we give the questions to all the candidates prior. Right. So it's like fucking prepare. Lie to us. Tell us what we want to hear, right? And when they can't answer the question, well, they try and go around to you.

57:19Look, we're pretty sophisticated now. We're not as dumb as we look. And our members are certainly not dumb. Yeah, some of them are on break or whatever a lot, but still. Yeah, some of them might be on break. You know what I mean? Look, that's fine, brother. Third coffee break of the day. They earned it. Thank God for the unions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they didn't answer the question. So it's like - put the polling numbers together, put the in-person interviews you know we did the right thing we did the right thing by our members no matter what and I'll defend that all day long but you know the problem is it's like the good news about this whole situation is you see how treacherous the far left can be and the far right and I think it's fucking hilarious because you know don't threaten us with a good time you want to fight let's do it yeah you know and you know we'll cut their money off we'll do whatever whatever it takes they're going to have to earn it moving forward.

58:11They've done a lot of personal attacks. They've done a lot of attacks on our members. And, and, you know, we're ready to go. Whoever wins either way, you know, they're going to have to deal with you. They're going to have to deal with us. We control commerce in this country. Fuck yeah, dude. And we're powerful and we're not afraid to fight. We'd rather just fight corporate America. Yeah. Instead of dealing with this other bullshit, which is a distraction. You know, we, we've had politicians, right? That, Oh, we support you. We support you. When we're doing the UPS negotiations, there were some high-profile people and senators that claim to be the working people, the Schumers of the world and some others.

58:48We're pro-union. We want to support unions. They wouldn't sign off on a support letter for UPS workers prior to going into these negotiations. They wouldn't sign off of support letters while we're striking these DSPs where your mom works at Amazon. So it's like, what does that tell you? It means they're afraid they're going to get their campaign contribution taken away from Amazon and big tech. Well, don't say one thing and do another. Be consistent. If you want to be in bed with big tech, just tell us. Be transparent. You'll always hear me say. The one thing I do, and this is me, probably to a fault, I always state my fucking intentions clearly.

59:24I'm going to come after you. We're going to get X, Y, and Z for our members. And if you don't, you're choosing to strike yourself. So accept the consequences. if you're going to screw us over don't fucking hide behind false promises screw us over yeah you know tell us you're going to screw us i'm happy we'll figure out how we deal with it moving forward me in the face don't fuck me in the rear or whatever how some people do it i don't do it like that no no no baby oil here yeah yeah dude yeah if only did he would have unionized man um he would have definitely violated every human resource policy and procedure he probably wouldn't lasted too long.

1:00:02Yeah. And one of them, yeah, the first one, wash your hands. That's the number one. I mean, that's about every sink, you know, um, or age appropriate. Amen, dude. You know, I got my producers, some tickets to the Tennessee Titans versus green Bay Packers game a few weeks ago. And I did it on game time. Game time has a new feature called game time picks that makes getting tickets for concerts and events easier. GameTime Picks filters out the fluff to show you only incredible deals on great seats so you don't have to waste time searching through thousands of tickets. Additionally, GameTime has the lowest price guarantee or GameTime will credit you 110 % of the difference.

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1:02:31Visit betterhelp.com slash T-H-E-O today to get 10 % off your first month. that's better h-e-l-p better help.com slash theo yeah that whole thing's crazy i think that they i think the government or somebody the cia whoever's busting him they're going to use that as leverage to get people to speak out for political leverage or for speak out in favor of politicians in lieu of getting exposed. I don't know if that's true or not, but I just wouldn't put anything past any of these organizations now. So that was why you guys didn't endorse a candidate. Is there still the possibility for you guys to endorse a candidate?

1:03:18No, we're not going to endorse it. We've made a decision that we're going to stay out of it and see what happens. Nothing would change that? No, nothing at all. Nothing at all. Look, if we change our position either way, you know we look weak we're strong and right and i'm strong we're strong in opposition um you know and there's people that people that don't agree with it um and that's fine that's great and and and the problem is is like remember one thing everybody's opinion matters right especially our membership and i'll tell you i'm so disgusted on you know the with the behavior of people like attacking each other personally it's like we're the we're the best country in the world, which we're provided the greatest freedoms in the world where we can say and do whatever we want within reason, not breaking the law and not be retaliated or any retribution against us.

1:04:09And this whole process, that's complete opposite of what we stand for. And it's a fucking disgrace. People are laughing at us around the world. They're laughing at us because we're not taking care of our workers. Right. Workers or the communities. I mean, we're getting involved in stupid shit, attacking people personally. Oh, you mean union members are? No, it's just the whole political bullshit. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It's unbelievable. It's disgraceful. That they would then want to make you guys look bad. It's crazy. Yeah, for workers not to get paid. But then you do have people that say, well, these guys make so much money and this and that.

1:04:41But a lot of that you're saying is just bullshit. That's not the starting out salary. No, it's not the starting out salary. And, you know, majority of our members are working 50 to 60 hours per week. Oh, yeah. You know, life family balance doesn't exist in certain industries. And we've been fighting hard to make sure that we negotiate contracts that limit overtime or limit people being forced to work. And people might think everything is great in this country. There's still a lot of workers out there that are hurting. There's still a lot of people that are hurting that are living week to week, paycheck to paycheck.

1:05:11Oh, indeed. And it's a disgrace. And we're giving money out left and right that let's take care of our workers. Let's take care of people that make it. If your worker's last name was Israel, you'd have all the cash you needed. you know that's for damn sure um but it is unfortunate yeah my mom's out there she's driving a fucking catalytic converter 30 miles out into the desert to drop it off or you know deliver an auto part sometimes and you know and it's like and she's not even getting paid by the per mile or whatever just you got to think about all those things you know and who's making the money who's doing all the work and who's making the money it's easy be a big muffler or whoever Yeah, whoever it is, dude.

1:05:49New York Amazon delivery drivers joined the Teamsters in surge of momentum. That's exciting. Hundreds of Amazon drivers at a delivery station in Queens, New York, marched on their bosses today to announce they're joining the Teamsters. I think striking's fun. Do you have somebody out there with a drum or something? Oh, we get it all. I mean, we've got – strikes are awesome. I mean, the one thing about strikes are two things. When you strike for recognition, it sends a strong message to the employer that, you know, our members are united, our members are strong, and they want to fight for a contract.

1:06:18And if you don't, we're going to withhold our labor. I mean, there's a lot to be said about disruption and the positive effect on it. And look, it is what it is. And it's not easy at times, but you got to fight. You got to stand up. And it's a great litmus test for us because we know how strong the group is or isn't. And these Amazon workers, I got to tell you, they have courage and conviction like I've never seen. And two, two and a half years ago, you know we put this as a priority we've got to organize amazon workers and we have been working you know tirelessly around the country and this is going to be a reality this is definitely going to be a reality you know why because once you shut you know uh companies like amazon down or you shut a dhl down or any company you shut the ports down it sends a strong fucking message on look this is this is important and these corporations need to realize who's actually in charge and it's not them.

1:07:11Yeah. Yeah. I agree, man. I long for the day that we, that like everybody just like all of these, like, um, Facebook headquarters and different, um, Verizon, whatever. I don't care if my cell phone doesn't work, dude. You know what I'm saying? I don't want a cell phone anymore. Yeah, I know. It ruins everything. That's awful. It's awful. It's like, we've ruined kind of, it's like we let technology take away so many things that were valuable to us. And then you see the effects of it on, on children and they don't know the difference. Right. Um, but then you see some, some countries like Poland who are standing up for like whatever their beliefs are as a country and like their moral fortitude.

1:07:50And, uh, and it's interesting to, it's interesting. Sometimes I wish that we did more stuff like that. You know, we started to realize like, Hey, just because this is a technological advancement or because it makes things easier. Is it good for us as humans? With dummy down society. Oh, yeah. You know, I mean, look, think about this. You know, we talk about phones. I used to be able to memorize 10 or 15 phone numbers, right? Because I'd go to a pay phone and I'd call someone and I didn't have the number written down. I'd have to memorize it. Oh, yeah. Right now, I can't even tell you. I'm lucky I know my own phone number because all you do is just speak into a microphone in your phone and call Theo.

1:08:31Yeah. Bang, call you. I don't even have to know your number. Yeah, call my bookie or whoever you - Yeah, I want a beeper. Let's get a beeper back. Oh, yeah. Let's put payphones back in the corner. Payphones. Yeah, home run. The best part about payphones was when you were on one and some guy, like a homeless guy or whatever. Or someone trying to rob you, you can just hit him with the receiver. Yeah, that's true, dude. But it was never long enough. It would get so - Yeah. It would get an inch from their skull and it would - It'd be like, oh, shit. Now he's going to hit me. Yeah, you put in 40 more cents and you'll get like three extra inches of cord, you know?

1:09:02And you could beat the guy. you know, crank calls were the best from pay phones, pay phones were the best also because, well, first of all, you used to be able to hide from people. You could be like, I can't be there. Nobody could know where you were. They couldn't get in touch with you at all times. Do you share your location? You'd have to, Oh no, I don't share my location, dude. I don't either. Yeah. I'm not sharing my location, dude. I would, that's crazy with who, I don't even know who would. Yeah. But I, yeah, that's crazy. You're going to, You're not going to see me coming, motherfucker.

1:09:34Imagine your parents tracking you like 25 years ago on social media. No. I would have tied my phone to a cat's back or whatever. Oh, yeah, yeah. Let that bitch hit the streets. Duct tape it to like the German Shepherd's collar. Run around. Oh, it would be awful. They track. I'm 53 years old, and we ran wild like back in the day. Oh, yeah. And I couldn't imagine. My poor mother, we ran her hard. You know, we ran her hard, but I can't imagine. Like these fucking idiots put everything on social media now. And it's like, really? Like we used to be able to lie. They rat themselves out. Oh yeah. People rat that.

1:10:09They tell their boss, he can't come into work and then they're partying or something. Buffalo wild wings or whatever. Dude. Yeah. We used to, you used to be able to lie to somebody and they didn't know you were lying. Oh, what about that beautiful piece of America that we lost? The ability to lie and not get caught. You could tell a woman you were a lawyer or whatever. And she's like, you're 11. And I'm like, who cares? The defense rests, you know? But those were the days, man. You could go into another city and yeah, you could just make up stuff. You didn't have to be a criminal forever if you were online or something.

1:10:43So much of the fun is gone because a lot of the mystery is gone. But the last thing we can, if we lose the like, man, it's just so crazy because so much of the fabric of our society has started to dissolve. It's like, you know, it's not as much of a Christian nation anymore. It's not, we haven't stood up for even, and even if it's, if it doesn't have to be a religious nation, it should be a moral nation. Right. And we don't protect, like we don't stand for things morally. Like business is just taken over. It's yeah. Like greed. It's just, it's gotten crazy. How about people? You know, everybody talks about, you know, all this righteous bullshit.

1:11:23Right. And a lot of it's – some of it's good, some of it's bad. But recently I work in Washington, D.C., and there were people actively desecrating monuments and lighting the American flag on fire. Now regardless of what your position is on anything going on in the world, like growing up, one value that we add is you respect that flag and you defend it with everything you got. And I kind of – I posted a picture of an American flag on social media. and I'm not really allowed to touch my social media because guys like Will and Brian, my good people that are around me, chief of staff, they protect me from myself because there's certain things that just drives me nuts.

1:12:06But I post the American flag and I wrote, I will defend and honor this till the day I die and everybody else should. We're in the greatest country in the world. I got a tack like on these private DMs saying, well, Supreme Court said it's legal to burn a flag. Like, okay, so it's legal to burn a flag because the Supreme Court says, is it morally right to desecrate something so sacred? So that's where, like, I think we got to get back to basics and say, look. I agree. Let's fucking cut this bullshit out. We're in the greatest place in the world. But we don't even, but now it's almost, if you say America, you say USA, you're suddenly a right, you're far right.

1:12:44You know, it's like if you put an American, like some people think the American flag, it's like it's been positioned by the media that it's not even that it's not our unifying flag anymore. You know, that it's for one party. And they did that on purpose. And it's it's unbelievable. It's sick. And we took the Pledge of Allegiance out of schools. Little things that I think have an effect on on yourself and your psyche in a positive way to make you feel like you're part of a group. And when you don't feel like you're part of a group anymore, you don't feel like you're part of the fabric of America, that it's not a real thing, then you start to only look out for yourself.

1:13:18And that's when I think things get really scary. Well, if we're so bad, wouldn't people be leaving here left and right? Oh, yeah. All those people that said they were going to leave or whatever and they're leaving, dude, I wish they would leave. I love this country. Look, do we have our flaws as a nation? We all are. Yeah. We have our flaws as human beings, every one of us. Yeah, look at the jets. Right. Yeah. I know. I know. Jesus. But, you know, it's a great country. It's something that people should be proud to live here. I know. And they should respect it. And the fight isn't amongst ourselves.

1:13:55You know, for us, guys like me and our union members, it's like we were afforded freedoms because of that flag, because of the country we live in, where the enemy is not ourselves. The enemy is corporate American crooked politicians. That's fucking easy. Yeah. It's weird when the enemy now is in your country though. That's the thing that's gotten different. It used to be that your enemy was other countries or the countries you had conflict with. And now it's gotten to be that the enemies are running our country or they are in debt to people who are running our country. Or our leaders are in debt to our enemies.

1:14:39That's what's gotten weird. Our leaders are in debt to people who don't care about the morals of this country, you know, and who don't have any. No, and it's, it's, there's got to be a solution to the problem though. That's what I hope, brother. I fucking hope, dude. I will fucking chew the tires off somebody's asshole, brother. I get, I fucking hope that we can change things, dude. You know, and I think there's a lot of guys out there who can, you know. So that phrase you just said, chew the tires off someone's asshole. so if I didn't interpret that in a Boston interpretation what do you think that would be oh man

1:15:15might just give him a swift kick in the nuts no I think it would be I'd put a cannoli in there somewhere yeah north end what's that one place it's so good it's open all night yeah you go in there and they got Mike back in the back and he doesn't have he may still have a couple teeth there's an update you can get online I haven't checked it. It was a nice tooth? Yeah, yeah. And they're like, tell him, Mike, and he'll be like, I think that's Bova's Baker. Yeah, that's it, bro. Yeah, Bova's Baker. God, that place is good, dude. I'm not gay, but I'll suck off one of those cannolis, brother. I'll tell you that.

1:15:49You know what I'm saying, dude? BLM, dude. Those things are good. And, bro, you go in there, you can meet a lady. They got some people in there, dude. And the guy that works in there works with his ex-wife in there. They're in there running it all night. Yep. But yeah, they got the guy in their back who's still got, he's got a couple of horsemen left in the stable back there. And every now and then - Oh, there's some thoroughbreds back there. Oh, every now and then he'll sound off. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Every now and then somebody will - You know what's good about that place? Every now and then, yeah, they put him in a Vince Wilford jersey back there and he'll fucking start rattling around.

1:16:24Back in the day, that place used to be great because you come out of the bars in Faneuil Hall or North Station and that was the only place open. and after drinking 35 beers, it's a good idea to fucking eat a couple cannolis and a little tiramisu. But then you'd end up in the corner and you end up fucking getting in a fight argument. It was like WWE after eating cannolis and Italian pastry. It was WWE players, dude. Oh, man. You guys beating the shit out of each other with fucking frost out on their cheeks. Oh, it was crazy. One guy's got a fucking apple crella just slammed into his throat. It's funny.

1:16:59I live right now there, and it's still open. It's so good, bro. Yeah. Oh, last time I was there, we went in there. Yeah, it's so good, dude. Yeah. Oh, that place is good. A salt and battery with a cannoli. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, bro, they got the best stuff in there. Bring it up. Bring up their website. What's it called?

1:17:21Yeah, see what they got on there. Let me see some of the items over there. Oh, you got to go with the whoopie pie. Oh, they got them? They got him right there. Oh, yeah. Yeah, some of those things. Oh, they got those little creme brulees, brother. Now, my son that you met today, he's a type 1 diabetic. Is he? And he always tells this joke, right? But see that stuff right there on the website? It's pretty sad when that can save his life. Forget CPR. That'll save his life. Put a little Cruella in him, huh? Put a fucking little bit of Boston cream in his snout. Absolutely. Bring him back to life, brother.

1:18:00That fucking sugar knock, you know, homie? That poor kid has diabetes. His politicians have fucking diabetes. That's a good point, dude. Oh, I hope. It's almost weird because you're almost like, will some country come and rescue us? But it's our own country, you know? It's like, that's the part that's crazy to me. We got to rescue ourselves from ourselves. We do. We do. But it's definitely greed is one of the biggest things. um so with with the country kind of divided and even with the union having different views in politics how do you keep the union unified like how is it tough to do or is it no i mean the one thing the one thing that's important is you know the inclusiveness of the union you know we're not we're not a dictatorship uh our leadership is um something that's never been done where we are out there uh myself and um you know my general secretary treasurer my partner and all this Fred Zuckerman.

1:18:51We are actually out three, four days per week in work sites all around the country. We're not talking to leaders. We're not talking, we're talking to, we are talking to rank and file members in every industry we represent. And look, this political shit that's going on right now, the presidential race, it's important. But what we do is represent workers. That's the most important thing. So what do we do to keep them unified? Negotiate the best contracts, be out there, be visible, be transparent, be inclusive, but more importantly, be honest with them. Part of the issue with a lot of situations we've been through over the last two and a half years and the success we've had is because we've been honest with our members and we've empowered them.

1:19:38We've empowered them where they know we have their backs. They know that if they want to take on a fight, Okay, we're ready to go. There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Yeah. And should every worker be part of a union, do you think? I think every worker should be part of a union. I mean, look, think about it. We set the tone nationwide on industry standards. And look, everybody should have health care they don't have to pay for, that an employer is paying for. Everybody should have a pension that they can retire on and actually maintain their quality of life while they're retired. So yeah, everybody should have that.

1:20:17That's the American dream. Yeah. And unions, it would feel like are especially disadvantaged because their healthcare costs go up year over year and those costs get levied out to the members. The members have to, even if their salary is going up, the cost of the healthcare is going up the same or similar. So it all washes out, you know? Like I was reading the other day about there was a union 32BJ, I think it is, 32BJ. SEIU, yes. Which has workers paying 37 % of their compensation of their earnings to healthcare. The members spent, what you're saying is the members spent 37 million towards the cost of some of their premium that they pay in the health insurance.

1:21:04See with us, we - No, that 37 % of their compensation goes towards healthcare. Yeah, so they're paying a cost, part of their compensation towards their healthcare. We go into every single negotiation. The majority of our members in the big industries do not pay anything towards a premium. The employers, we demand that they pay the full. Now, there are some industries that pay certain percentage towards it, like public sector, but we get the ability to negotiate that. we get the ability to negotiate free health care and stuff like that. And that's important in this day and age because, again, you get back to big business.

1:21:44We're out there fighting for the best benefits for our members, health care. We want zero to low cost. And who's making all the money? These fucking providers. The insurance company, Blue Cross Blue Shields of the world, the Kaisers of the world. And they act like they're providing us all these great benefits. We're fighting for them. And they're actually a vendor to us. So in some instances, we're investing in our own demise in certain situations, right? So we've tried to change that narrative as well. But yeah, it's a disgrace. That's a disgrace. Yeah. And I read an article that in New Jersey, police, fire and teachers unions are expecting a 20 % increase in their health care premiums for 2025.

1:22:34I mean, you know. So you take a wage increase that's, you know, you get a 5 % wage increase, right? But your health insurance goes up 20%. Right. You just lost money. Right. Right. And why? You shouldn't be losing money. No, it's all part of the same scam. It's like, yeah, well, okay, we'll give you an increase, but this is going to be even higher than that. So we know we're going to get the money back. So think about this. You get a teacher that is responsible for cultivating the next generation and educating that next generation, right? Yeah. You get a firefighter that's running into a burning building to save your children.

1:23:06And you're in health care. And you have a police officer that's risking his life every single day with zero support from communities now. Yeah, except a marble neck brace. Yeah, right. Yeah, right. Exactly, right? and you want them to pay more for their health insurance? Are you out of your fucking minds? It's literally going to get to the point, Sean, where you're literally going to have to smoke for medical care. It's going to be like, all right, if you want an IV, it's 20 ,000 Marlboro points. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You want a Tylenol, you've got to smoke a fucking cotton of cigarettes, break them off.

1:23:35Yeah, it's crazy. But imagine those people. You'll see somebody in a full body, like just a full body Winston cast, you know, just a full body Parliament cast. You know, this costs 30 ,000. Tarrantin 100. Miles. Oh, God. That must have been a Boston thing, huh? My grandmother used to smoke Tarrantin 100, right? And she had like a three-inch ash, and you'd be sitting there. I'd be like, all right, when's this going to light the couch on fire? Oh, no. When is it going to light the dive van on fire? I didn't know what the fucking dive van. Yeah, I didn't know what it was. She called it a dive van?

1:24:07A dive van, yeah. Well, yeah, my grandmother called it a dive van. Yeah, whatever it was, yeah. Yeah, they both had it wrong. Smoking butts. They all smoked through pregnancy. right oh yeah brother oh you'd see a kid be born he'd be you know four ounces bro you know i'm saying yeah she'd put them in my grandmother put one my brother in a curio cabinet kid was craving like fucking tab tab cola dude they had a fuck what was i gonna say my brains aren't working good today man some days it's on some days it's off you know it's union you know what i'm saying brother might be on an off shift but hey it's hey but hey bro it's part of the union dude Hey, FMLA.

1:24:43Hey, it knows no matter what that it's going to be rewarded. FMLA, Friday, Monday, Leave Act. Yeah.

1:24:54What else was I going to ask you? Yeah, why does every – did we already ask this? Why does every worker need a contract with their employer? Well, because, look, if you don't have a contract, right? And I tell this to people all the time where we're organizing workers because we have these meetings with groups that want to organize. And you always get people that don't want to organize, right? They want to be friends with the boss, so they think that they're being taken care of. And I always tell them, look, take a piece of paper, write down all your demands, write down your guarantees. Like I, Sean O 'Brien, demand for my boss and my boss will provide for me.

1:25:297 % wage increase every year, free health care, job security, respect in the workplace. And if you give that to your boss, that you're not organized, you think he's going to sign that? Absolutely not. There's no guarantees, right? Well, the union contract, you're guaranteed. You're guaranteed yearly wage increases. You're guaranteed medical. You're guaranteed retirement. You're guaranteed holidays. You're guaranteed vacations. It's simple. It's easy. And that's the litmus test. Hey, if you don't believe us, then everything that you want, write it down as a contract. You individually go give it to your employer.

1:26:02And I guarantee you one or two things are going to happen. He's going to laugh at you, and then he's going to fire you. Damn. And now in smaller businesses, it might be different. Yeah, I mean, look, there's a lot of smaller businesses that actually take care of their employees that we've had instances where you've had a small business, a couple of people come to you and when you get into the weeds, deep down in the weeds, you see that this might not be a great opportunity for a union and or an employer that is actually doing the right thing by the members. That's the one thing that people lose sight of is what we do as a whole holds other people accountable.

1:26:45So what we get as a union may encourage these small employers to do the right thing selfishly to keep us out. So we do set that bar pretty high. But there's a lot of family-owned businesses that I know of, especially in my area where I grew up, where they take care of their employers. I have a friend of mine, Paul Nazaro, who started his own business. and he sold it for a lot of money that he'd probably never have to work again. But he's an example where he always took care of, it was a small tech company. And when he left, he had an employee that worked for him for 35 years on a forklift. He gave him a$500 ,000 check.

1:27:25Wow. Just stuff like that. So there's a lot of good stories out there, but the majority of people, and again, I'll stand by it. I think everybody should have the ability to join a union well without retaliation or retribution. And again, but there are a lot of good employers that small businesses, family run, that have done well and have rewarded the people. So it's not every employer is bad because they're non-union. Yeah, man, speaking of forklifts, I used to work over, I used to work at this place where it was galvanizing clevis clamps or something, some bullshit, I don't know, I got really bad summer and doing it because we had to do it outdoors or whatever because we weren't unionized or whatever.

1:28:02But yeah, we'd be out there galvanizing shit in the sun and, oh, at lunch sometimes we would get real high and we would put each other on a pallet, on a forklift, and then put it all the way to the top and get the highest dude and just put him way up there and leave him up there while we went and ate. You guys definitely needed a union. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Was it the junior guy or the senior guy you put up there? Oh, no, it was a low on the totem pole guy. It was me. Did they drug test at that company? Did they drug test at that company? Fuck no. But you knew people were on drugs. Yeah. So you didn't have to test.

1:28:42Yeah. Yeah. Just, you already knew it. Yeah. It was just kind of baked in. Was it like a prerequisite? Yeah. I don't know if it was or not, but it was baked in. Yeah. That's the one thing that we do when we stand by it. We, you know. Everybody's got to get drug tested? For the most part, most of our members do, which is a good thing. You don't want to. Do you guys use USADA? Who do you guys use? Oh, I don't even know. Oh, you don't? No. USADA? No. They're a big drug testing company. Oh, one of America's greatest mysteries is the Hoffa mystery, right? So we got to ask about that, you know, and what happened to him, right?

1:29:13Because he was the Teamsters president. He was. He was, well, there was the father and then Junior. The father was an icon. I mean, he put the Teamsters on the map. Did you ever meet the father? I didn't, no. He was, I was born in 1972. He disappeared in 75. um no but my my my uh i know a lot of people that did out of my local and everything else and you know he he was he was an icon he really was uh greatest labor leader ever um and he put the team says he had to organize labor on the map um and then he went missing right yep do you think he's still alive or not i mean he'd be 105 or something like that so i don't know probably not you can get in overtime if he is yeah i mean he's probably on the clocks you know probably on the clock.

1:29:58Or yeah, do you think he's still on the clock? That's probably the appropriate term. Dude, once you become president, do they tell you what happened to him because he went missing? No one knows what happens to him. I mean, that's the biggest mystery. There's all these theories that, you know, you get killed by the mob. There's all these theories that, you know, he's buried under a giant stadium. No one knows. I mean, you know, all the theories. But the one thing that is like, look, he's gone, but the work that he did should never be forgotten. I mean, that guy - Yeah, he's buried under a Dunkin' Don.

1:30:24It's out in Dayton or whatever. Yeah, probably South Medford or something. Yeah, there's always, you're like, we're not digging up another dunk. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We got munchkins to make. But no, I mean, it's unfortunate what happened. But, you know, back then, I mean, you know, the Teamsters, it was a very controversial, very influential organization, which I think today we're not as controversial, but we're just as much influential. And no, I don't, I get asked this question all the time. I'm sure. But I'll tell you one thing, fascinating thing in my office, and I'm in the same office that he had and then his son.

1:31:04His son, Jimmy P? James P Hoffman. James P Hoffman. James P Hoffman. James P Hoffman, yeah. James P Hoffman. Yeah, definitely not his father. Was born on third base and actually thinks he hit a triple to get there. Yeah. Great name recognition, right? But in my office, it's been all done over, But the one thing is there's a little closet in my office that, you know, they kept part of the history and you open the closet door. There's a little closet door on the hallway and there's actually a two rail tape recorder that's still there. So he used to tape record all his conversations in his office and listen to him.

1:31:45You weren't you didn't even know you were getting taped. So it's actually still there. It doesn't function. But, you know, it's funny. Bobby Kennedy tells a great story and it is true. There's no love loss between Jimmy Hoffa Sr. and Bobby Kennedy's father. Actually this is the, if you see this, that's President Hoffa at a Senate hearing flipping off Robert Kennedy. Robert Kennedy Jr. tells a story how driving past our headquarters with his father, he was probably 14 years old he was probably 14 years old he's driving past his past our building and his father his father had like a vendetta against hoffa and he saw that he was in there like nine o 'clock at night work and the lights was on so he dropped bobby off and said i gotta go back to work if he's working this late he's preparing i gotta prepare so it was funny the story but you know he was definitely an icon and he made the team says what it is today yeah you know i had a falling out with his son who, you know, as far as I'm concerned, you know, he didn't do what was right towards the end of the union.

1:32:56And that's the great thing about having a democratic union. And does everybody's vote in the union count for the same? All our rank and file members vote. Yeah, we're one of the only unions where one voice, one vote. Each one of our rank and file members gets the opportunity to vote on in their leadership. And so now every union member can vote for also for any president that they want or any election? Whoever's running, whoever's declared candidate, they can vote for whoever they want. So most of the time we run as slates. So you'll have like the Sean O 'Brien slate, or like I think we had, it's the Oz, the O 'Brien Zuckerman slate.

1:33:32And we had our opponents last time or membership slate or something like that. And you run as a slate, a team of 24. How often do you have to run? Every five years. Every five years, yep. So we ran in 2000, our election was in November of 2021 and we take over March of 2022. So we'll have another election in November of 26 and obviously get sworn in for another term, hopefully in March of 2027. And do you have a campaign slogan or did you have like a campaign slogan? No, but I think, yeah, well, we did. Yeah, bigger, faster, stronger. And I say it all the time, we've got to be bigger, we've got to be faster, we've got to be stronger.

1:34:15And we definitely have done that. Is the year growing? It's growing. We've organized, just the teams alone in two and a half years, organized 50 ,000 new members. And we're organizing in traditional industries. But I know for a fact you've probably never done this, you've probably never smoked weed, but we are organizing in the cannabis industry where there's 425 ,000 W2 employees nationwide. Bud slaves, they call them. A lot of people are calling them, yeah, because they're not unionized. No, and we have organized. I think we've got 2 ,000. They're sleeping in hammocks. We've got 2 ,000 of them organized, I think, throughout the whole country.

1:34:51So they're into cultivation. There's workers that are in warehousing, and then they're going to be in distribution. So all in our warehouse are what we do in this. 425 ,000 of them. Is that one of your largest growing sectors? Well, yeah. Sector of the term? It's divisions. Is that one of the largest growing divisions? Well, we're hopeful it will. I mean, we're doing a lot of things differently where, you know, once this is legalized nationwide, which I think both candidates are supportive of legalizing it, you're going to see in the safe banking laws a change where, again, these companies can put money into actual banks.

1:35:27you're going to see a private equity come out and try and buy up all these all these smaller companies where what we're doing is we're working with a private equity fund utilizing contributions from our pension funds and investments in our pension funds to be the buyer of them to be the buyer of them let's go right and and obviously uh you know organize within this industry so there's 425 000 uh is it a conflict of interest so to be an owner no we're not an owner it would be the private equity firm that we invest in. So it's not uncommon. We do it all the time in other industries. Would you still make the best deal for your - Oh, we're going to make the best deal because think about it.

1:36:09A lot of times in pension funds and health and welfare funds, we make investments off contributions because that's what you're supposed to do, right? And it's usually a pretty dynamic asset allocation. You invest in real estate, you invest in private equity, you invest in stocks, and invest in bonds and stuff like that, or infrastructure. So think about investing in, a lot of times, especially with private equity, you're investing in competitors, non-union competitors that could potentially put good companies out of business. So we're taking a different look at it now and approach and say, look, why don't we invest in the industries that we actually represent?

1:36:53And instead of investing in our demise, we invest in areas where we can help. So, for instance, 30 % of this portfolio will be dedicated towards a cannabis investment. And the other 70 % will be in all kinds of other investments, right? We're hoping to raise a billion dollars by January or February of 2025. And that gives us the opportunity as well as like if there's a distressed company out there, like a small business that's unionized or even a big business like Yellow Freight who went out of business because they couldn't get financing because it was a greedy private equity firm known as Apollo.

1:37:29If we had this fund up and running, you know, a couple of years ago, we could have bought Apollo's position out at$600 million, restructure the company and actually keep 22 ,000 jobs, right? So we're doing creative, innovative stuff like that as well, you know. You have to. Oh, you have to because like I said, We're a lot more sophisticated and our members deserve the investments we're going to make on their behalf. And like you look at the cannabis industry, for instance, right? If it doesn't get organized, what future do people have going to work there? So we organize them. We negotiate contracts that have health care, that have retirement benefits.

1:38:13We're not just creating a job. we're creating careers for people, right? Right. Cultivation, warehousing, distribution. I mean, that's what we should be doing. Yeah, that's really interesting. Yeah, and I can't believe that's one of the biggest growing, that's one of the largest growing. So they're saturated heavily. It's like one of the largest growing sectors for divisions. They're saturated heavily with licenses nationwide. Right. And that's a good thing, but they're capital poor right now. So they're waiting for this legalization federally and the safe banking laws to change. And you're going to see a grab.

1:38:54And if we're not controlling that grab, the best interests of these workers are not going to be at hand. So we want to make sure first and foremost that's what we're doing. We're not really concerned with doing double-digit return on investments. We're concerned on taking care of these workers that work in this industry and making certain that they have the ability to have a career if they choose. But how crazy that it's even come to that also, that now in order to ensure that the workers are going to be safe, that the company, that the organization making them safe also wants to be a vested interest in the – like, you know what I'm saying?

1:39:29You have to have skin in the game. You got to have skin in the game. It makes sense, but it's crazy that people wouldn't just think, yes, we need to take care of the workers. Yeah, well, so again, you get back to corporate greed. You get back to a bottom line of a balance sheet before people. yeah it's unreal man and then there won't be any more people it'll just be a robot and some you know you know some i don't even know just who knows you know some israeli lizard licking a bitcoin somewhere jerking off in a in a in a in a bank vault um one of your most viral moments was uh you had a confrontation with a fella um from oklahoma was he a senator yeah u.s senator Mark Wayne Mullen.

1:40:14Mark Wayne Mullen. And did you guys ever patch that up? Because you guys almost did a charity fundraiser fight right there in the Senate. Yeah, we had two run-ins. I'm not sure. People know I don't know. We had two run-ins. I was testifying in a Senate hearing at the request of Senator Bernie Sanders, who I got a lot of respect for and I'm a huge fan of. and this guy like attacked me first. What was he upset about? Well, so when you go into these hearings and again, like we have to submit like a 15 page brief, right? So you give that 24 hours prior and then you got to condense that in your testimony to about two and a half to three minutes.

1:40:59So I'm reading my testimony and you usually have witnesses pro and con on each side. And you have the Republicans on the help committee and the Democrats on the help committee. And I didn't know this guy from a hole in the wall. And he had an issue with a different union. He owned a business, a plumbing, a pipe fitting company in Oklahoma. And I guess they picketed his house. He had 300 employees or something. So he took it very personal, which, you know, hey, someone shows up your house that is personal. But the reality of it has nothing to do with me. So he started like attacking me on all this stuff.

1:41:34And of course, being from Boston in the neighborhood, I'm like, fuck you, dude. like whatever like you're a clown I just started shitting on him he started shitting on me back right and poor Bernie like I thought he popped a nitro he was like enough enough enough and so that was yeah it was like you know what it was like it was like you know you're sneaking into your grandmother's house in high school because you're drinking and your grandfather's up screaming at you but I felt bad for him and then so that was and he bombs a sip of liquor all day yeah yeah yeah he goes to bed you're like this is this is definitely you got a Marlboro yeah I'm two points shy right so um yeah this is insider trade so we get into this big exchange and then i didn't know who he was it was it was actually comical that was the first time and then so after that of course i start attacking him on social media and he starts attacking me back and we're going back and forth so then i have to testify another herring and he come in and he i can he was all fired up you know because clearly i hit a few nerves and uh he's like stand your butt up and i'm like you stand your butt up i am fucking he goes you want to do this we'll do it right now i'm like let's do it and um and they didn't let y 'all fight though huh no i was like you know what it was like it you know i played a little bit of hockey and like i don't even think i could jump over the boards anymore but you know if i got over there and he got over i mean it's on but you know um it and poor bernie you know he's yelling yelling and everything else i saw that clip yeah i mean he was he called me the next day he goes did you have fun i go i had a fucking blast to be honest with you, right?

1:43:07And so then, as time went on, you know, Mullen's people and my people were bumping into each other up at Capitol Hill and they all determined it would be in the best interest if, you know, we sat down and, you know, try to air our differences if we couldn't air our differences, whatever. But, you know, he challenged me to a fight, like a charity fight. He's supposed to be an MMA fighter and I'm like, dude, I walk to work. I'll just meet you at a park, you know? Yeah. And we'll see what happens. But thankfully it didn't get to that on both sides. For the best. No, I'll be honest with you. I met with him.

1:43:41We agreed to disagree on a lot of things. But he's a sitting US senator. One of 100 should be well-respected people. I get the privilege to represent 1.3 million working people. We both probably could have done things differently that day. But it was fucking fun as hell. It was fun. Yeah, it was good. And it was great because - And you need some of that shit because C-SPAN or whatever that channel is is fucking boring oh yeah yeah i'm lying to you yeah and you don't even know what's going on on there you know every now and then c-span's awful it's like it's like watching old people you know hump and they're all yeah i mean yeah if you've done it no i haven't never done that yeah never watched that stuff yeah look as long as you're not watching but maybe i'll watch the golden bachelorette now or something you know as long as you're not watching it on the clock no no definitely no be in the break room yeah the break room dude the break room is always so much fucking fun dude i'll tell you this and i've definitely stolen from my employers um i used to work at the grocery right and i was a checkout guy right we did stocking and checking out and then i got moved up to checker and bagger too dude and um i got up and when i'd go to the more important checker or bagger baggers uh bagger sounds a little deviant yeah baggers definitely why i used to i used to if it was rich people i would ring their items up a couple times and then when poor people came through i wouldn't ring their items up but i'd remember like okay i got three boxes of cereal so you're like a modern day uh robin hood at public's i mean yeah i was you know wasn't anything big it was just some fucking cinnamon toast crunch or whatever but i definitely helped out are in there, you know, did what you could.

1:45:28Because some families, they didn't notice it, you know. It's still stealing. But what we used to do was when we'd go to break, we would walk down like our favorite, whatever aisle had our favorite food, and we'd just steal some shit right off the shelves. So that's, I feel sorry about that. I don't want to apologize. That place is called Del Champs, I think. Went out of business, and then - Do you think it went out of business because of the employee pilfering, or? I mean, I don't know. I didn't take much. I usually took - Swedish fish and shit? No, I do like a banana, maybe a little bag of funions or something.

1:45:55not one of the big bags. Um, but yeah, it was just, everybody did it. But see, that's not a bad, that's not a fair thing. Everybody does it. You just, it just implicated all your coworkers. Oh dude, definitely. All of them, Chad, giddy, all those dudes. This one dude, uh, used to come clock in, go home. He worked for us for four months. That's funny. Like who is he? People would come to work and they're like, where is he? They came at a piece of picture of picture one day where is he this kid named chucky or whatever we're like who is he and like your employee you're gonna rat him out i'm like i don't even fucking we never seen that we don't know him to rat him out yeah dude but uh yeah working at a grocery store was fun do you see more you do you see the union growing now yeah absolutely i mean we can joke about like the breaks and all that oh yeah for sure but unions have proved they're the hottest work and most productive workers in the country.

1:46:47And I think this new generation, you know, that have an appetite to fight and they want to take on the boss and, you know, they're very in tune with social media. And I think there's a great opportunity. I mean, when you see places like Starbucks and Chipotle and all these, all these, you know, industries that have never been unionized, where the young workers that are 18, 19, 20 years old, demanding recognition, demanding representation in the workplace. I think the sky's the limit. And I think, again, it sets the tone for the next 10 or 15 years in the labor movement. We definitely have seen growth in the Teamsters and a lot of those industries that have never been represented.

1:47:34It's exciting times. Yeah, no, it definitely seems like – Well, we're just, I'm seeing as more big businesses and things become conglomerates and stuff like that. Yeah, the last thing you have is, it almost seems like it's the last choice, you know, and it's the best choice. You know, you have to have somebody fight against these groups for you. This article says, this summer alone, 10 ,000 workers organized with the Teamsters for the first time at a wide range of employers and traditional Teamsters industries like transportation and delivery, including DHL. Oh, we were already talking about that.

1:48:08Yeah. So do you think that, oh, it says also including Amazon, the American Red Cross, Costco, and cannabis dispensary nationwide. So it's everywhere. Yeah, we are. We're hitting every single opportunity. We don't solicit. We have targets like Amazon because they're such a bad employer. but DHL, like we represent DHL around the country. Some places were unionized, some weren't. So what we did is we just started striking them for recognition and we shut them down at CVG, which is the airport in Cincinnati last December, right during the busiest time for them. And what we did there, there was 2 ,300 workers.

1:48:51We got a first time contract there for 1 ,300 workers and the remaining 1 ,100, we got card check neutrality, which they didn't want to give us, But we said, look, no problem. Next December, we're going to do the same thing to you. We'll shut you down. And the good thing for us, once you have a union contract, for the most part, whether it's DHL, UPS, UNFI, Cisco, or any of those, we have what they call picket line protection. So we get to honor picket lines all over the place. So we can extend picket lines at different locations and shut down industries nationwide. And again, that's a choice that an employer makes that they shouldn't make.

1:49:24And we've been successful doing that. So as a result of that, DHL is funny. I think they are owned by the Deutsche Post Office, I believe. Well, I remember when they showed up with those yellow trucks. Yeah, they're awful. They're Kansas City Chiefs. What's going on? Yeah. So we organize. But again, they're a European company. And I met with the CEO after we struck him. And I said, he's like, we want to reestablish our relationship. And I'm like, OK, give us card check neutrality. What is card check neutrality? It means they just agree to once we get the majority of the employees to sign cards, we give them to a third party arbitrator who decides the, the validity of the cards.

1:50:04And then if we have the majority, they sit down and negotiate a contract with us. There's no, there's nothing else. What do you mean? Validity of the cards? What do you mean? Like they just, they, they, the, the arbitrator will determine if we do have the majority or not. And we don't usually submit these cards when arbitrate unless we have 80 % of the cards. And so the cards mean people, people signed up. I want to join the union. Got it. Okay. So, you know, they'll determine that and then they sit down and negotiate a contract. So we had a meeting in Washington. They sent these three, the CEO, their lawyer, and the CFO.

1:50:34And I went with our attorney, Fred Zuckerman. I'm a general secretary treasurer. We sat down, and they're like, we want to reestablish the relationship. One guy had an English accent and really fucking aggravating. Oh, yeah. And it was like - Good A. Yeah. We'll see about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All that bullshit. And - Pisses me off. Well, we want to have a relationship. I go, well, the only way we're going to have a relationship, you give us card check neutrality. And he said, yeah, we don't believe in that. I'm like, okay, great. Meeting's over. I'm not going to beg for this. Go fuck yourself.

1:51:04See you later. Yeah. And then like two days later, our attorney's on the phone and their attorney's like, we rethought this because we told them, we'll just shut you down every chance we got. And you don't want to be like that. But when they come in and especially, you know, they're not an American company. Yeah. You know, they could give two shits less about us. But, you know, we've reestablished that relationship where, you know, we've made them realize how important their workers are and how important a relationship is with the Teamsters. So, you know, we've been successful there. And, you know, look, we'll work with anybody.

1:51:34But how say in the weed organization, right? Say the people that work in and for weed companies, how do they become part of the union? How does someone who's working somewhere who feels like, okay, I'm not supported or maybe I'm at a place that should be supported, how do they approach you guys to be hopefully potentially be part of the union? They'll go to a local union, like a TeamSTAS local, and they'll – Okay, so start at a local level. Yeah, they'll go to a local level, talk to the local union. Local union will either send in their organizer or we'll provide an organizer for them. They'll go out, talk to the workers, establish a relationship, establish trust, and have them sign authorization cards, meaning they want to join the union.

1:52:19And especially in the cannabis industry, I think we've gotten more card check recognition because I think two things. They know that we can strike them for recognition. and two, they know that we have this ability to make investments in their businesses as time goes on once this fund is created. And it's good. It's good for the industry because think about it. We're going to regulate that industry, right? So if we don't organize them, the mom and pop that are charging X amount, and I've never done drugs in my life. I don't even know. I've never smoked weed or anything else. I've done them. They're all right.

1:52:56Yeah, I mean, I didn't do them because I probably would have fucking loved them. Oh, yeah, dude. But, you know, I don't know. But, you know, you don't want to undercut each other in this industry where it's a race to the bottom. So there are a lot of employers out there that have welcomed us in because of that reason. Like we don't want to sell a gummy, you know, 25 cents cheaper than the guy down the street. So, you know, we've actually regulated this industry to a certain point. But the other thing, too, which is very important in this industry is continuity of employees, right? So if you are providing employees with a union contract, good wages, good benefits, there's not going to be a turnover ratio.

1:53:35When we first started this organizing campaign, we were seeing 20, 21-year-old kids that they weren't stealing a banana. They were sampling the product, right? Oh, yeah. And they'd get fired or they'd leave. So we've actually instilled some stability in this industry just because they know there's an opportunity. and they're organized as a contract and there's a future. Yeah, I think then you feel like you're part of something. Absolutely. Which is the same thing, which goes back to our conversation about America, just like feeling like you're a part of something, feeling like, I think it used to feel like your country was unionized.

1:54:12It definitely felt like that when I was a kid and we haven't catered to that and our leaders haven't catered to that and our decision makers haven't catered to that. One last question. Wait, so does the union also work with the employer to do certain things? Yeah, I mean there's times where we have to work with each other on legislation that benefits both our members and the company. There's a lot of common fights that we have to work together on. It's not always a line drawn in the sand. And the good thing is it's like a lot of political issues we have coming up, like certain issues with Reauthorization Act and a lot of federal legislation.

1:54:59We'll work with a lot of our larger employers, especially if it's more beneficial for our members. So, yeah, we do work. We do work a lot with employers. Some employers you'll never be able to work with. They just dig in and they want to fight all the time. But we're ready for it either way, but we'll work with anybody. Do you think you'll be able to unionize Amazon workers? Without a doubt, we're going to be able to organize them. Hell yeah. Without a doubt. It's going to be a battle. It's going to be a fight. But that's where we're going to call on the Dems and the Republicans and everybody involved that say they are passionate and supportive of these workers.

1:55:39We're going to call them out. We're going to expose them and we're going to put them to the test. and that's what needs to happen. Good, yeah. We're going to be their conscience. I want to represent your mother. Yeah. Absolutely. I appreciate it. Yeah, I think that'd be awesome. She likes to work hard. That's one thing my mom's always been is a worker. She likes to work. It's probably her favorite thing to do. Absolutely. So where did you get your work ethic from? Probably from her, I guess. It's funny. It's like, yeah, there's so many things. But I do thank her for that actually a lot of times.

1:56:13it was like she was always working but um yeah i do have a strong work ethic because of her yeah no it's uh well you're a product of your environment yeah if you if your parents sat on the couch smoke butts and drank beers chances are that's probably what you're gonna do yeah you know i had the ability growing up where i grew my father worked two three jobs uh and hustled his whole life uh my mother the same thing so you know we try and instill that uh work ethic and my two kids and my nephews as well, you know, which is important. And that's, I think we've got to get back to basics in this country.

1:56:47And, you know, I think we have the ability to do it over the next several years. Well, and a worker should be able to know if they're going to lock in with a company and they're going to be like, I'm going to be here that I'm going to know that when I get home from work every day, I'm not going to also wonder, do I need to go back out to another job to pay for insurance this month for my wife and for my children? And then they're not home to be home with their children. And so then the children grew up without their parents around. And so then they run into all types of things. So then they're in therapy and they're out using drugs or, or, or they don't, and there's no sense of a family and it just, everything starts to, um, dissolve, you know, and it's just, and it definitely is, there's a part of it is greed at the top.

1:57:29And a part of it is that in a first world country like this, in a country that has the highest GDP in the world, you would think that we would also want the workers to be happy and worrying about what's next always isn't, that you can't, stress alone, you know, can cause so much damage to someone. Think about your personal life, my personal life. When you're happy in your personal life, you're productive. Yeah. Right? You're driven. Same should hold true with people that go to work every single day. The employer should realize that if you have a happy employee that you embrace and you respect, they're going to work that much harder for you, right?

1:58:14And you reward, more importantly. Yeah, reward, I think for sure. Sometimes it's tough to be the certain type of employer to everybody, but that they should be rewarded for sure. There's no doubt. I mean, you talk about therapy when you were a kid. I just look back at my therapy was a wooden spoon over the head if we acted up, you know? Oh, yeah. Oh, my mother - That was a good old days, wasn't it? Oh, dude. My mother would hit us like Teddy Bruschi, dude. Oh, yeah. Yeah. She would just fucking - My mother had more hits on us than Justin Bieber. Oh, yeah. Oh, my mother would put on a Pedroia jersey and just fucking tear into us, dude.

1:58:49Just hitting triples right off of my brother. Oh, that's good stuff. Yeah. Did you laugh when your brother was getting beat? Oh, no, dude. Every now and then I chimed in, dude. I'd shatter a wooden chair over that fricking mixed breed. Do you remember how sick? Remember how, like growing up, I don't know how you grew up in your house, but we'd be eating dinner. My father would work two or three jobs, and you'd be sitting there eating dinner. We grew up in a pretty modest house, very simple. And God forbid, you couldn't poke the bear. God forbid someone spilled something at the table. It'd be, Jesus fucking Christ.

1:59:23And you'd start, you'd be firing, your fork would have sparks on it because you want to get out of that table because you don't want to feel the wrath. You know what I mean? It was awful, but those are the best times. Oh yeah. It was so much fun. And part of what you're talking about is a family being able to sit and have dinner together. Right. And part of that was because like, um, yeah, because people are being compensated fairly and a mom was able to be at home sometimes and sometimes they weren't, but yeah. And now we've gotten to this point where it's like both fam, both parents have to work and nobody, and people aren't even building a family unit anymore.

1:59:56And it's, um, and I'm not, I don't mean that in a negative way some people still are but people should be able to afford to do that in a country that brings in this much uh that produces this much it's it's got to start to change this should be a work family balance and look i'm guilty as charged i went out to work and i wanted to work 80 90 hours a week i still do and i always did it with the you know objective of taking care of my family taking care of you know my kids and thankfully my kids didn't end up fucked up over. Well, I mean, you know, maybe not completely, but Sean looks like he's available.

2:00:29Sean's all right. Sean's good. We'll see. Yeah, we'll see. Jerry's still out, but no, you went to work to provide for your family. And now it's like, you know, you made that choice. Now you don't have a choice, you know, because it's just so hard to make it. Yeah. Yeah. We can definitely do better. And it starts with the individual people. And sometimes the individual people can't do it by themselves anymore because they don't have the lawyers to back them up. They don't have the voice they need. So the individual people have to get together and they have to unionize. And that's where you guys come.

2:01:00Yeah. You can't, you can't survive as an American work and not represented now that the, the deck is stacked against you, you know, and, and, you know, the average person, look, you want to go to work, do your job, you know, let us fight for you. Let us take on the grievances at work. You know, don't bring them home. You know, that's the beauty of a union. You know, you don't have to, you have the, you know, you have the backing of a union. You don't have to fight with your your employer, make a call and say, hey, to your business agent, you work for me, this is my issue, this is my grievance, I have faith, you're gonna fix it.

2:01:29Yeah, right, yeah, you don't have to be, take on all that stress. What do they lose by being a part of a union? What does a worker... Not a thing. Not a thing. Not a thing. Not a fucking thing.

2:01:43Before you go, Sean, and thanks so much for your time. I appreciate you, sir. Thanks for representing people and supporting people and being a voice for people and sharing things so clearly with us today. I think that we've learned a lot. Is there like a movie or a song? Like is there something from the Dropkick Murphys or something from a movie or just something that like really you feel like is like has a union fucking feel to it for you ever? I mean, one of my favorite movies of all time, I knew I wanted to be a teamster truck driver my whole life, was Convoy. That poor guy just died this past week, Chris Christofferson.

2:02:18But, oh, the Dropkick Murphys are the best. Kenny Casey's a buddy of mine. Chris Christofferson right there. He just passed away. He just passed away. People love him. Yeah, yeah. Road scholar too, I guess. Was he really? Pretty smart guy, yeah. Wow. And he drove truck too. Well, I don't know if he drove. It's just for the movie maybe. There was probably a Teamster. I'm sure a Teamster was driving it back in the day. That was filmed in Mexico. Imagine if nobody's driving. You don't even have anybody to flip off if they go by. I know. robots gonna give you the finger what fucking fun is that yeah how you gonna do that i know it's crazy that's the last piece of america we have yeah blow the air horn oh yeah and if you can't be a six-year-old flipping off a trucker dude i know well like picking your nose like that's crazy what is this country coming to where you can't even flip off dropkick marfons are the best kenny casey's awesome yeah he's my guy he is my guy he's a good friend very uh very active in the Soba community as well.

2:03:11Oh, is he? Which, yeah. Kenny Casey. I'm going to have to learn more about him. Yeah, he is awesome. You know, he's a character too. He is? Absolutely hilarious. Cartoon character. You know, but very, very committed to sobriety. Very committed to working people. Working class guy. He loves unions. Real good friend. Wow, I'm going to have to tap in with him. I'll have to send him a DM or something. Yeah, I can hook you guys up. Yeah, it'd be cool. Absolutely. Yeah, people love them from up there. That's definitely, I mean, people get married to their music. and buried to it. Coming up to Boston, shipping up to Boston.

2:03:43That was in The Departed. Yeah? You were in it? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That was in it? The song was in it. Oh, the music. Yeah. Yeah, dude, I'm a Boston Bruins fan, dude. Are we going to sign that goalie or what? Huh? Are we going to sign that goalie or what? Oh, Ratliff? No, who is it? No, Swayman. Oh, I don't know. Not that big of a fan. He's in a big contract fight right now. He is? Oh, yeah. Public, too. Cam Neely. Jeremy Swayman. And there he is. Yeah. Yeah. Fucking sign him, dude. Is he unionized? Yeah. Marty Walsh was representing him, right? Former Secretary of Labor. He's the head of the National Hockey Players Association.

2:04:22I love their coach, man. Oh, yeah. He's good. Well, my friends, their assistant coach, Joe Sacco. Oh, yeah? Guy's the best. We all grew up together. Yeah. Family, best friends. Joe's the best. Oh, that's cool, dude. Right there. There he is. Yeah. Monty's the best, dude. Joe Sacco. That's cool. Monty's just a fucking, Monty's hilarious, too. So where I grew up, we had about four or five guys make the NHL. One on my street, Keith Kachuk, his two sons play in the league. TCAC? Yeah. They're calling the rat or no? No, no, no. That's the brother? No, so the father was my age. We grew up on the same street.

2:04:54And he's got two sons that are in the NHL right now, Brady and Matthew. Matthew just won. There's Keith right there. Matthew just won, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's Matthew's nickname? Oh, I don't know. They call Keith Big Walt. Oh, they do? Yeah, me and him went to a UFC fight not too long ago with Brian. We went with Dana White. It was hilarious. Dude, I was going to say because you kind of look like Dana White. Yeah, Dana's a good man. Yeah. Dana's the best. But, oh, that's him. That's the guy. They call him the rat son, right? What's his nickname? Matthew Chuk... That kid is hilarious. So the mother's a longshoreman.

2:05:31Yeah, they call him the rat king, dude. Yeah. We'll fucking see about that. Keith's mother is a longshoreman and she's on strike. I was with the sister yesterday on the picking line. She's a longshoreman as well. And the father, Keith's father, their grandfather, just retired a few years ago, Boston Fire Department. Great family. Wow. The Kachuks? No, the Kachuk? Kachuk. Kachuk. Yeah. They're definitely, look, I'm not saying they're using extra letters, sir. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I'm not trying to snitch or nothing. Oh, yeah, yeah. You know? so it is what it is. You got to fill the back of that jersey up.

2:06:07Hey, also in Boston, fucking who knows how to spell anything. Yeah, yeah. You know what I'm saying? Listen, we have a rule in Boston. If it's any more than three claps as a word, you don't use it. Oh, I see what you're saying. Three syllables you need? Three claps. You know, you got to sound it out. That's a nice rule. Yeah, dude. Wow, Sean, I appreciate it so much, man. Yeah, thank you so much for your time, brother I appreciate you, sir Thank you Really appreciate it It was informative And anything else that you think you need to share? Some things never go out of style Like trust, reliability, and driving a Toyota Take the legendary Tacoma and Tundra Perfect for work and adventures Hurry in Offers end September 30th Toyota, let's go places I'm an Aries and I like long walks in the park, my friend All right, all right, dude Look, as long as you're back in an hour Absolutely Now I'm just floating on the breeze And I feel I'm falling like these leaves I must be cornerstone Oh, but when I reach that ground I'll share this peace of mind I found I can feel it in my bones But it's gonna take...