Transcript of “I’ll Win With or Without You,” Teamsters Union President Reveals Kamala Harris’s Famous Last Words

I wondered, I sat and watched you in the stands at the RNC, and I don't think I've ever seen anybody give a speech at a convention, a very well received speech without endorsing the candidate. How did you convince Trump to do that?

Well, I think Trump and I have a good relationship. We've got a mutual respect for each other. Apparently, you do. Yeah, absolutely.

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I think he knew the struggles that we had with our membership. We've got 1.3 million members, so that membership is made up of Republican, Democrats, and independents. And we knew all along where our membership was trending, and we had to do a lot of polling and everything else. We had a lot of communication during the campaign leading up to the RNC. So I think he knew the spot that we were in if we just came out and did a straight endorsement. But we really couldn't do that because our process, we interviewed every single candidate, from the people that entered the race early to the last two standing, which was Trump and Harris.

And we interview them at a roundtable with rank and file members in our general executive board. And we provided each candidate with 16 of the same questions. And the Trump was like all of them, they weren't strong on some of our issues and no fault of their own, because I don't think deep down they understood what our actual issues are.

But at the end of the day, I think he knew that by us representing, speaking at the RNC representing running the Teamsters Union, that he was actually showing America, the American workers, that he was for labor, he was for working people. My message was clear. You were there, I saw you standing up with him. My message didn't endorse the Republicans, Democrats, or independents.

It was clearly about what the American worker needs from the administration.

I just couldn't believe they let you do that.

Yeah, you know what's funny about it?

I mean, it's a political convention. The whole point is to nominate this guy. Right.

But I got to tell It's funny. So leading up to the RNC, we're writing our speech and we're going through it, and we're editing it internally, all of us. Great team. And we submit it to the RNC, the folks. I think we submitted probably a week prior. And we submit the speech, and some of the underlings in the RNC didn't like what we had to say. I bet. And so they wanted to change it, modify it, and everything else. And we took a position I took a position. Well, I'm not going then. That's the way, right there. We reached out to Susie Wiles and told her, look, we are not modifying this speech. And she's like, I don't think you should. She says, why don't you call DJ T and tell him. So I called him on a cell phone and I said, Listen, they want us to modify this speech.

He goes, I haven't seen it. He goes, I don't give a shit what you say. Do whatever you want, Sean.

Oh, come on. 100% true. Oh, I believe you. So when we went there, I mean, obviously, we were there.

I just love to hear him saying that.

Yeah. So he's like, actually said, Say whatever the fuck you want to say. That's exactly what he said. And when we went there, it was great. It was a home run. And I think part of the thought process from the Republican side was, look, if we get the general President of the biggest, strongest union in the country, that's going to signal to every American person, how committed the Republican Party is, the opportunity the Republican Party has to prove that they want to represent American workers. Listen to us.

I mean, that is a window into what Trump is actually like. That's why I'm laughing because it's just so perfect. Whatever you think of that, I happen to love it, but that is never done in politics. You never get a candidate to say whatever you want. What?

Yeah, it was hilarious. But Diversely, we asked to go to the D&C at the same time.

And you know, and we know that if we ever submitted that speech to the D&C, they would have shit a brick. They would have been horrified because the people that we were talking about, the corporate elitists and everybody else, those are the people that the Democrats have fallen in love with. Those are the people they serve instead of the middle class, the way it used to be 50 years ago. So we know that we would have a tremendous pushback.

I'm sorry, I don't even know. Did you go to the Democratic?

No, we We didn't get invited.

That is great. That's even a bigger story than speaking at the urgency is not getting invited to the DNC.

Yeah, well, that was the vindictive side of the Democratic Party.

And you know I'm a Democrat, but I'm going to call balls of strikes. They haven't done it for us. And when we didn't get invited, it's a funny story because two weeks prior to us speaking at the RNNC, we didn't hide from the fact that we were going to speak there. Listen, I tell everybody all the time, if I get a venue to highlight how valuable our our organization as a Team Service Union to the entire country, I will take any and all venues to do that. Good. So two weeks prior to that, Chuck Schumacher asked me to meet with him, and I meet with him, and he wants $550,000 for the Super PAC for the Senate races. No problem. And I said, look, I'm speaking at the RNC. He's like, oh, great job.

That's good. You should represent your members. Day after I give that speech at the RNC, he gets on Twitter and starts talking shit about my speech, remember who fixed your pensions.

And I'm like, this guy's a fucking joke. Why would you do this? Two weeks prior, you're telling me when you're taking a $550,000 Super PAC check, that's great. It's great for your members. That's good. And then you want to get on Twitter like a tough guy and throw shit out there.

Why don't you just call you?

Well, because they don't like confrontation.

They don't want to hear the truth. When he said, we fixed your pensions, that gave me an opportunity to say, you're the same guy I in the same party that 40 years ago embraced, endorsed, and signed off on deregulation in the trucking industry, which we lost 400,000 jobs in 1980. Ted Kennedy put the bill forward. Joe Biden signed off on it as a senator or as a representative. No, senator. Yeah, senator, right?

So they said, We fixed your pension.

I said, Yeah, you did fix a pension. And I use this scenario all the time. I'm like, I played street hockey in my neighborhood, 1980, I broke my mother's window. For 40 years, she's asked me to fix her window, and I finally fix it 40 years later. Should I look for accolades for a problem that I helped create? And so we went back and forth. It even got to a point He showed up in our building prior to the election. We had a bipartisan meeting in the hallway of the IBT, and it was attended by a lot of Republican senators, a lot of Republican congressmen, because look, our goal is to work across the aisle to solve problems. He walks in with the Capitol police who do a great job, walks in late, and he sticks his crooked finger in my face, and he says, I fixed your Pensions.

I said, You should have. You broke them.

We get into it pretty hard. He starts yelling at me. I go, Buddy, listen, there's only one guy that can yell at me. We buried him 12 years ago. I go, You want to get into this right here, right now? We'll get into it. You're talking about your dad. Yeah, I'm talking about my dad, right? And so Schumann is like, We fixed your pension. I'm like, Yeah? I'm going to name the things you haven't done for us. When our members were on strike at the rail, you didn't support us. You didn't put a letter of support in there. When we were When we were meeting with UPS in the middle of the street, you wouldn't sign off on a support letter.

When we took on Amazon, which we're taking on now, you wouldn't support our efforts on Amazon. I said, You want me to keep going? Because you can tell me what you've done, the one thing you've done for me in my union and my members, But I'm going to tell you all the things you haven't done for us.

And then he's like, Well, I really want this relationship.

I'm like, We're done.

We're done.

That was it.

He left. And then I'm working out at the building on election day. This is great. And Look, I'm not a person that says, I told you so, or whatever the case is. My phone rings. There's only two people that call me from a private line. Sometimes it's a commander in chief and someone else. So phone rings and I answer it, and it's Chuck Schuma. And dejected tone. It was, Hi, Sean. I'm like, Hey, how are you doing? He goes, Good. Chuck Schumer. I'm like, Okay, what do you want? He's like, I just want to thank you for supporting the Superpack. I go, That was four months ago. And he says, Oh, yeah, I just want to thank you. And I'm like, Okay, great. It was like a dejected tone. And I was like, I got off the stand master, and I'm like, This is crazy.

But it is what it is.

Why was he doing that? I wonder.

I have no idea. No Yeah.

Do you think he knew they were going to get creamed?

I think he knew they were getting crushed that day.

Yeah. I don't know how people, so astute, been around so long in politics, couldn't see that coming.

Was it obvious to you?

That was very obvious to us, yes. Just by the polling we were doing. Look, the one thing that we do, and this is a gage that I pride our leadership on, we don't sit in our office and research all these polls, research all these opinions. The opinions that matter to me are the 1.3 million members that we represent. My general secretary treasurer and myself are out every single day in workplaces talking to members, asking them their opinions, find out exactly what their struggles are in the workplace. And then you get into always into politics, this presidential election. And just a one on one conversations. We're in three different states three times a week and multiple industries that we represent. And when you're talking to people, we weren't just talking to people in blue states. We were talking to people in red states all over the country. And we knew just from the rhetoric out there from our members that they weren't voting Democrat. And that's when we started designing this real extensive program and that included the rank and file members. So we knew that was coming.

For people who don't know, just give us an overview of the Team Service 1.3 million members. What do they do?

So we represent 1.3 million members.

The easiest way need to understand it is we represent airline pilots to zookeepers and everybody in between. We represent UPS as our largest employer. We have 340,000 members at UPS. We represent the grocery industry, warehousing. We represent airline pilots. We represent airline pilots, we represent airline mechanics, we represent motion picture, we represent trade shows, we represent public sector, we represent health care. So we represent everybody from A to Z.

So the name comes from guys you drove teams of horses?

Yeah, Teams of horses. We were predominantly a truck driving unit. Yes. Started out with horse and buggy and then through evolution and technology with truck drivers. Deregulation crushed the trucking industry in the '80s, we've been able to rebuild and organize over the last two and a half years. But because of deregulation, we lost 400,000 teams to jobs. Wow. Back in the '80s, yes.

But we're a real progressive union.

We don't We don't have all our eggs in one basket right now. We're trying to organize Amazon, which has about 400,000 employees, both direct and this DSP model that they masquerade as not being direct employees. It's a joint employer. So we're pursuing them right now. And we also are organizing in the cannabis industry where there's 425,000 W2 employees, nationwide cannabis. The trim?

The guys who trim marijuana.

Well, cultivate it, warehouse it, grow it, and sell it. And soon it'll be transported.

So what percentage now of your members drive?

I would probably say 45 % of our members. Really? So what's- Between UPS.

I mean, UPS is our largest employer.

We've got some freight.

We've got DHL.

Yeah, probably closer to 50 %.

How did you get involved?

I'm a fourth-generation team, so from Boston, Local 25. My dad was a rank and file member. My grandfather was a truck driver. My great grandfather came from Ireland. He was a teamster as well.

What did he do?

Trove a truck or horse and buggy, I should say, probably. Really? Yeah.

And what did your dad do?

My dad worked construction and then worked motion pictures.

What was he like?

What was he like? Yeah. He was crazy. Hilarious cartoon character, burly guy, Charlestown guy, hard work and worked two or three jobs, just a real family person. Was a street guy as well. He was a very quiet man, but he was true blue to the union, always working, making certain that he put food on the table. A great guy and died too young. We had a lot of fun with him. But I had a great relationship with my dad because I went right to work in the Union when I was 18.

Doing what?

I worked in a rigging company, crane company, Shauna Seana Heron, one of the biggest crane companies. I was always fascinated with the Teamsters Union. My dad was my best friend, and I have an older brother and a younger brother, and they're both in the Teamsters Union. But I was the one that always really liked trucks. I love tractor trailers. I love driving them. But I loved going to the Sunday meeting when When I was eight or nine years old, I would go to Local 25 in Chalestown. Both my parents grew up there. My mother grew up on the projects. And I just remember being fascinated by the camaraderie of the Teamsters Union. I remember watching Billy McCarthy, who was our general President, Out of Local 25. Eventually, I just remember him being larger than life. And the Teamsters Union was so prevalent in my family. I'm like, I'd go to school with these kids. I want to be a lawyer. I want to be a doctor. I'm like, I want to be a truck driver for the Team Sejuna. And that That's everything I want to do. It was just because I learned it around the dinner table.

I was so proud because everything we had in our entire life was because of the union. And that organization, through the good times and the bad times, there were a lot of bad times. That organization never waive it on my family. And I'm like, if I ever get an opportunity, this is what I want to do. And I just moved up through the ranks.

It's such an antique world you're describing, such an American archetype. It's like out of a movie.

I just hit my 34th year.

But I wonder, I One of the reasons I wanted to talk to you was, well, for a lot of reasons, to get your political analysis, but also just the life that you grew up in, I just wonder if that still exists. It just seems so thoroughly Really American, thoroughly New England.

Yeah.

I think we're an anomaly now.

I have friends of my age that went to college. And look, I did very well by the Union. I always worked. I worked seven days a week, 12, 13 hours a day, got laid off, hustled, whatever needed to be done.

Did you not go to college?

I went for a semester. I played football at UMass for one semester. Good for you. But I have my friends that went to school, and they got graduated early '90s, chased the dot-com era. Yeah. And they chased a lot of money. Some of them were in insurance, whatever, but they were switching jobs every four or five years. There was no continuity. And they may have made a little bit more money. I had a four-year head start on a lot of these people, and I bought houses and everything else. But they were always switching jobs. And I remember an old Timer saying to me, Stay with the union, stay the course. It's not a marathon. It's not a sprint, it's a marathon. Today, like the same friends, you take a snapshot of their lives. They got the big houses, the two SUVs, but they don't have pensions. They're paying 75% towards their medical. It looks great. Snapshot looks great.

They're in serious death.

Right. It's never going to change. For us, like you said, it's old school, old school values. You learn that around the dinner table. Don't extend over your means. Stay true blue. It's going to pay off at some point in time. I think to your point, there's not There's not much of that left anymore. We've got to switch gears and do a revisit.

No, there's not. I mean, I'm 55. I remember that. I'm never part of that world, but I remember it really well, especially in New England.

Absolutely.

I mean- Billy Bolger was running politics in the state.

Did you know him?

Oh, yeah. I knew Billy Bolger. Where my father and my mother are from, Charlestown, it's a white, Irish, Catholic community.

Then over the Bridge was the North End. Then you had South Boston, which was White Irish Catholic. The Colony Projects? Yeah, old Colony Projects. My mother grew up in the Bunker Hill Project. So, yeah, we were familiar with the whole Bolger tale because some of it's not true. But yeah, they were pretty powerful people, Billy Bolger.

My father's from Boston, and was a totally legitimate or semi-legitimate person, great man. But when they caught Whitey Bolger, I think in Santa Monica, in an apartment, my father, who was 78 by this point, called me on the phone and said, Fuck, they caught him. I was like, Gee, pop, you're really rooting for Whitey Bolger? Yeah, I was. Okay.

Well, they caught him, but the government knew where he was the whole time.

I'm sure that's true.

There's no doubt.

Talked to my dad about it. It was funny, though.

The government didn't want him to be found.

I believe that. It's 110 % true. Have you talked to my dad about this? It sounds great.

No, but I mean, growing up there, it's funny. When you grow up in that area and you talk to people around the country, they'll always say something, obviously, why are you bolder?

Or whatever. He was not a good guy. Yeah. Was not a good guy. No one should ever idolize that guy. But the government, he's bought and paid for. He hurt a lot of families.

He did, but it was more complicated than just criminal versus G-Man. I mean, the FBI was involved in on the dark side.

They were knee deep in it.

Literally. Knee deep. I mean, the agent went to prison for it, so it's not a guess.

Absolutely. And it's just funny because growing up in the '80s and '90s, you had a front row seat to what was going on.

Steve, the rifleman, Flemmy?

Yeah, those guys are all not good guys. Not good guys.

And plus, they told on their own, Hey, it's one thing if you-No, that's right. If you want to be a criminal, Hey, that's your thing.

I wanted to go to work, right? I want to provide for my family. Someone wants to be a criminal, give it 110 %. When you get caught, don't tell on your friends.

Don't tell on your friends and don't blame everybody else. Everything I've ever done wrong in my life, it's been because of me.

Yeah, me too. I haven't blamed anybody.

It is what it is. I always say, Does anybody have a better bad idea?

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No, I think the modern world is difficult to navigate But like anything else, being brought up the way we were brought up with the values we learned growing up in the industries that we worked in, I think it's more valuable today to have that thought process of old-school ways with modern society because everybody falls in love with anything that's convenient that doesn't take a lot of effort, if that makes sense.

Of course.

Where we grew up, where you to provide a lot of effort to make changes and to actually be successful.

And I think that's important. People have to understand the value of working hard, the value of maybe having some struggles in your life because it's going to make you the person you are further down the road. You're going to actually appreciate things more.

So no, I don't think that's a hindrance at all.

I think it's a strength, to be honest with you.

What did you do with O'Shana O'Sina-O'Hern?

O'shana O'Sina-Hern, I was a rigor. I was a Stuart.

What does that mean? So a rigger?

A rigger is dealing with cranes, hoisting, moving heavy equipment, hauling heavy equipment around on track to trails. Every day was different. So I always tell people, what is a rigor? I'm like, well, it's like putting five pounds of shit in a two pound bag and making it look good. And that's what we did. You got to stuff it in there. For a Sunday, we could be hoisting air condition units by helicopter onto a building in Boston. And then the next day we're moving a piece of art with a crane over the Museum of Fine Arts. And the next day, I might be hauling an oversize crane somewhere. So every day was different. You had to use your mind. You had to use your common sense. And it was an apprenticeship program I went through. And I'm still on the seniority list today. Still over. We hold our seniority. So I haven't been there in 26 years. But before I retire, I'm going to clock in for a week just to get my six weeks of vacation. Like a true Teamster.

So your father lived to see you get into Teamster's leadership?

My father lived to see me take over Local 25. I was the youngest president to ever take it over. I was 33 years old, and he died in 2012. And I was running for Eastern region vice President, and I won the election in 2011, November. I was the highest vote getter, and he passed away suddenly in January.

It was a funny story on how he passed away.

So he was a man of few words. He threw compliments around like sewer caps, right? But he was a very proud man.

He was very proud of his sons and everything else. And so he died, And typical, we go through his pocket, see where he stashed all his cash, like fooling around. And my mother went in a suit jacket of his, and he had a ticket to go see me get sworn in at the convention, never told anybody was coming or anything.

So it was pretty good.

But he was a character. He was a type of guy. Growing up, my mother raised three of us, three boys, and we're all very close in age. She raised her three younger brothers in the projects in Charlestown, and then she gets blessed with him as a husband and three of us. It wasn't easy. But he was the type of guy you could go to him and say, Hey, dad, I screwed up. He wouldn't scream and yell, All right, let's figure this out. He was always there that way, where at times he would flip his lid. But he was a man's man. He always taught us about loyalty, always taught us about integrity. My mother was obviously the biggest influence in our life. So it was a great upbringing. Tough at times. I mean, a lot of tough love, not a lot of hugs. But at the end of the day, none of us ended up in jail. None of us ended up on drugs and we've been pretty successful and lived a good life. So they did something right.

I mean, the Boston that you grew up in, which I remember vivid was so well, was really, it was an Irish city. I mean, no one would say it, but it's just a fact. It was like it was run by the Irish and had been since the 1850s when they came in and took it over from the Yankees because they were better organizers and more intense. And the politics was dominated by it. Culture in a low key was working class. Boston was Irish. But certainly, politics, the whole state was dominated by the Irish, right? Sure. Billy Bolger was part of that. That's gone now.

Yeah. I mean, you look at, take a snapshot of Boston politics 10 years ago and go back even further, like 30 years and see where we are right now, it's a completely different landscape Completely.

Completely different landscape. Like, Ray Flynn could never get elected now.

No. Ray Flynn, Tom Monino, Marty Walsh probably couldn't get elected today. No way. I agree. So, yeah, it's totally different. The priorities seem to have changed.

And I think what What changed in Boston, which is part of the problem that you see is that no one from Boston that grew up in Boston or in the Boston area, like Medfid, where I'm from, Everett, Somerville, No one in Cambridge, no one that grew up there can afford to live there.

I know. So what you have is you have all these transients and these people from the suburbs and out of state that grew up in rural areas their whole life. Now they want to be city people. They move in there. And they're paying the high rents, they're paying the high costs, and they're basically controlling the narrative. And that narrative is not consistent with the Boston that I knew and that I grew up with. Boston was a blue collar city that was very proud, very patriotic. Very. Now it's completely gone the other way.

And there was a great deal of attention to the people who live there. I mean, that's one thing I always noticed about Boston. It was obviously corrupt to some extent. There are a lot of drunk people in the State House. On the other hand, the quality of life issues, it was safe, it was clean. It worked pretty well. There was real services there. It seems to have inverted. There are almost no working class people in Boston that I can see.

If you go down the Seaport, South Boston, you go down the Seaport and look, development is great for an area, but it's going to be developed with the intent that people that are from there don't get forced out. Exactly. They can afford to live there. The gentrification that Boston has seen over the last 10 years is crazy. If you went to South Boston 25 years ago, where I used to report to work every day in South Boston, and you took a snapshot of the waterfront, there was nothing down there. Matter of fact, 1995 or '96, I was working, ranking fire. We were building a crane because they were getting ready to build a hotel right in the Seaport, which wasn't the Seeport. It wasn't that we know it as. And I remember saying, Why are they put in a hotel here? Who is actually going to come here? To South Boston. Right. I mean, we'd back in our cars, our vehicles to go to work, and we'd have to look to make sure someone wasn't sleeping in the parking lot that you'd run over. That's how it's changed. But who would think that South Boston right now?

I mean, they got $4,500 a month for studio apartment. And it's not people our age rent them. It's 25, 26-year-olds that mommy and daddy are paying for them to live in the city.

So it's changed dramatically.

I mean, it's still a beautiful, clean city. The politics are crazy. They're far left on a lot of issues. I think people are more concerned with social issues than they are the economic issues right now.

That's nicely put. That's exactly what I'm trying to describe. The city got a lot richer and nicer in some ways, but crappier in other ways.

Yeah, the social issues are important, right?

I get it. Everybody should be able to have their own opinion on whatever those issues are. I think you and I probably have the same opinions on a lot of the social issues. But from what we do every day as representing working people and people in general, is we want to make certain that people have the economic resources to buy a modest home, to afford tuition so their kids can go to school, and to plan for a very modest and retirement that's not compromised by debt. And unfortunately, the Boston politics or the Massachusetts politics have taken a road down this social justice warrior path, where we're not so concerned with the people on Main Street. We want to make sure that we're fighting these social justice issues that do not put food in the table, do not keep gas prices normal, do not compromise people when they go into the grocery store. So a lot That's what's changed, I think, as a result of this election.

And look, this election was a perfect example of it.

Think about the Democrats, and again, I'm a Democrat. Think about their whole narrative through this election.

It was all social issues. Our members who I know intimately, and look, some of them don't agree with me, some of them don't agree with our policies.

And that's the beauty of living in America. You can have disagreements, you can have difference of opinions. But by When we were talking to our members, we knew the concerns were the prices at the gas pumps, the prices at the grocery stores, and the ability to afford a home and maintain and keep that home.

Exactly.

And then you get into The issues are important. I get it, the social issues, but I've got to live.

I got to put food on my table.

It was never so proven in this past election that the social issues are important, but they don't matter. What matters is people, especially the working class, being able to make ends meet.

Well, exactly. It felt like the whole constituency was unhappy college girls and making them feel valued. I'm not against unhappy college girls. I feel sorry for them, but you can't have an entire political party catering to them alone. What about normal people with jobs and stuff? They were just ignored.

Look, you got to represent everybody.

Yeah, exactly. No matter what. And the Democratic Party, and I've been very critical of them, and I'm going to continue to be very critical of them because I I think it's important that they listen for once. They haven't listened in 20 years.

Because they think they own you?

They think they own everybody. When I have a conversation with you and I don't agree with you, my goal is to not get you to agree with me, but I want you to see that because I have a difference of opinion that it's not going to destroy a relationship, and there's going to be many issues that you and I may be able to embrace together and maybe make some change. Exactly. This party, once you go against them, they get so vindictive. The Democrats now are acting the way that they used to accuse the Republicans 20 and 30 years ago. And they basically become that Republican Party that they despised.

Intolerant.

Fell in love with corporate elitists. Well, I know. Don't want to listen to their constituents. They want to dictate how people should vote and how people should think. And that's a problem. And I'm watching all this media, and I'm done with mainstream media.

I am done with it, especially after the way it affected us during this election. You watch CNN, you watch MSNBC. That narrative was so scripted and Forget whether you're a political person or not. If you were Joe Q Public or Jane Q Public watching that coverage during the election, it was rigged. It was scripted. And part Part of being an American is you should have the ability to listen to opinions, inform your own, and make your own decisions. That mainstream media has proven one thing. They are not relevant whatsoever. I know. That's part of the problem. We've got to do a reset, Democratic Party, especially.

Yeah. I think labor is not the only group that is... It's not even about politics. It's just if you're taking taken for granted by your spouse or your political party or your employer, being taken for granted is bad. You're going to get treated like an object after a while. You know what I mean? 100 %. And I think that there are other groups of voters who have reached this- I'll give you a perfect example.

This is hilarious. And I think you know me by now. I call balls and strikes, and I'm going to say what's on my mind regardless.

So the Democrats are trying to quote us to endorse Joe Biden in January, right?

Joe Biden has been a good President for us, labor. Has he done everything we wanted? No, absolutely not. Again, you get into, we fixed your pension. Great. Thank you. Your first order of business, you shut down oil drilling, you shut down pipelines. I got 7,000 members that lost their jobs immediately. Keystone. So I started pointing out some of that stuff to them, which I was quiet about in the beginning. But you're out there jockeying for our support, and they want us to endorse Biden in January. All of labor did. I'm like, no, we're not doing that. We've got to talk to our members. We're going to make sure where our members are at. So we go through this whole winter getting pressure from people in the Democratic Party. We stayed the course. No, we're not. We want to interview the candidates, which we've never done before. And we asked every single candidate in January or December to come in and meet with us. The first person to respond was Donald Trump. I'll be in there, definitely, without a doubt. And all these other candidates, RFK right away, Assa Washington, Cornel West, all of them, they came right in.

Same format, same question like we talked about earlier. And the struggle was getting Biden in here. He didn't like the fact that Trump committed early or the Democrats didn't like that he committed early. So long story short, we go through this whole process and we have Biden in there, and you could just clearly tell he was not the man he was. And it was sad because it's sad because you look at it, and I think generally, a nice older man, nice older gentleman, right? And what they were doing to him, the Democratic Party, it would look like elderly abuse to me. Yes. And we knew we weren't going to go with him, and then after the first debate- Wait, but in your meeting with him, it was obvious that he- Yeah, it was. So we give 16 questions, two weeks in advance, the same 16 questions to each candidate. So RFK answered all 16 questions. Probably most of them didn't answer them how we would like them to answer them, but they answered them. Joe Biden came in and he answered five of them. Donald Trump answered all 16. And then when Biden drops out of the race, but prior to Biden dropping out of the race, he's in the race around June or May.

One of my vice presidents, a woman named Joan Corey, out of my local, she sits on our general executive board, was at an event with Vice President Harris. They're going through the line to get the picture, and Joan introduces herself to Vice President Harris, says, I'm Joan Corey. I'm on the general executive board for the Teamstice. She goes, Teamstice? You better get on board. You better get on board. You better get on board soon.

Says it to my vice president. To her face? To her face.

She comes back. We have the meeting the next day. Damn.

She tells me this.

I thought I was arrogant.

That's really arrogant.

She tells me this. So I call up Marty Walsh. She wasn't the Secretary of Labor, but he was pushing hard for us to make the endorsement.

I'm like, Let me ask you a question, Marty. Excuse my friend, who does this fucking lady think she is?

If I want to support from any organization, I am not going to point my finger in someone's face and say, You better get on board or else.

But that's the attitude of this whole party. So fast forward, she finally agrees to come after we were putting pressure on her, basically, because I was doing interviews all over the place saying, we haven't got invited to the DNC.

They haven't accepted our invitation for her to come to a roundtable, so she comes to the roundtable.

Same format, same questions. Rank and file members are asking her questions, just like they asked every other candidate. And they were trying to negotiate with us. She only wants to answer three questions.

We're like, there's 16 questions here.

She answers three of them. On the fourth question, one of her operatives or one of her staff slips a note in front of me, This will be the last question. It was 20 minutes earlier than the time that it was going to end. Come on. 100%. You're there trying to get our support. Her declaration on the way out was, I'm going to win with you or without you.

She thought that or said it out loud?

She said it out loud.

That's insane. That's crazy behavior, actually, if you think about it.

It was insane behavior, which at that point in time, I knew she was going to lose.

Me, that's just my unqualified opinion.

I got a gut instinct, and I'm like, something- While you turned out to be right.

Someone this arrogant, forget anything else, but you put your finger on someone's face at an Emily's List event once you find out what the team says, and you say, You better get on board or else.

That's a problem. Then you come before us, you don't answer the question. You want to dictate what you're going to answer, and then you leave 20 minutes before it's over.

The one difference between all the candidates that came was that at the conclusion of all these round tables, we had media set up.

So after the conclusion of meeting with Trump, I did a press conference down in the lobby of my building. Well, Donald Trump did a press conference down in the lobby of my building after he spoke. The same offer was extended to both President Biden and vice President Harris, and they refused. So you're meeting with the biggest labor organization that you want, and you've got an opportunity for media to question you about how you felt the media to how you felt the meeting went and what you wanted to achieve, and you don't want to speak to the media. That's a problem. But Trump, to his credit, in our building, in our foyer, had a press conference.

So you're describing the way a rich person would talk to the housekeeper How dare you question me. You work for me.

They don't realize that, and I've said this numerous times, when I'm talking to a member, whoever that member may be, regardless of race, religion, color, creed, I know that they give me the opportunity to represent them, and they employ me. I've said this many times. The Democrats can understand who they work for. They work for the constituency that they represent in their communities.

Exactly.

And that's where they've lost sight of who their employer is. They think that the constituency should serve them. Exactly. It's disgraceful. What we've been saying for a year, now everybody's embrace and saying, well, the Democratic Party needs a reset.

Well, where were you nine months ago? Where were you two years ago?

If you were really passionate about putting up a candidate that could actually represent Democrats like they did or represent represent the party. Why weren't you developing a plan two and a half years ago? Because you thought, you just had in the bag, you thought people were going to do what you tell them to do. Well, clearly, that didn't work.

So what's the future?

And they don't have an answer.

It may be that that period of history is just over. Maybe your state tells the story. I look at the results from Massachusetts, and it's like the blue estate in the nation, it's the most liberal state. I have family there on both sides, my wife and me. I don't know a single liberal in Massachusetts, not one. I don't know a single Irish person who's liberal, maybe one. There's not one Italian in the entire state who's liberal. None. They were all Democrats. If you're still using Verizon, AT&T, or T-Mobile, see our condolences, but you're going to want to hear this. Our cell phone company, Pure Talk, gives us the exact same service you're currently getting from those big companies, but for half the cost. Not a joke. There's no reason to spend $85 or $100 per month per person on your wireless bill. Now, we can get unlimited talk, text, and 15 gigs of data with mobile hotspots for just 35 bucks a month. You don't have to be a math major. The average family of four, saves about $1,000 a year with PureTalk. You enjoy America's most dependable 5G network, support small businesses. We would know that because they are now powering TCN.

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Never.

They exist now. They're going to exist, I think. Well, maybe they don't exist that way, but to your point, everybody was Democrat. Everybody was Democrat. Now you talk to people, and look, sometimes people will talk to you and they'll tell you, Hey, I've seen you on the hour and see.

Great job. And you know, they've been talking shit online because you see it whenever.

But I think the majority of the people are fed up. Totally fed up.

Totally fed up.

But I'm just saying that whole world of organized, at least in your union, just the people in it, they were all Democrats, but they were never... They were all traditional social. They families. They care about pensions. They believe in- Generations. They believe in generations. Exactly right. They believe in continuity, as you said at the beginning. It's not even political. It's a mindset. It's a worldview. That whole group is so out of step with the Democratic Party that I'm not really sure how that's ever fixed.

No, but then you make a great point. Through this whole year, let's say, right, the Republicans, and we've worked with a lot of great Republicans in the Senate.

Josh Hawley has been great with us.

Yeah. Jd.

Jd has been great with us. Roger Marshall has been great. I'll give you Josh Hawley, for instance. Josh Hawley was... We met with him. We had a conversation, didn't know him, had a conversation with him early on.

We were telling him, look, one of our biggest issues is national right to work.

We explained him why the right to work is not good for this country, why it's not good for his constituency.

And soon after that meeting, he came out with a statement on X saying, I met with the Teamsters Union. I'm supportive of working people, and they're basically educated. We've talked about right to work, and I don't support national right to work. And then we had a strike with a company in his state, Grebar. He went out and walked the picking line, and that strike was settled the next day. Now, I'm not saying because he walked the pick-and-line, but he demonstrated that that's what he's willing to do because his constituency works there.

Those are the people that he represents.

We vote for him.

That's right.

And he's been great on our issues. And I think the Republicans have a great opportunity right now to show work in people that what they were saying during the election is going to hold true. And I think Trump proved early on when he actually listened to us and when we lobbied for Larry Chavez-Doremer to be the Labor Secretary. Now, I don't think it was a popular decision from a lot of his donors that supported him, but I went down and I had frank conversation with the President. I'm like, look, this is important to us. If you truly want to show that you're going to embrace working people and work hard on their behalf, this is an early indicator that you're willing to do this. And he did it. So people that are saying Trump's anti-labor, he's anti-worker. I mean, look, he started off on a great footing. I mean, he named the Secretary of Labor.

Look at who voted for him. I mean, look at who voted for him. You go to rural America, where there are no people who aren't, quote, workers. I mean, most people didn't go to college. They work. They have back problems by the age of 40 because they work with their bodies. They all vote Trump. There's not any that didn't vote Trump.

I've got back problems from the last eight months of the knife wounds from the far left on the Democratic Party.

I've got back problems from sitting in an anchor chair my whole life. It's a very tough job, Sean.

Sit up straight.

But here's one. Okay, so obviously, Obviously, the Republican Party is in the middle of this total change. It saw itself as the party of big business. It's clearly not. Its voters aren't, and its donors aren't increasingly. But I think there are a lot of Republicans, especially in the Senate, like Mitch McDonald, who just have not... Well, Mitch McDonald is a really bad person, so he's a specific case. But there are decent people who just haven't made the mental change, that they're not the party that they thought they were.

Well, I think part of the problem is we haven't had the conversation conversations with those folks either. I totally agree. Because there's been such a line drawn in the sand where if you were on one side of the other, especially in our world, labor, if you're a Democrat, you shouldn't be talking to the Republicans.

That's bullshit. I agree. How are we going to get stuff done in this country?

Forget anything else. It's like, if you're looking to truly collaborate and actually make things happen, you've got to talk to people that you normally wouldn't. You've got to express your ideals, your opinions, and there's got to be common ground. I mean, I deal with probably the worst employers in the world. I deal with corporate greed, white collar crime syndicates like Costco, United Airlines, and there's a list of them. And I could go on and on for days. And a lot of the times you get problem solved by having discussions and finding out where you can work together. I mean, who would think that Mark Wayne, Mel and I almost fought twice in the middle of the Senate floor It's pretty scrappy dude.

Yeah, I'm from Boston, man. I don't sweat anybody. But him and I have had a conversation.

We've actually had many conversations, and we agree to disagree on what we can't agree on. But at the end of the day, there's going to be a lot of things that we can work together on on behalf of his constituency, my members, because I don't agree with you on one issue. Should I draw a line in the sand and not talk to you again? I agree. I mean, there'll be 100% divorce rate in this country if that was the key, right? No, it's true.

But here's the mind shift that I think I would like to see. Labor is an ancient institution in the United States and a pivotal one in the economic and political history of the country. But I do think people should have But in this 1930s thinking where it's workers versus some manufacturing company. The power shift has been so complete. I don't know if we've... It's like even Amazon is not as powerful as the financial institutions. I personally think, just as a observer, I'm not labor or management.

We're going to convert you at some point, though. Yeah.

Well, I've been a member of a union most of my life, but it's a particularly shitty union. Sag. But anyway, here's the point. At some point, I would like to see somebody with power ask questions of the banks, because if you want to know what hurts working people, it's debt, and it's credit card debt, specifically 22%, and nobody says a word about it. And I think the fastest way to improve the lives of middle-class, working-class people is to address that in some way, or at least to begin the conversation. It's bad to hook people on 22% interest.

Yeah, it's bad to hook people who depend upon keeping their electricity and the utilities on when they have to pay with a credit card at 22 %. I agree.

Because, again, the corporate greed, a lot of these CEOs at these banks, there's such a disparity between the people that are their customers and what the banks are making.

There should be a platform to regulate these banks and make certain that everybody is playing, have a level playing for it, like these credit card companies. You made a point earlier off the record. You said there should be a union for credit card, people that have credit cards, right? Yeah. And that what we do as a labor organization, we're are not being treated fairly like Amazon or anybody else, when our members are not being treated fairly, what do we do? We withhold our labor. Well, imagine if we, to your point earlier, withheld our payments as a country to these credit card companies and these banks that obviously support these credit cards, what's a pretty strong fucking message.

Well, I've raised this before and been treated as the Unibomber. That's too crazy. I'm not radical at all. I'm totally a truly moderate person in the sense that in the end- I'll carry that flag.

I like chaos.

Well, so I like it. I think you probably want banks in your country. I don't think banks are the root of all evil, but I do think banks hurt a lot of people, and they seem immune from criticism. You can attack anybody. No one ever attacks the banks. Well, think about it this way. Not in a hundred years. Why is that?

Well, they're so powerful, right? We talk about the old school values of growing up in a neighborhood and growing up with simple things. Just remember, the neighborhood banks that we dealt with early on, they actually cared about the people.

They knew them anyway.

They knew them in your neighborhood.

They knew them. No one knows TD Bank. No one knows Bank of America. There's no personal connection there.

No. It's all about bottom line and how much money they're going to make. Oh, yeah. And that's what's missing as well.

They may be selling your debt to somebody you don't never even-How many times have you got a mortgage and the bank you go through sells it to someone else?

They're making money every single-I believe we had a financial crisis over this month. I think it was 2008, 2009. I think there's a movie about that, right? There may be.

But credit cards, especially. The payday loan people have taken a lot of well-deserved abuse. I mean, clearly that's predatory. But I remember one When I was a kid, my father was a reporter, covered the Mafia. I remember very well hearing from him that they put people in prison for loan sharking. All the time, put the Mafia in prison for loan sharking. I don't think they were loaning at 22%.

They probably had better rates than the bank. That's what I'm saying. The banks, the credit cards, definitely.

By the way, they paid out on the lotto in full, unlike the state governments, which pay you a percentage of it. They're more crooked than the Mafia, and no one says a word.

It's disgusting. It is disgusting. It's actually criminal. Yes. I liked Josh Hawley. Had a nice Senate hearing where he brought them to task. He brought the credit card companies to task. It seems like you get punished for being the misfortunes you may endure in life. So the credit cards, too. The other thing I don't like about them is if you got a good credit rating and you've been fortunate enough to have a good job, you got a lesser rate. If I have bad credit and I've got a lot of debt, I'm getting that higher rate. So they're praying on the week.

Of course. And that's got to stop. At the very least, we should say it's wrong.

And by the way, it's prohibited by every religion. I mean, people have thought this was wrong for thousands of We're in this weird hiatus where, I mean, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all have a lot to say about usury, and they're very explicit about it. But we've forgotten that or something. I don't really get it.

Yeah, it's funny when problems don't affect certain people, they don't want to hear about them, or they don't want to do anything about them.

Yeah.

I don't think it's radical to raise it at all.

No, I don't think so either. God bless Josh Hawley. I don't think it's radical at all. I mean, it's a disgrace when people have to pay their bills on their credit card, and you know they're never going to catch up. Never.

Never. And by the way, if I can just make, it's not a partisan point, but it's just true. Joe Biden did that. He made credit card debt not dischargeable in bankruptcy. He did that in the bankruptcy bill because he's from Delaware and they paid for his house. Pretty corrupt. So let me ask you about AI. This is going to have a transformative effect, everybody says on labor. What effect will AI have on you?

Ai is going to have an effect on everything. I mean, it needs to be regulated.

It needs to do not be a weapon against working people. Technologies come in fast and fair, especially in many of the industries that we represent. But again, these are conversations that need to be had before AI is implemented and/or dispersed into the workplace.

There's a lot of jobs that can be created as a result of technology, as a result of implementation of AI.

And again, it's people drawing a line in the sand, not We want to have these conversations. The general public or the general perception of the world is they want convenience, they want less labor, but it's not good for the country. It's not good for working people. And automation is going to be just as debilitating to work in people, then it's just like AI. And what we've done is we've negotiated contracts where automation has to be negotiated in the industries we work. If they're going They're going to make a technological change or they're going to automate something, they've got to maintain the job levels and create jobs moving forward as a result of this technology. You take grocery warehouses where they're having robots pick orders. Well, we've been able to negotiate contracts where we create jobs, we maintain the robots, we program the robots, we fix the robots, we build the robots in some of these cases. So there's always an opportunity. United Apostle Service, 340,000 members. Technology plays a big role in the forwarding of packages and envelopes. And obviously, it's efficient, but there are jobs created as a result of it. And that's what the beauty about being in a union is.

But I think people underestimate how technology is going to destroy this country if we don't regulate it, if we don't get in front of it, we don't create jobs as a result of it.

I mean, we're dumbying down this society so much. You're college students not doing research papers. They're using AI. How is that good? How is that good for your mind? You got people out there, like you mentioned your union SAG, screenwriters. They're going to be out of jobs if AI comes in.

We've got to take a hard look at where AI will be valuable to this country and where it will be detrimental.

And I don't think we've taken a good look at it.

I don't think we've taken a look at it at all. And the state of California is betting everything in its budget. That guy out there. That guy. He's a ridiculous person But why shouldn't... If there's electricity or any emerging technology, electricity shows up 100 years ago, it's fair to ask. Clearly, it provides light and powers machines, but is there a downside? I don't know for any technology, nuclear technology. And AI is as transformative as any technology. So why is there no conversation about harnessing it for good rather than evil?

Well, think about how we started. Teams says, horse and buggy. Then they came out with engines, then they came out with trucks.

That was technology of involving, but we always protected the jobs.

We always made sure that those jobs are protected. And that was technology back then. Gavin Newsom, in California, should be the poster child for bad behavior when it comes to protecting against AI and technology.

He's the same guy that working people through the recall election saved him.

But he's the same guy that when you work a bipartisan bill to protect against technology, AI, and also mandate autonomous vehicles to have a human operator, which is bipartisan, gets on his desk, first order business as he vetoes it.

Yeah.

He vetoes it. You know why?

Because he's looking for his next best opportunity with the captors he fell in love with, technology, tech companies, Google, Uber, whatever else, Lyft, all those companies he's bought and paid for.

He doesn't care about how that affects people's job. He doesn't care about how it affects the community. He's looking for his next payday, and that's a disgrace.

I couldn't agree more. Do you think that in this administration, the AI Tsar, a guy called David Sacks, Have you talked to him?

No, I haven't. But the one encouraging thing that I've seen last week, the long showman.

Yes. They had a strike, two-day strike, and it was over wages. Two issues, wages and automation, which is AI. And they used the ports in China to demonstrate how efficient it is by using robots and artificial intelligence. The one good thing was that President Trump met with the Long Showman because they've got a cooling off pair until January 15th, and then they'll go back in the negotiations to negotiate the AI and the automation, which I think they're going to be successful in maintaining their jobs. But President Trump came out and said, I've been studying automation. I've been studying AI for a long time, and I don't believe anybody should be losing their jobs over that. So that's encouraging. So I think to your point, I haven't had a conversation with that man, I'd love to, just to express how important it is to have conversations with people that actually perform jobs that could be replaced by technology or AI, because that may give a different perspective where we can collaborate and actually create more jobs as a result of it.

Yeah. Do you want a stable, happy country? That's the question that has to remain in mind always.

I think everybody does.

I'm not sure that's true. I think there are people who believe as a matter of religious.

Everybody in my world.

Me, too. And that's what I want. But there are people who believe as a matter of faith that you can't stop technology, it's evolution, that it's like God, you worship as a God and you obey its commands.

They think that. Yeah.

And look, people are entitled their opinion, but those are the people that are probably less affected by it. When you get people, people don't engage in any type of fight or protest unless, unfortunately, it affects them personally. I know that my members, and I know that working class people around the country, that they're scared.

They're scared. They're frightened of technology.

So they're willing to fight for it. And these people that aren't affected by it can have all the opinions, well, it's coming. There's nothing we can do about it. Well, your son and daughter may be affected by this, or your neighbor or a relative. You should get engaged and protect the integrity of this country, not just go along to get along, because that's where we're going wrong in this country.

The attitude is, Oh, they can just do it. Well, why? Why can they do it? Why can't we stop it? Why can't we modify it? Why can't we collaborate to create more jobs? Why do we have to dummy down everything we do in this country?

So I think there's an opportunity there, but we have to have these conversations.

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I don't know, man.

Honestly?

I don't know.

Again, it's a tragedy what happened.

Look, there's no love lost between his son, my predecessor and me. Don't like the man. Never cracked an egg. He was born on third base. Thinks he hit a triple to get there. Was bad for our organization. However, his father was a great team, so a great American. The sad part of society right now is that man was murdered.

Yeah. He was murdered.

1975 outside Detroit.

And a family lost their father.

Regardless how I feel about the family, lost their father. And unfortunately, it's like anything else in society. It's a joke. It's a joke.

Where is he? What up and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Look, the guy was an icon. He created this union. He brought it to where it is. But that's what's wrong with society. Who do you think killed him? I don't know.

I met a guy once who told me that he- There's all kinds of theories. There's all kinds of- But you think he was murdered?

Yeah, I don't think he ran away.

No, or put in a witness protection.

Yeah, that would have been public. That would have been public.

Yeah. You know? Fifty years later. Yeah. But there's no, or when you took over, you didn't hit the archive to find the truth.

The archive God doesn't really say much about it other than it's a mystery. He went to lunch and didn't come back. There's all kinds of theories. There's a lot of times I want to go to lunch and not come back. That's for other reasons. But that's what's wrong with the media today.

I don't know. I think it's like he was an icon. He should be viewed as that. It is what it is. It's an unfortunate unsolved mystery.

What are you trying to do with Amazon?

I'm going to put him on their knees. I don't like Jeff Bezos.

Oh, I don't either. He also owns the most, personally owns, not the company he personally owns the most liberal newspaper in the United States, most left wing, for the people newspaper. So I'm a little surprised to learn that he's not welcoming you guys.

Yeah, now he lost his balls during the election. You could tell that.

Well, that's for sure. He's pulling in Justin Trudeau.

I mean, I think for a guy that he did a little growth hormone, went back in the gym, did some testosterone. He's the man. But look, this guy does not treat his work as, Phil, as 150 % turnover ratio in his company with direct employees. He hides behind a joint employer scam.

Can you explain that? I'm not sure I get it.

So joint employer is, he hires third parties to move his freight, deliver the packages.

So you get a company like UPS. Ups has all direct employees, drivers, loaders, sorders, part-timers, whatever it is. They're all direct employees. They're W2 employees. Yeah. Baisal Those inside workers, the Amazon inside workers, which are going to be our members shortly, are direct employees. They make far less than our members of UPS. But the delivery drivers are working for a third party A third party that has to follow the policies and procedures of Amazon, has to buy their vehicles from Amazon. We actually got a decision in California that stated they actually are the employer of these third party leasing arrangements. So we've made a demand nationally to... And we've got 22 locations that have organized under this model a demand for bargaining, and he's refused to do it. And so we've given an ultimatum that if he didn't respond by December 15th, that we would take appropriate action. Now, when that happens, that's up to him. So, yeah, we're going to get him. We're going to get him.

And he's not just a threat to the parcel industry. He's a threat to every working job in this country.

It could make me more. They've got grocery warehouses. And look, he should embrace sitting down and negotiate. Think about what he does every day. If you don't concede to his demands for him to carry a product and sell them, what does he do?

He blackballs you. He basically strikes good companies from distributing their products if they don't agree to his low terms and costs. Well, he should be savvy enough to say that, well, I have an obligation to negotiate with the Teamsters because I negotiate every single day with these people when I don't get what I want.

I strike them.

Basically, he strikes them, doesn't allow them in his system.

And he's trying to do the same over here by not allowing us in his system.

So what's going to happen to him at some point?

He's going to get struck.

Sometimes he's a $2 trillion value of Amazon or him or whoever, but he doesn't really want to reward the people that have made him truly a success.

Well, they offload their personnel costs onto And the taxpayer through social services. Walmart does the same.

They absolutely do.

So what percentage of their... I mean, that's, I think, should be illegal.

No, it is illegal. And unfortunately, there's a system out there. This is where under this new administration with Trump, we have an opportunity to expose Amazon for what they are and how bad they've been.

And again, you get back to, we have all these politicians with rhetoric, right, about Amazon. Oh, Amazon, especially the Democrats.

But you couldn't get- What rhetoric? Anti-amazon?

How anti-Amazon. Like, well, we want to be out there for the Amazon workers, and we want to help them organize. And all this rhetoric, Chuck Schumers of the world wouldn't sign on to a letter. And then later find out his daughter works for Amazon as a lobbyist. Actually? Actually, a lobbyist for Amazon. So that's- Chuck Schumers' daughter is a lobbyist for Amazon.

Yes, it is.

Yes, she is. That's unbelievable.

Absolutely. The system is so corrupt. I can't stand it.

It's crazy.

So this is what you're dealing with. So, yeah, you ask, we're going to do. We're going to organize them. We're going to make Jeff Bezos respect his workers. We're going to make Jeff Bezos an example of bad behavior from an employer.

How hard is that to organize?

It's going to be tough. I mean, it's not going to happen overnight. We've put together a program that's going to be a four to five year program. But every single day, we are building momentum, we're building worker power. And he has to understand that he's not dealing with an organization that's going to go away. We might not have the money that he has, but we definitely have one thing. We've got the workers on our side, and we got intestinal fortitude, encouraging conviction to take on the fight.

So do you have any idea what percentage of Amazon workers use federal social services to supplement their income?

I would say the majority of them, I don't have that statistic But the part-timers I know that I've talked to, especially in the New York area, they're all in subsidized housing. Some of them are in shelters. Some of them are on the state health plans.

And people don't realize when they hit that send button, they're actually paying double for the services because they're actually paying for social services.

Yeah, for the safety net.

Where an organization like mine would demand, like we do with UPS, like we do with DHL, like we do with every other employer, that they don't only pay a respectful wage, but they also give them free health care. They give them a retirement. They give them a career path to a retirement. And people that hit that send button don't realize that not Not only are they paying for the delivery and the product, they're also paying for Jeff Bezos, white collar crime syndicate of tax evasion and evading his obligation.

Well, I agree completely. I think one of the reasons I'm sympathetic to the Teamsters is because they have competent employees. I do think that's part of the deal. You demand benefits and higher wages, but you got to do a good job. And I think UPS drivers do a good job.

They're the cream of the crop. Think about during the pandemic, and this is where the team says, and I've spent two and a half years highlighting how valuable we are to this country, and I mean it with all sincerity. Pandemic was part of the worst thing that anybody's gone.

We've witnessed in a long time, right?

Where there was so much uncertainty. But the one thing that was certain, whether you were delivering packages or sorting and loading packages on a truck, whether you're in a grocery warehouse, whether you were working for a health care company, our members went out every single day providing goods and services to this country With total disregard for their safety, the safety of their family, some of our members lost their lives. And we were deemed as heroes because we provided these goods and services. And we were heroes. Everybody was talking about us. Everybody was saying, No, the American worker, the team says they're heroes. Well, when these companies are making record profits during the pandemic, and it comes time to reward our members, their employees, all of a sudden we're zeros. So we've been reminding corporate America how important the Teamsters Union are, but more important, the American worker, especially through a crisis. Because like you said earlier, you talk about Irish and Italians. I think corporate America has what they call Irish Alzheimer's. They forget the people that provide them the most, but they never forget when they get fucked on a dollar, right? That's true.

I think the Teamsters Union, we do have the best workforce in the country. We're well-trained, we're safety-conscient, but we fight hard for our members.

I don't want to be vulgar or anything like that, but is it true what they say about UPS drivers being the most desired men in the world?

Men and women, right? Because they have pensions. They got big pensions.

No, but I mean You know what I mean? Is that true?

I don't know. I mean, you hear stories. I mean, everybody likes a person in uniform. I never worked for UPS. I couldn't tell you that.

Sorry, I couldn't resist asking that.

I mean, I've got a face for radio, so I don't know.

I sure appreciate you're doing this. I appreciate it deeply. I appreciate it, sir.

Well, listen, I got a venture that I'm going into. I want to be like you and other people. I created a podcast that I'm going to be launching early 2025. Oh, you'll like it. It's going to be called A Better, Bad Idea by Sean O'Brien. That's good. We are going to have real conversations with real people about real issues that affect America.

Are you really going to do that?

100 %.

Oh, you should invite me on.

I'll come.

I definitely will.

Oh, done.

Can't wait. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

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