Transcript of E536 Teamsters President Sean O'Brien

I have some new tour dates to tell you about this week. I'll be in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Lacrosse, Wisconsin. Green Bay, Wisconsin and Moline, Illinois. Colorado Springs. Casper, Wyoming. Billings, Montana Missoula, Montana. Bloomington, Indiana columbus, Ohio Champaign. Grand Rapids. Lafayette, Louisiana and Beaumont, Texas. All tickets through theovon.com tour. And thank you for your support. Today's guest is the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. He's a fourth generation teamster himself, and he's from Boston. I'm really excited about spending time today with Mister Sean O'Brien.

Shine that light on me I'll sit.

And tell you my story.

Shine.

I never been in a union, I don't think.

What about Sag AFTRA? You did some acting.

Oh, yeah, that's right. I had to get in sag Aftra one time. Yeah. So I guess I was in that union. We try to. I used to work at a pizza joint and. And one guy was getting fired. And we're like, you can't fire if you fire him. You gotta fire all of us.

That's what it's all about.

And the guy, he just fired all of us. And he was right, actually, Mister Wayne, he was the owner, and he was right that we were horrible workers. We was drinking and just deep frying everything in there.

That shouldn't be a terminable offense.

We needed you. Sean O'Brien, you're president of the Teamsters union, right?

Yes, sir.

I. Is that the term?

Yes, it's international brotherhood of Teamsters.

Okay, and what is a Teamster?

Well, Teamsters started out traditional trucking truck drivers. They were horse and buggies back in the day and then evolved into trucking. And then we've evolved into, we represent everybody from airline pilots to zookeepers and everybody in between. So it's not just a trucking union. Our largest employer is united parcel service, representing 340,000 Teamsters nationwide.

United Parcel Service?

Yeah, Ups.

Okay, Ups.

You know, we do all the. Provide all the transportation needs for most promotion, pictures, trade shows, public sector. We're pretty diverse in large union. 1.3 million members nationwide and in Canada.

In the Teamsters union.

Yes, sir.

And so they got. So it was a team of horses. That's why the name is.

Yeah, horse and buggies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They had teams pulling horses and buggies. Wouldn't been around since 1903.

Okay.

So you can see how transportation and has changed over the years. But, you know, it's a great organization, forge. I'm fourth generation Teamster.

Yeah. Oh, so you're. And are you the first president of your family that was ever in.

Yeah, yeah. All my family members, just rank and file members, went to work every day. I started out in a construction yard in Boston, a rigging company, hauling cranes around, and I just moved up the ladder, became a shop steward, and became a business agent for local 25 in Boston and just kept moving along.

Nice, dude. And a union is what a union is.

You know, we represent working people. We make sure we collectively bargain for our members. We make certain that we protect them in the workplace, process all their grievances, but more importantly, organize workers throughout the country that want to be unionized. And we've been very successful doing that. And we just want to represent working people. We know 1.3 million right now. Hopefully, we'll be 2 million in the near future.

Amen. And, yeah, because I know unions are responsible for the work week. Right, right.

So unions, 40 hours workweek. Look, the unions have set the bar. Even non union people benefit when you organize. And, you know, we've organized in every industry, but we're responsible for, over time, we're responsible for the 40 hours work week. We're responsible for the weekend. A lot of people don't know that, you know?

So, yeah, I, you know, thank you.

Well, if we do have to work the weekend, we're gonna get double time.

Yeah.

I mean.

Yeah. And now, didn't they just make a law that it's gonna be over, it won't get taxed?

Well, that's a campaign promise from President Trump, I believe.

Oh. So it's just, it's not so.

You know, as you know, promises sometimes don't come to fruition.

So. But it.

But it is recorded, so we'll use it against whoever said it.

How pivotal is. Are unions in the american industry?

Look, we built the middle class. We built America. Unfortunately, as you know, once big business gets involved, private equity of the world, or there's big money to be made, everybody forgets. They get amnesia on who actually is responsible. And there was such a decline in the eighties because, you know, politicians put in some bad regulation. I mean, I can speak for the team since they passed trucking deregulation. And if I could put the numbers to it, we had 400,000 members alone, just in the freight industry. And when they passed trucking deregulation, we lost 400,000 members. Companies went bankrupt, and pension funds took a hit.

So what happened, though? Like, when they say deregulation, what do you mean by it?

Well, you know, the whole industry was regulated, so every company had rates that they had to adhere to, okay, to.

Follow a certain set of rules.

And then once deregulation passed, it was a race to the bottom. And, you know, unfortunately that hurt us over three or four decades. And now there's such a, there's such a opportunity because there's so much corporate greed out there where these white collar crime syndicates known as corporate America are just all they care about is the bottom line of their balance sheet. And you know, we've been fighting hard for the last four or five years to expose how greedy these CEO's, these corporations are, but also how corruptible the political system is. You know, it's funny, you know, before you always had Democrats fighting for working people and, you know, Republicans, now we kind of see a switch where working people feel like number one, they've been left behind by the Democratic Party. Two, you know, the Republicans say they want to be working class, represent the working class. They have an opportunity to do it. But you know, I think we've got a huge opportunity to organize and we've been exposing them and we've been fighting and you know, our biggest, our biggest opponent right now is Amazon and we're going to crush them.

Oh, because Amazon, my mom drives, is an Amazon worker.

Is she?

Yeah.

So she's an independent contractor. If she drives to them.

Yeah, yeah, she, yeah, she delivers stuff for Amazon.

So, so I'll tell you the difference. Right.

Okay.

You look at our UPS drivers. We just negotiated the largest collector bargaining agreement. UPS is the largest teamster contract in the country and they're a very difficult company to deal with. However, our drivers are direct employees. Our members are direct employees of UPS. And once you're through a four year progression as a driver, you're making almost $50 an hour free full medical and a pension that you could actually retire off of. And Amazon hides behind an independent contractor model where they pay their drivers about nineteen fifty to twenty dollars per hour. That's the difference.

Oh yeah. So what we're doing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, as she should.

Yeah.

You know, she brought your ass into.

This world, you gotta pay the tariff.

Yeah. You don't, you don't want to piss your mother off, believe me. I got a, I got a strong irish catholic mother who brought up her three younger brothers in a housing project in Boston. Then she had three just like me.

Oh.

And you know, she's the toughest, toughest one I know. That's the only person I'm afraid of or really be honest with you.

Really? In Austin?

Yeah.

It's like, oh, so many women in Boston, dude, I got a. Yeah, but.

My mother's like petting a python. You know, you give a moment, she's gonna squeeze a life out of you. But I love and respect her and.

Oh, but she's the best. And if a mouse goes missing around her.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, you get the head nod. The problem, you know, you get the head nod from my mother, it's like. She'll go, oh, nice head. Not done. You, dad.

That's it.

You're done. Yeah, it's like someone put a hit on you.

Yeah, my mother. Yeah, she delivers for Amazon. Yeah. I don't know how many hours a week she works, but she delivers for Amazon. How hard is it to get a group of workers to unionize, like, at a company that's already, like, pre existing like that?

Well, we're doing it right now. Like. So Amazon hides behind this bullshit independent contractor model. So they'll third party leasing arrangement with a company probably your mom's working for, and they try and say that they're not employees. We just want a big case in California where it's called joint employer, where it's a masquerade, where Amazon controls the other company. Amazon dictates the rules. Amazon dictates where you buy your vehicles and everything else, but they don't take any responsibility when the shit hits the fan. So we actually won that case recently, and we're organizing all over the place. But what we're doing is we're striking for recognition. We're going in there, getting the majority of authorization cards signed by folks like your mom, and then we just strike them and hold them out. And it's working. We've got. Because of that victory we had with exposing Amazon with the independent contractor scam, we get the potential to organize your mom and 300,000 other people. Wow. So where we've allocated tremendous funding to do this. And look, Amazon, the one thing about the Teamsters union and us, we're not good looking, clearly. Right. Well, but, you know, we don't, we don't have the.

Some cultures.

We don't have. Yeah, we don't have the deep pockets, but we got. We've got, you know, fight. We've got intestinal fortitude and we're not afraid. We're not afraid to lose because we're supposed to lose anyways, right? When you're not afraid to lose, you.

Got nothing to lose.

Nothing to lose. Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's important because we set these industry standards negotiating these contracts so people like your mother. People that aren't organized will see the value of becoming a union member. And look, there's always people that have something to say no matter what, you know? You know, you're doing great. You have a great show, you, tremendous success. There's going to be someone that is jealous and doesn't, you know, just wants to attack you.

Yeah.

And we're trying to change that philosophy. We're trying to change that image. And look, we're out there just want to help people. We want to take on schoolyard bullies, and we want to put them on their knees, you know?

Oh, I hope you take the kneecaps off some of these perverts, dude.

Yeah.

You know, that's how I really feel. And also, a lot of these, like, a lot of the tech industry came along, and just because they're an app or they're a website, they act like they're not an employer, I guess.

Oh, that's the biggest scam in the world. You got Uber, you got lyft, you've got google, you've got all these tech companies. And the sad part is, you know, these politicians that claim to be out there fighting for work and people bought and fucking sold by these companies.

Oh, it's crazy.

It's disgusting. I love it because it. My job is. And again, I'm wearing the shirt. Right. Because we are fucking fighting with everybody. Yeah. And we have to. Because, you know, these. We have to be someone's conscience, and that's. We're gonna be their conscious. These big, big tech companies.

Yeah. How does the Teamsters afford attorneys and stuff to be able to fight those battles?

Like, well, you know, we have members pay dues.

Okay.

So, you know, the dues money obviously finances the whole operation. You know, we are financially secure. We have $400 million in a strike and defense fund, which means that we can strike and, you know, we can support a long term strike, but also defend against any threat to the organization. That all comes from dues money.

Hell, yeah.

And, you know, that's how we afford it.

It's like newsies. You ever seen newsies?

Yeah.

Anybody? We saw it, but. We saw it. But it was about a strike.

I just don't want to admit it.

Yeah, it's like a cup.

It's like a couple of those, you know, ABC after school specials.

Yeah.

You watch, but you don't want to make you watch and like them.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah.

We're supposed to have. We're supposed to have a big, tough attitude as teamsters, so.

Oh, for sure, dude. Speaking of strikes and stuff recently they have. So right now they are. The longshoremen are striking, right?

They are on the, from the top up of Maine, I think, to the foothold in Texas.

Okay, and what is that about?

It's about, you know, it's like anything else, you know, the longshoremen provide goods and services, so imports and exports coming in. They work in the.

They work on the docks.

They work in the ports and the docks.

Like James J. Braddock. Like that.

Absolutely. And you know, they worked, their contract expired the other night, but their last contract was settled in October of 2018. So, you know, they worked through the pandemic. There's longshoremen lost their lives. There's longshoremen that, you know, can never go back to work because of the ill effects of COVID But they were out there in the trenches, you know, providing goods and service when supply chain was basically almost coming to a stop. And all these shipping lines, like every, all these big corporations benefited from.

Benefited off them being there.

Yeah. And it's like, you know, let's. Let's reward the people that made us a success. Let's reward the people that provided goods and services country. Let's reward the people that risk their lives and the safety of their families to go to work so that we all have everything. And now it's their time. Their contract expires. These shipping lines are making, you know, gazillions of dollars and, you know, they want what's due to them. And you know, it's funny, you see this criticism online and, you know, social media is great, but it's all, it's just a lot of fake shits on there. And it's, I'm reading it this morning and looking at it this morning and you know, they're attacking the longshoremen for striking. You know, people are saying, well, they're going to drive up inflation, they're going to, they're going to cause all the supply chain problems. They are. But you know, do you want these greedy corporations to keep making millions upon millions of dollars? But the biggest threat right now is artificial intelligence to the longshoremen. If you look what they're doing in the ports in China, you know, everything's automated. There's no jobs.

These are, these are semi automated.

Yes. These are legacy, legacy industries that, you know, provide. They're 130 year industry would provide middle class jobs to people. And you know, they're getting attacked because people are getting a little inconvenienced. Well, you know what? A little inconvenience maybe it'll give some support to these workers and, you know, hold the people accountable. That causes a strike. Everybody says, oh, the ILA is striking. No, the shipping lines that don't want to protect their jobs, that don't want to reward these people that made them a success, chose to strike themselves.

Right, right.

They all chose it.

They could have made a. Yeah, everybody says they're the ones striking. No, it's this other group that's not choosing to pay, not choosing to come to the table, not choosing to share. Like the. Yeah, like you said, not choosing to share with the people that have made. Made it happen.

You know, they're making billions upon billions of dollars. You know, so, I mean, it's like, you know, there's not. Not a whole lot of sympathy from us. Yeah. As far as corporations and these shipping lines go.

And so is that a lot of what, the ILA strike is over? It's. It's obviously the fears of automation. You know, it's.

Fears of automation is everywhere. I mean, that's a huge, huge threat to the ILA. But also, I mean, look, you know, everybody's saying, you know, there's people criticisms on online and, oh, longshore make $140,000 a year. That might be true, but when you start out, you're starting out $20 per hour, right? And you look at $20 an hour today, would that get you.

That's nothing.

And then, you know, if they're making 140,000, they're working 70, 80 hours per week. So, you know, there's not a whole lot of, you know, quality time at home in your family. They have to work, and $140,000 is a great income. But you put two kids, you get college, you've got a mortgage, it doesn't go a long way. So, you know, it's time that, you know, we close that gap between, you know, the CEO's pay, in this case, the longshoreman's pay.

Yeah, yeah, I think. Cause what I don't understand is at what point is tech valued valuable to us as a society? It's like, do you want, like, I don't want to be a society that there's eleven people watching some robots do stuff? That's what it feels like we're headed towards. It feels like at a certain point you would stop some technology, because it doesn't. It kills your society. It kills, like, the part of you that goes to work, the part of you that comes back, that supports your family, that gives inspiration to your kids, because they see their parents working. It's like, it's almost crazy to me sometimes how we keep pushing our society towards advancement. If it's not, if we'll no longer be a society, then does that make any sense?

Yeah, it's a society of convenience. That's the problem, you know, and people don't realize the consequences of technology at some times, you know? I mean, look, but to your point, you know, your product, your environment, if you have a hard work and mom and dad that get up every day and go to do a middle class job, that's what you want to do. That's what you want to aspire to do. This technology, although we know technology is coming, we know technology is relevant. Yeah, we got enough in certain arenas, but there's still a lot of value to the best computer in the world. That's. That's a human's brain. And, you know, your instinct, and, you know, there's got to be an opportunity, even if technology comes in to a certain extent, to create jobs as a result of technology. Right. Those eleven people you reference watching robots. Well, at some point in time, the technology gets so good that those eleven people will be out of a job as well. So it's like, come on, let's slow this thing down. Let's figure out an opportunity to keep these jobs and give people an opportunity that may not have an opportunity to go to college, that may not have the ability to be proficient in technology, but have a great work ethic and got a moral compass that wants to go in and give a hot day's work for a fair day's pay?

So, you know, that's the stuff we've got to look at. And, you know, as a country, we're so short sighted on the damage of technology. I mean, when you talk about autonomous vehicles, do you want a commercial vehicle, 80,000 pounds, going down the street next to your family of four with no human driver present?

Yes. Some guys just. Yeah, Indy or something. He has a joystick iPad or something. Yeah. Like a Xbox controller or something.

Yeah. There's a catastrophic accident, you know, and then, then you check the guy's browser, you know, you don't really know that.

Yeah. You got some other windows open, you know?

Absolutely.

He's got VR goggles on over there.

Looking up past p. Diddy potties.

He's over there smoking out of his own nut sack over there. A lot of perverts over there in India and all over the globe. I'm not trying to single them out of. I'm perverted, but, um, what was something I was going to ask you about? Oh, so, well, I. Recently, yeah, recently we had Bernie Sanders on and he talked about a shorter work week and about giving proceeds from autumn automation to the workers because they're the ones who have gotten us to that point as well.

Yeah, I mean, look, there's a, there's a, there's a. Bernie's the best. I mean, I love Bernie. I think he's a little mad at me right now. He's yelled at me in a couple Senate hearings, like, flared up. But, you know, he is truly committed to working class people. There's no doubt about it. You know, where as a teamster organization, you know, we negotiate contracts based on 40 hours per week. But there are some, you know, industries that would like a 32 hours workweek paid 40 hours, which, you know, that's, that's, that's gonna be a, that's gonna be a tough fight moving forward. You know, my thing is we got to protect, preserve and improve what we already have right now.

Right.

And.

Right. Because once you start giving away some back, you never get it back. Right here it says, Senator Bernie Sanders, chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, labor and Pensions, announced that this Thursday he will introduce legislation to establish a standard 32 hours workweek. Sanders said moving to a 32 hours workweek with no loss of pay is not a radical idea. Today, american workers are over 400% more productive than they were in the 1940s. And he means that the output is because also of automation, but automation is taking the people's jobs. So then it's like, it only makes fair sense to compensate the people who are, whose jobs are being taken.

Right. And, you know, that's, that's obviously a great justification for it, but the reality of it is most of our members have to work 50 or 60 hours a week and have to have overtime. So, you know, that's, that's, that's an issue that I think we'll be dealing with down the road. But there is no doubt that we should be fighting to create jobs as a result of technology being implemented, not destroy them. Bernie's the best. I mean, he is hilarious.

He's very, he's very entertaining, man. He's very entertaining. I know you had an issue with Mac. Macal Malachoski was that guy.

Mark Wayne Mullen.

Mark Wayne Mullen. We'll get to it in a second and we'll definitely, we'll put up a, we'll put up a link if people want to watch you guys fight where people can lease it, but and we'll give the money. We'll give the proceeds to you guys, too.

Yeah, we don't need that. I'll do that one for nothing.

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Yeah, I think it's. It's important to know that it's not the longshoremen's fault that they're on strike. It's the shipping company's fault. Yeah. And, you know, this is, you know, this, the media is so out of whack at times in creating these scenarios, saying that this is a political stunt versus one party versus the other. Their contract expired two days ago. It just so happens it's in an election year. And look, this strike could end real quick if these greedy shipping lines just give the members what they deserve and what they demand and it'll be over.

We also, if you think about it, it's like you always hear, like, the term the shipping heiress or the shipping air. You don't hear like, the Teamsters heiresse, you know, they don't have. What even fucking side are people on, like, to be on the side of just these. Just people that have so much, you know? And at a point, it's just obvious greed. Yeah, I don't think it's unbelievable, man. And it's unbelievable that our country starts to feel like that's, that's the side it's on.

Yeah.

I mean, it really feels like even just as a regular person, like, nobody is support. It's, it's all a sham. A lot of times it feels like, I mean, everybody knows that, like, these, the lobbies are so big now that, that they control so much, but it's like, at some point you would think there would be a break for the common man, you know?

Well, that's what we're trying to do. I mean, that's why we've been working so hard. If you see what we're doing all over the country with the UPS agreement, Anheuser Busch record agreements, negotiating strong contracts, we're trying to close that disparity right now. We got a big battle going on with United Airlines. Right. You know, where 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 some point one way or the other.

Yeah.

And that's, 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. It's given me everything in my entire life. 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. 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 united, the ILA right now, that's all they're doing. That is all they're doing. They want respect.

Yeah.

And to your point, there's no Harris. Harris is, however you say it.

Yeah. Princess or princess.

Just take a look at us, whether it's. Yeah, Elliot. Teamsters. You know, we're not royalty, man. Yeah.

I've been to Boston. They got some. Definitely, you see abroad out there wearing a Euclid's jersey. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, we've got. A lot of us from Boston have fucking faces for radio.

Yeah, it's definitely. Oh, you see a lot of. Yeah, yeah. A lot of p. A lot of fucking women that are just fucking vaping and just giving hand jobs or whatever. But it's okay. Don't forget.

Don't forget the tube top with a c section.

That's the new Teamsters logo.

God forbid. No, we've got. Listen, the Teamsters union, we got some of the finest, hardest 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 today.

No, they didn't.

Damn. No, but actually, screw you guys. You've had. Guys have had so much luck, dude, I can't believe you 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, you know, probably 45 miles west of Boston. The crafts are actually very good in the community in Boston. But that's. That's not the same family.

Oh, it isn't?

No.

Oh, damn. But every time I've. That's crazy because every time I'm cheering as a pats, I'm always yelling like, fuck. Lunchables and shit. And I didn't even realize crustables. I thought it was the same guy, it's.

No, no, no, no. They're very good. They're very good in the. They're very good in the community.

Oh, yeah. Ah, yeah. I didn't know I got a. Yeah, I filled out some comment cards on some of these websites, too. I gotta go back, clean it up. Especially when they had Randy Moss. Yeah, I was really heavy on the keys back then.

How funny was he?

Yeah. Oh, he's great. Dude. Dude. I went to a fishing tournament one time, and. Busy. Tell this story, but I should. But I will. And so went to a fishing tournament one time. Randy Moss put on a fishing tournament. This one, he was with the Vikings. And you. And you got put with, like, some fishermen and stuff, and you would go out, it was in Minnetonka, Minnesota, on the lake, and I stood up all night drinking.

Right.

And so I get out there and I. I'm like, I think we're gonna 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. And so I. At some point, they're like, we'll just pee off the side of the boat. But I'd have to pee, you know, I had to fucking do a union job, you know? And so 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 just.

Did you have any dude wipes?

Oh, they didn't even have dude wipes in.

Oh, man, that must have 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.

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 bat. Like, the second something would tug on there, I was like, I had damn 40 in the live well, you know.

Do you think that had anything to do with what you were drinking the night before?

100%.

What were you drinking?

Jagermeister. It was Jager, and it was disgusting. And it was. God, I just. I still can't. I can't believe that whoever, whatever company sentenced Jagermeister on humanity.

Oh, terrible.

That's terrorist. Terrorism. You know, I know we don't want to say out loud, but it's terrorism. Um, the doc worker, the. Who's their leader over there? There. Um, Harold Daggett. Yeah, that guy's a frickin. That guy's awesome.

He's taking some heat. Oh, yeah? Good.

Let him take some heat. Dude, that guy is fucking awesome.

You know the good thing about what he.

This video, real quick. Sorry I didn't write you, Sean. I just want to hear the dagger. 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 expending it fast as they make it. I want a piece of that for my men. Because when they made their most money was during COVID when my men had to go to work on those piers every single day, when everybody stayed home and went to work. Not 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 they want. And if they don't? No. 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.

Right?

When my men hit the streets from Maine to Texas, every single port, a lockdown, you know what's gonna happen.

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. And we represent a lot of members that we haul off the ports. The ports deliver to warehouses where it's separated, load on trucks, we deliver. So it's going to have an impact. But you know what? It's a short term pain for long term game 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. Look, he's a character.

Have you spoken to him?

So. I haven't, but I deal with the leadership around the country. That's the only general president I haven't met that we deal with. I know all the other general presidents around the country from all the other respective unions, and I haven't met him. I mean, the good news is he's so public right now, it's keeping the shit away from me, to be honest. With you?

Yeah.

I've been taking a lot of it lately, but I'm good either way. I'm good. But, no, he's. Look, he's got a right. He's got the right fight.

Yeah. Yeah. Sounds like they got the right guy doing it, you know, cast a character.

Z know, straight out of the sopranos, you know?

Oh, yeah. I fucking hope they find some bodies in his yard.

Hopefully they don't.

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 got a. 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 run into 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, you know, my. I forget why I was going in there. 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 check.

She was working.

I go, listen, if I go on a self check, oh, you're gonna 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 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 that come. If I go there, then I'm putting you out of work. I don't give a shit. I'm like, the problem is it's like some elderly version. What is it, the golden bachelorette?

Yeah, I haven't watched it.

Yeah, I'll confess I haven't either.

Yeah.

And I probably won't.

Yeah, sure, yeah.

You know, but no, it's just people.

A good point. You don't think about it.

No, you don't. And people, you know, disgruntled or that. Like, that lady might have been having a bad night, you know, whatever it was.

But, oh, she might have been out of Zen's.

Yeah, she might have been.

Yeah, yeah. If you're working at late shift, dude, I put. You gotta any put anything in your jaw to get you through.

But the problem is, like, she was in her late seventies, 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 I. 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 me.

Yeah, yeah, fuck that. Go Raiders. Yelling. Yeah, yeah. She probably spends all her money on fucking tattoos.

Yeah. Like Marlboros and fucking scratch tickets and shit, you know.

Yeah. Remember they used to have those miles you would get with the mob bros? Remember that?

Oh, yeah, yeah. You'd smoke 400,000 packs of cigarettes to get a camel Joe jacket.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You get, like, a blender that said, keep smoking on the side.

I remember growing up, my neighborhood, Pepsi did this thing. And remember that story that was on fucking Netflix? The kid won a space shuttle.

Yeah, the kid, right.

So I remember there was a kid in my neighborhood that, you know, he was so his kids, kid's name was Mike Lazaro. And he was like, crazy. Like, you know, you 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.

Slurping him. Huh?

Yeah. Oh, it's crazy.

Yeah, dude, this. Oh, yeah, what? Yeah, what prizes could you get with the Marlboro miles? Bring 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 unbelie. There's no way to have that.

Like, a gift to like, a lung transplant.

Swiss army knife, a neck brace. Who the fuck wants a Marlboro neck break? Like, at that, like, unbelievable hat, shirt?

Marlboro ventilator.

Yeah, yeah, that Marlboro thing like this. We're doing good, you know?

Spark. Those commercials are off.

Bring up the guy smoking through the hole in his throat. Huh? And this guy's obviously from. Yeah, this guy's 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.

Sometimes. Why?

I. Dude, I didn't ever. I remember there's this kid. I used to tell this story, but there's this kid lived down the street from us, this fellow, Mario was his name, and he was. He was italian, I think, or semi italian, you know, and he used to. My brother. Something happened. My brother had to go away for the summer. So suddenly I was his friend, like I was, but I was younger than my 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 Mario. Like, the. 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. 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.

Form subcontracted the workout.

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 over 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 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.

Hope, I mean, it. Probably. You could probably go after him for retro pay and shit.

Yeah.

You know?

Oh, dude, definitely. And the rose bushes in his yard.

Absolutely.

What are we even talking about? Prize winning brother.

Jesus.

They 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 day.

And I 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 and people that are going in and clocking in day to day.

You look at. So we represent ups, which is Fortune 500 company, 340,000 employees. Very successful company, difficult company to deal with. And 53 or 54% of those work as a part timers. You know, they work four in the morning till eight or noon till four or whatever the case may be, and they load and unload these trucks. And prior to us, you know, completing successful negotiation, they were making $15 per hour nationwide. Come on, you had single mothers, you know, going to work there, you know, risking their lives during COVID They were the unsung heroes of keeping supply chain moving. And, you know, it was a very, very credible argument that we had publicly, but the company recognized it. And during negotiations, I'm gonna say, how embarrassing is it that you're making hundred million, hundred billion dollars with a b and 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 dollar 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? Like?

It's so. I'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, the balance sheet money.

I say, dude.

Right, right. And so, you know, they leap out. Yeah.

And then just so you know that. What? Nobody yet.

So then, 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? And I'm getting attacked from the left, you know, 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 troop be told. So it's like, you know, people say the Democratic Party is the party of the working people. They're bought and paid for by big tech. That big. Those big tech companies.

Yeah. Tech is the new fossil fuel, man. That's what I said.

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's broken and you need to fix it. Start pointing fingers at Sean O'Brien. Stop pointing fingers at the Teamsters union. Look in the mirror. I mean, I had a. I had a heated debate with. Heated discussion two weeks ago with Chuck Schumer, and it got fucking ugly.

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 a 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 kids, to support the party 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 have. In 1976, we didn't endorse. In 1996, we didn't end.

Okay, so the first time in 30 years now that you guys haven't done it.

And again, the reason why we didn't endorse in 1996, Clinton, because we endorse 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 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, we're beholden to middle class, we're beholden to american worker. They're beholden to. Look, all this money and the next opportunity, right, because you're not there a long time, right? And you know, the 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's 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, union men and women actually got him to stay in office as a result of that recall. We 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 these. All this bullshit. And these are the people that we were supporting. Like, are you shooting me? Seriously?

So they're turning their back on you guys aren't supporting.

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, you know, we've said all along we took over. Like, we want a return on our investment. We want to be like big business. We make an investment, we want a return. And that return with these politicians are supporting our issues. That's going to protect jobs and promote unionization throughout the whole country. And, you know, 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 gonna get us all audited. Well, that's okay, right? Audit.

I thought kill, but that's how they better.

They better get up early, you know. Can't kill the willing. You know what I mean?

Yeah, dude. You know, I'll take my own life.

That's now what, you know, I showed.

You, and I'll do it on the clock.

Yeah, I'll still be on the clock.

You bet, dude. Oh, you don't think I'm clocking out for.

I'll be on double time. Yeah, but I mean, it's just people gotta step up.

In California, Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed a Teamsters back bill that would have effectively banned autonomous trucks. Bucks in the state. Wow.

Yeah.

And you know how many people there are in California? But what does it say? Assembly bill to it, to 22 86 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 MS 13 isn't going to want a bunch of carrots or whatever's passing through? They're gonna. They're gonna fucking shoot, dude. They sent one of those little gypsy cruises with the.

It had a Datsun B 210.

It was a little r, but it was like a. It was kind of aftermarket slightly, you know? And 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 eleven brothers beat the shit out of that thing. So there's no, what are they even talking about? Dude? This shit will get hijacked soon, 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. Wow. 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 Ida ilwu. But, you know, same, 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 got to realize that the constituents don't work for them. They work for the constituents. Yeah, well, 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 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 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 gonna, 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, you know, legislation that we can work together on.

But, you know, the focus has been lost and the whole system's 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 teams resumion issued a statement criticizing Newsom's veto. The vast majority of California's oppose unregulated, unaccountable driverless cars and trucks on the road. Do. Yes. There's already so many. Yeah, it's like, cuz then if somebody hits you, what do you just, you can't even sue any but you're just. What? You're like, that guy hit me in the cops. Like who? And you're like, I fucking know, cops.

What do you need cops for? Yeah, I mean. I mean, that's another thing. Public safety. It's crazy. And it's.

It's like, it's gonna get bad.

Yeah. It's gonna get ugly. And we're gonna be a world of robots if people like us don't step up and hold politicians accountable.

Look, I'll eat beans, man. I'll do what I gotta 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. You know, unless you're not eating. You know, unless it gets that bad, you're not wiping. You know, I'm saying save money on both ends, but. Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna 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 gonna have one by the time I leave here today. We delivered 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? So when you have 1.3 million members, it's important to make certain you understand their perspective, because that's. That's who our employer is, 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, you know, we invited every one of them, from Doctor Cornell west, all the way present. 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.

That guy is awesome, man. He is. 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 ten of them from various parts of the country, various political affiliations. And we asked them specific questions that were important to us. And, you know, at the end of the day, we did. 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 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.

And so in favor of Trump.

In favor of Trump. Yes. Even we sent the electronic polling after, you know, President Biden dropped out of. Out of the race. Look, Biden's been. Biden's been great for unions, working people. But, you know, the reality of it is, you know, 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.

Wait, so just to back up just some clues on. And so a straw poll, 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, where you get to actually, you know, control the meeting. Right. You control the narrative, but our members get to vote in a secret ballot. And, you know, 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, you know, Joe Biden at 80% and the rest, because, you know, there are people coming in there for the most part that show up there, your people that work on your staff. And when it only pulls 44%, you know, something's wrong, something's broken. So that's why we started doing extensive.

Polling, which is usually the unions, extremely democratic.

Absolutely.

You're saying. Okay, I see what you're saying now.

Yeah, absolutely.

The Teamsters pulling data shows members backed by and 44% to Trump's 36.3%. So that's more lopsided than usual.

Well, we would, we would hope. We were thinking that it was going to be 80% Biden, because, you know, the people, 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.

Oh, yeah. Their children dress up like. Yeah. Like plumbers and stuff for Halloween and everything.

Well, we do check their membership card, you know.

Yeah.

Yeah, well, some of them get in when they're eleven teen. 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.

Divide.

There's a, there's a divide. There's a huge point. Did you make the decision to not support a candidate or.

No, we took all the data and, you know, historically, the Teamsters union has never, ever endorse the presidential candidate till after both respective conventions are concluded.

Okay.

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.

Do they get back to you? So you asked?

Yeah, they never, 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, you know, going into an ex girlfriend's house who family hate you because of a bad breakup on Thanksgiving and saying, how y'all doing? It was, it wasn't, it wasn't a comfortable feeling. And, you know, but like I said, everybody else, when we get the opportunity to highlight american workers and or Teamsters.

You have to do it.

We're going to do what any and all platforms 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 we, after the conventions, you know, we have a general executive board, which are 24 leaders from all around the country, vice presidents and presidents, teamster leaders. Yes. They make up the general executive board. So we presented all the polling data. We had, you know, spirited debate and dialog, very respectful. And at the end of the day, you know, there were three people that voted to endorse the Harris Walts 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.

So, 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. Theyre under what they call Railway Labor act, where Congress can make a recommendation, implement the contract under the process. And they did it. And our members werent happy. They did it under the Biden administration. And one of our biggest goals moving forward, because weve got this campaign with United Airlines where theyre under the same process, we want the right to strike, and we can get the right to strike once we conclude the process. But a lot of times the government will intervene and they'll, you know, 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? You're going to stop us? 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, you know, that's in certain arenas under the Railway Labor act, like airlines are under the Railway Labor act, railroads are under Railway Labor act. Trucking industry isn't. Most private sector that we represent isn't. So 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 a pro act, obviously supporting the right to organize, supporting collective bargaining agreements. We didn't get a strong commitment from the republican side on, you know, vetoing national right to work. So, 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 lie to us, tell us what we want to hear, right. And when they can't answer the question or they try and go around, you, look, we're pretty sophisticated now. We're not as dumb as we, we look, and our members are certainly not, not dumb. And, yeah, some of them, wrong break or whatever, someone might be on break, third coffee break of the day, but they earned it.

Thank God for the unions. Yeah, you know, but, you know, they, they didn't answer the questions. 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. They've done a lot of personal attacks. They've done a lot of attacks on our members and, you know, we're ready to go. Whoever wins either way, you know, they're.

Gonna have to deal with you.

They're gonna 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 instead of dealing with this other bullshit, which is a distraction. You know, we've had politicians, right, that, oh, we support you. We support you when we're doing the ups negotiations. You know, there were some high profile people that, you know, and senators that, you know, claim to be the working people, the Schumas of the world and some others. We're pro union. We want to support unions. They wouldn't sign off on a support letter for ups workers prior to going in these negotiations. They wouldn't sign off of support letters, you know, while we're striking these dsps where your mom works in Amazon. So it's like, what does that tell you? It means, you know, they're afraid they're going to get their campaign contribution taken away from Amazon. And biggest, 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. Like, 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. I'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 baby oil here.

Yeah. Yeah, dude. Yeah. If only did. He would have unionized, man.

He would have definitely violated every human resource policy and procedure. He probably wouldn't last in too long.

Yeah. And one of it. Yeah, the first one. Wash your hands. That's the number one. I mean, that's above every sink, you.

Know, 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. Game time 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, game time has the lowest price guarantee, or gametime will credit you 110% of the difference. Take the guesswork out of buying concert tickets and any tickets with game time. Download the game time app. Create an account and use code weekend for $20 off your first purchase. Correct, baby terms. Apply again. Create an account and redeem code w e k e n d for $20 off download game time today. What time is it? Game time. This episode is brought to you by betterhelp. You know, we all wear masks sometimes. Ways that we present ourselves to the world and just things that we allow people to see. But behind that, sometimes there's a whole orchestra of stuff going on, thoughts and feelings and uncertainties, and a lot of times that can get overwhelming.

When I get in those instances, I reach out for help therapy. I'm talking about Betterhelp is exactly who I'm speaking of. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give betterhelp a try. It's entirely online. It's designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist, and you can switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. October is the season for wearing masks, but some of us feel like we wear them all year long. Now, you can change that. Take off the mask with Betterhelp. Visit betterhelp.com theodore to get 10% off your first month. That's better. Help betterhelp.com. 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 lever or 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 what? So that was why you guys didn't endorse a candidate? Is there still the possibility for you guys to endorse a candidate?

No, 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, right? And I'm strong. We're strong in opposition, you know, and there's people that, people that don't agree with it, and that's fine. That's great. 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, like we're the, we're in 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 retaliate or retributed any retribution against us in 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? No workers or the communities. I mean, we're getting involved in stupid shit, attacking people personally.

Oh, you mean union members are.

No, just a whole people. Political bullshit.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It's unbelievable, disgraceful that they would then want to make you guys look bad. It's, 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, but a lot of that you're saying is just bullshit. That's not the starting out salary.

It's not the starting out salary. And, you know, majority of our members working 50 to 60 hours per week, 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, you know, limit overtime or limit people being forced to work. And, you know, people might think, you know, 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.

Oh, indeed.

And it's a disgrace giving money out left and right that, you know, let's take care of our workers. Let's take care of. Yeah, make it.

If your workers last name was Israel, you'd have all the cash you needed, you know, that's for damn sure. 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. You know, deliver an auto parts sometimes. And, you know, and it's like. And she's not even getting paid by the mutt 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. New ammo New York. Amazon delivery drivers join 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 an out there joining the Teamsters. I think strike is fun. If you have somebody out there with a drum or something.

Oh, we got it all. I mean, we've got. Strikes are awesome. I mean, the one thing about strikes are. There 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. And 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, you know, 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. Because we know how strong the group is or isn't. And these Amazon workers, I gotta tell you, they have courage and conviction like I've never seen. And, you know, 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 gonna be a reality. This is definitely gonna be a reality. You know why? Because once you shut companies like Amazon down, or you shut a DHL down or I, 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.

Yeah. Yeah, I agree, man. I long for the day that we. That, like everybody just like all of these, like, Facebook headquarters in different. Verizon, whatever. I don't care if my cell phone doesn't work, dude.

You know, I don't want a cell phone anymore.

Yeah, I know. It ruins everything.

It's awful. It's awful.

It's like we've ruined. Kind of. It's like we've let technology take away so many things that were valuable to us, and then you see the effects of it on children, and they don't know the difference, right? But then you see some countries, like Poland, who are standing up for, like, whatever their beliefs are as a country, and, like, their moral fortitude, and. 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, I just. Because this is a technological advancement or because it makes things easier, is it.

Good for us 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 ten of 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. Speak into a microphone in your phone and call theo.

Yeah.

Call you. I don't even know your number.

Yeah, call my book ear.

I want to beeper. Let's get a beeper back. Let's put pay phones back in the corner.

Pay phones?

Your home run.

The best part about pay phones was when you were on one, and some guy, like, a homeless guy or whatever.

Like, well, trying to get. Someone trying to rob, you can just hit him with the receiver.

But it was never long enough. It would get. So it would get an inch from their skull.

Now he's gonna hit me.

Yeah. You have to put in 40 more cents, and you'll get, like, three extra inches of cord, you know, and you could beat the guy, you know?

Crank calls were the best from payphones. Huh?

Payphones 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 that. Nobody could know where you were. They couldn't get in touch with you at all times.

You share your location, you'd have to.

Oh, no, I don't share my location, dude. 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 gonna. You're not gonna see me coming, motherfucker.

Imagine 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 hit the street.

Ducktale it to like the german shepherds call her run around. Oh, be awful attractive. I'm 53 years old and we, we ran wild like back in the day.

Oh, yeah.

And I couldn't imagine. My poor mother. My 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. They tell their boss they ain't coming to work and then they're partying or some buffalo wild wings or whatever. Yeah, dude. Yeah. We used to, used to be able to lie to somebody and they didn't know you were lying.

No.

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 eleven. 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. So 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 has just taken over. It's. Yeah, like greed. It's just, it's gotten people.

How about people, you know, everybody talks about, you know, all this righteous bullshit, right? And a lot of it's. Some of it's good, some it's bad. But, you know, recently I work in Washington, DC 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, you know, because, like, guys like Will and Brian, my good people that are around me, chief of staff, they protect me from myself because of certain things. I just drives me nuts. But 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 attack, like, on this, these private DM saying, well, Supreme Court said it's legal to burn a flag. Okay, so it's legal to burn a flag because the Supreme Court says is a morally right.

Yeah.

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. You 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 unbelievable. It's sick. And we took the pledge of allegiance out of schools. Little things that I think have an effect 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. And that's when I think things get.

Really, well, so bad. Wouldn't people be leaving here left and right?

Oh, yeah. All those people that said they were gonna leave or whatever, and they're leaving, dude, I wish they would leave.

I love this country and I. It's, it's. Look, do we. Do we have our flaws as a nation? We all. Yeah, we have our flaws as human beings everywhere.

Look at the jets, right?

Yeah, I know, I know. Jesus. And. But, you know, it's a great country. It's something that people should be proud to live here. They should respect it. And the fight isn't amongst ourselves. 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. You know, we used. It used to be that you would, you know, 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, you know? Or our leaders are in debt to our enemies. That'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 ties off someone's asshole. So if I had to interpret that and a Boston interpretation, what do you think that would be?

Oh, man.

I just came. A swift kick in the nuts.

No, I think it would be happy. No, I'd put a cannoli in there somewhere.

Yeah. North end.

Yeah.

Italian section.

What's that one place? It's so. Good morning. It's open all night.

Oh, the bovis.

Yeah. You go in there and they got Mike back in the back, and he doesn't have. He has. He may still have a couple teeth. I don't know. There's an update you can get online. I haven't checked it.

Tooth.

Yeah, yeah. And they're like, tell a mic.

And he'll be like, I think that's Bova's Baker.

I'm not gay, but I'll suck off one of those canolas, brother. I'll tell you that. You 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. But, yeah, they got the guy in the back who's still got. He's got a. You know, he's got a couple of horsemen left in the stable back there.

And every now and then, there's some thoroughbreds back there.

Every now and then, he'll sound off. 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 will fork jersey back there, and he'll fucking start rattling around.

Back in the day, that place used to be great because. Because you come out of the bars in faneuil hall or north station, and that was the only place open. And, you know, you, after drinking 35 beers, it's a good idea to fucking eat a couple cannolis in a little tiramisu. But then you. 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, WWE. Two guys beating the shit out of each other with Frost.

Oh, it's crazy.

One guy's got a fucking apple crawler just slammed doing his throat.

It's funny. I live. I live right now there, and it's still. It's still open. Icon.

Yeah, last time I was there, we went in there and, yeah, it's so good, dude, that place is good.

It's all in battery with a canoli.

Yes. Oh, bro, they got the best stuff in there. Bring it up. Bring up their website. What's it called? But, uh, yeah, 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.

I got them right there.

Oh, yeah, yeah, some of those things. Oh, they got those little. I mean, that from Brulee's brother.

Now might my son that you met today, he's a type one diabetic.

Is he?

It's. And he always tells this joke, right, but, but, like, 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 cruller in him, huh? Put a fucking little bit of Boston cream in his snout.

Absolutely.

Bring him back to life, brother. That fucking sugar Narcan.

Homie, that poor kid has diabetes. His politicians have fucking liabilities.

That's a good point, dude. Oh, I hope you almost. 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, we.

Got to rescue ourselves from ourselves.

We do. We do. But it's definitely greed is one of the biggest things. So 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 a dictatorship. Our leadership is something that's never been done where we are out there, myself and, you know, my general secretary treasurer, my partner and all this, Fred Zuckerman. We 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. You know, part of the issue with a lot of situation we've been through over the last two and a half years is. And the success we've had because we've been honest with our members and we've empowered them. You know, we've empowered them where they know we have their backs, we, they know that if they want to take on a fight, okay, we're ready to go.

You know, 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. You know, we set the tone nationwide on, you know, industry standards and look, everybody should have healthcare. 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. That's the american dream.

Yeah. And unions, it would feel like, are especially disadvantaged because even though. Because their health care 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's. It all washes out. You know, like I was reading the other day about, there was a union, 32 BJ, I think it is 32 BJ SEIU.

Yes.

Which has workers paying 37% of their compensation, of their earnings for 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. See, with us, we know that 30%.

That 37% of their compensation goes towards healthcare.

Yes. So they're paying a cost part of their compensation towards their health care. 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, you know, certain percentage towards like public sector, but we get the ability to negotiate that, you know, we get the ability to negotiate free healthcare and stuff like that. And that's, that's important this day and age because again, you get back to big business, you know, we're out there fighting for the best benefits for our members healthcare. We want zero to low cost. And who's making all the money? These fucking providers. Like, yeah, you know, the insurance company, Blue Cross, blue shields of the world, you know, the kaisers of the world. And, and you know, 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 with some, in some instances, we're the. We're investing in our own demise in certain situations. Right. So, you know, 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. I 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? That's.

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, educating that next generation, right?

Yeah.

You get a firefighter that's running into a burning building to save your children.

And you're in healthcare and you have.

A police officer that's risking his life every single day with zero support from.

Communities now except a moral neck brace.

Yeah, right. And, yeah, yeah, right, exactly right. And you want them to pay more for the health insurance? Are you out of your fucking minds?

Well, it's literally. Get to the point, Sean, where you're literally gonna have to smoke for medical care. It's gonna be like, all right, if you want an iv, it's 20,000. More.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You want a tylenol, you gotta smoke a fucking cotton of cigarettes them off. Yeah, it's crazy, but.

Full body Winston cast, you know, just a full body parliament cast, you know. This cost 30,000 Tarantin 100 miles. That must have been a.

My grandmother, my grandmother used to smoke Tarentin 100s, right? And she had like a three inch ash. And you'd be sitting there, I'd be like, all right, when's this gonna light the couch on fire? Hold on, one is gonna light the. Dive in on fire. I didn't know. What, I didn't know. Dive in. Yeah.

Well, yeah, my grandmother called it a dove.

Yeah, whatever it was.

Yeah, yeah.

Smoking butts, you know, they all smoked for pregnancy, right?

Oh, yeah, brother. Oh, you'd see a kid be born, he be, you know, 4oz, you know, I'm saying, yeah, she'd put him in. My grandmother put one, my brother in a curio cat.

It was craving like, fucking tab, tab cola, dude.

They had a haha, fuck. What was I going to say? My brain's not 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?

Might be on your off shift, but.

Hey, it's, hey, but hey, bro, it's part of the union, dude.

FMLA.

Hey, it knows. It knows no matter what that it's going to, it's going to be rewarded.

FMLA. Friday, Monday leave act. Yeah.

What was, what else was I going to ask you? Yeah, why do every, 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, we're organizing workers because, you know, 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, 7% 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? With a 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. Guaranteed vacations. It's simple. It's easy, you know, and that's the litmus test. Hey, you don't believe us, then everything that you want, write it down as a contract. You individually go give it to your employer, and I guarantee you one or two things gonna happen.

He's gonna laugh at you, and then he's gonna fire you.

Damn. And now, in smaller businesses, it might be different.

Yeah, this. I mean, look, there's a lot of smaller businesses that actually take care of their employees that, you know, we've had. In instances where, you know, you've had a small business, you know, a couple of people come to you, and, you know, you know, and when you get into the weeds, deep down in the weeds, you see that, you know, these. You know, this. 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. So what we get to as a union may encourage these small employers to do the right thing selfishly, to keep us out. Right. So we do set that bar pretty high. But there's a lot of family owned businesses that, you know, that I know of, especially in my area where I grew up, where, you know, they take care of their employers. You know, 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 work again.

But he's an example where he always took care of was a small, like, tech company. And when he left, he had a. He had an employee that worked for him for 35 years on a forklift. He gave him a $500,000 check. Wow. Just, you know, stuff like that. So there's our good stories out there, but, you know, the majority of people, you know that. And again, I'll stand by it. I think everybody should. 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, you know, it's not every employer is bad because they're non union.

Yeah, man, I used to. Speaking of forklifts, I used to work over. I used to work at this place. We was galvanized in clevis clamps or something, some bullshit.

I don't know.

I got really bad sunburn doing it because we had to do it outdoors or whatever, because we weren't unionized or whatever. But, yeah, we'd be out there galvanizing shit in the sun and. And, oh, at lunch sometimes we would get real high and, like, we would put each other on that pat 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.

Nate, you guys definitely needed a union.

Yeah.

Was it. Was it a junior guy or the senior guy? You put up the.

No, it was a. It was a low. It was a low on the totem pole guy. It was me.

Did they drug test that company? Did they drug test with that company?

Fuck, no. You. But you knew people were on drugs?

Yeah.

So you didn't have to test.

Yeah, yeah. Just. You already knew it.

Yeah, it was just kind of.

Was it, like a prerequisite? Yeah. That's the one thing that we do. We stand by. We. You know, everybody's gotta get drug tested, the most part. Most of our members do, which is a good thing. You don't.

You guys use USADA. Who do you guys use?

I don't even know.

Oh, you don't know 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.

Because 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 know he was. I was born in 1972. He disappeared in 75. No, but I know a lot of people that did out of my local and everything else, and he was an icon. He really was. Greatest labor leader ever. And he put the team, since he had organized labor, on the map, and.

Then he went missing. Right?

Yep.

Do you think he's still alive or not?

I mean, it'd be 105 or something like that, so I don't know. Probably not.

He's getting overtime if he might.

Yeah, I mean, he's probably on the clock still or.

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 got killed by the mob, there's all these theories that, you know, he's buried under giant. Giant stadium. No one knows. I mean, yeah, you know all the theories, but. But the one thing that is like, look, he's gone, but. But the work that he did should never be forgotten. I mean, that guy.

Yeah, he's buried under a Dunkin donuts out.

Yeah, probably South Medford or something.

But, yeah, there's always. You're like, we're not digging up another dunk.

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 we had to.

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.

His son. Jimmy Junior.

James P. Hoffman. James P. Hoffa. Yeah. Definitely not his father. You know, was born on third base and actually thinks he hit a triple to get there. Yeah. You know, great name recognition, right? But in my office, you have. It was. 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. You weren't. You didn't even know you were getting taped, right? 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. You know, there's no. 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 him off.

Flipping off. Robert Kennedy, right? But Robert Kennedy Junior tells a story how driving past our headquarters with his father, he was probably 14 years old. He was probably 14 years old, and 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, 09:00 at night, working. 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. And that's the great thing about having a democratic union.

And does everybody 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 their leadership.

And so now every union member can vote for also for any president that they want or any electoral running, whoever's.

Declared candidate, they can. They can vote for whoever they want. So long. Most of the time we run as slates. So you'll have, like, the Sean O'Brien slate, all the like. I think we had. It's the odds, the O'Brien Zuckerman slate. And we had our opponents last time were membership slate or something like that. And, you know, you run as a slate, a team of 24.

How often you have to run?

Every five years. Every five years. Yeah. So we ran in 2000. Our election was in, in November of 2021, and we take over March of 2022. So we'll have another election in November of 26 and take over, you know, 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, you know, we've got to be bigger, we got to be faster, we got to be stronger, and we definitely have. We definitely have done that.

Is the union growing?

It's growing. We've organized just a team sit 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 probably never smoked weed. But we are organizing in the cannabis industry, where there's 425,000 w, two 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 2000 and hammocks.

We've got 2000 them organized, I think, throughout the, throughout the whole country. So they're there into cultivation. There's workers that are in warehousing, and then they're going to be in distribution. So all in our whales are what we do in this 425,000 of them.

Is that one of your largest growing sectors?

It's.

Well, yeah, the term, what is it?

It's divisions.

Is that one of the largest growing divisions?

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, you're going to see a private equity come out and try and buy up 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. And obviously, you know, organize within this industry. So there's 425,000.

Is it a conflict of interest so to be an owner?

No, we're not. An owner would be the private equity firm that we invest. So it's, it's not uncommon. We do it all the time in other industries.

Like, would you still make the best deal for your.

We're going to make the best deal because think about it, a lot of times in pension funds and health and welfare funds, we make investments off contributions because, you know, 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 rest in stocks, you invest, 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? And 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. We're hoping to raise a billion dollars by January or February 2025. And that gives us the opportunity to as well, is 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 there was a greedy private equity firm known as Apollo.

If we had this fund up and running 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, deserve, you know, the investments we're going to make on their behalf and how, 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 healthcare, that have retirement benefits. We're not just creating a job, we're creating careers for people. Right, right. Cultivation, warehousing, distribution. I mean, you know, that's. 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 that's one of the largest growing.

So this saturated, like, having the largest.

Growing sectors for divisions, this saturated heaven.

And heavily with licenses nationwide. 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. And if we're not controlling that grab, the best interest 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. Not, you know, really concerned with, you know, 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's even come to that. Also that now in order to ensure that the workers are going to be safe, you. 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?

You got skin of the game.

It makes sense, but it's crazy that you would, that people wouldn't just think, yes, we need to take care of the workers.

Yeah, well, so again, you get back to a corporate greed, you know, you get back to bottom line of a balance sheet before people.

Yeah, it's unreal, man. And then there won't be any more people that'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 bank vault. One of your most viral moments was you had a confrontation with a fella from oklahoma. Was he a senator?

Yeah.

Us senator mark wayne mullen, mark wayne mullen. And did you guys ever patch that up? Because you guys almost did a charity fundraiser fight right there in the, in the senate.

Yeah, we had two. Two run ins, you know, I'm sure people.

Yeah, I don't know.

We had two run ins. Like, 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, you, we have to submit like a fifth 16 page brief, right? So you give that 24 hours prior, and then you're going to condense that in your testimony to about two and a half to three minutes. So I'm reading my testimony and, you know, usually have witnesses, pro and con, on each side. That's. And you have, you know, the Republicans on the help committee and the Democrats on the help committee. And I didn't know. 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 of plumbing or pipe fitting company in Oklahoma. And I guess they, you know, they picketed his house. He had 300 employees or something. So he took it very personal, which, you know, hey, someone shows up at 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. And 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's not shitting on me back, right? And poor Bernie, like, I thought he popped a nitro. He was like, enough on off enough. And so that was like, you know what it was like? It was like, you know, you're sneaking in 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 an sip of liquor. This is.

Definitely got a Marlboro.

Yeah.

I'm two points shy, right?

So 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 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 hearing, and he come in and he. I can. He was all fired up, you know, because clearly I hit a few nerves. And he's like, stand your butt up. And I'm like, you stand your butt up. I am fucking because you want to do this, we'll do it right now. I'm like, let's do it. And.

And they didn't let y'all fight, though, huh?

No, I was like, you know what? It was like, 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. It's on, but, you know, it in poor Bernie, you know, he's. Yeah. 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. And 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 and 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, and we'll see what happens. But thankfully, it didn't get to that. Both sides and for the best, you know. No, I'll be honest with you. Like, I met with him, we agree to disagree on a lot of things, but, you know, he's a sitting us senator. One of a hundred should be well respected people. I get the privilege of representing 1.3 million working people. You know, we both probably could have done things differently that day, but it was fucking fun.

As was fun.

Yeah, it was good. And it was. It was great because you need some.

Of that stick, cuz. C span or whatever. That channel 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 c spans 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. But maybe I'll watch the golden bachelorette now or something, you know, definitely no, be in the break room.

Yeah, dude, the break room is always so much fucking fun. Dude, I'll tell you this, and I've definitely stolen from my employers. I used to work at the grocery right now as a checkout guy, right? We did stocking and checking out, and then I got moved up to checker and bagger, too, dude. And I got a. And when I was more important, checker or bagga? Baggers. Da bagha.

Sounds a little deviant.

Yeah, baggers, definitely. Why? Used to. Bet 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 like, a yde modern day Robin Hood at Publix?

I mean, yeah, I was, you know what? Anything big, it was just some fucking cinnamon toast crunch or whatever. But I definitely helped out here and there, you know, did what you could because some families, they didn't notice it. You know, it's still stealing. But what we used to do is when we go to break, we would walk down, like, our fate whatever aisle had our favorite food, and we just steal some shit right off the shelves. So that's. I feel sorry about that. I want to apologize. That place is called Dell Champs. I think went out of business and.

Then you think I went out of business because of the employee pilfering off.

I didn't take much.

I usually took swedish fish and shit.

No, I do like a banana. Maybe a little bag of funyuns or something. Not one of the big bags, but, yeah, it was just everybody did it. But see, that's not a bad. That's not a fairest thing. Everybody does it.

You just implicated all your co workers.

Oh, dude. Definitely all of them. Chad giddy, all those dudes. This one dude 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, like, where is he? They came at a piece of picture. Picture of him 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, yeah, working at a grocery store was fun. Fun. Do you see more. Do you see the union growing now?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we can joke about, like, the breaks and all that stuff.

Oh, yeah, for sure.

But unions have proved they're the hardest working, most productive workers in the country. And 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 industries that have never been unionized, where the young workers that are 18, 1920 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 ten 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. You know, there's, it's, it's exciting times.

Hmm. Yeah, no, it definitely seems like it. Well, we're just, I'm seeing as more big businesses and things get, 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, yes. So you, do you think that. Oh, it says also including Amazon, the American Red Cross, Costco, and Canis cannabis dispensary nationwide. So it's, it's everywhere.

Yeah, we are, we're hitting every single opportunity. We don't solicit. We, you know, we, we have targets, you know, 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. Right. During the busiest time for them. And what we did there, there was 2300 workers. We got a first time contract there for 1300 workers, and the remaining 1100 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. And we've been successful doing that. So as a result of that, DHL's funny. They are. I think they are owned by the Deutsche post office, I believe.

And I remember when they showed up with those yellow truck.

Yeah, they're awful. Kansas City chiefs.

What's going on?

Yeah, so we, you know, we all got. And we have, you know, but again, they're a european company, and I met with the CEO after we struck them. And I said, he's like, we want to reestablish our relationship. And I'm like, okay, give us card check neutrality.

What is card check neutrality?

It means they just agree to, once we get the majority of the employees assigned cards, we give them to a third party arbitrator who decides the validity of the cards. And then if we have the majority, they sit down and negotiate a contract with us. There's no, there's nothing else.

Validity of the cards? What do you mean?

Like, they just, they, they. The cut, the arbitrary will determine if we do have the majority or not. And we don't usually submit these cards from an arbitrary unless we have 80% of the car.

So the cards mean people signed up.

I want to join the union.

Got it. Right.

So, you know, they'll determine that. 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. And I went with our attorney, Fred Zuckerman, and I'm a general secretary treasurer. We sat down and they, like, we want to reestablish the relationship. One guy had an english accent and really fucking aggravating, you know, it was.

Like, good a. Yeah, we'll see about it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All that bullshit. And, well, we want to have a relationship. I go, well, the only way we're gonna have a relationship, you give us card check neutrality. And he said, yeah, we don't, we don't believe in that. I'm like, okay, great. Meetings over. I'm not gonna beg for this. Go fuck yourself. See you later. Yeah. And then like, two days later, our attorneys on the phone and their attorneys, 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 that especially, you know, they're not from. They're not an american company.

Yeah.

You know, they could give two shits less about us, but, you know, we've reestablished our relationship wherever, 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.

But how, say, in the weed organization, right? Say the people that work in 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. They'll go to a local union, like a Teamsters local, and they'll, you know, started a local. Yeah, they'll go to a local level, talk to the local union. Local union will either send in their organizer. 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. And especially in the cannabis industry, I think we've gotten more car 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 gonna regulate that industry, right? So if we don't organize them, you know, 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.

But I've done them.

Yeah. I mean, I didn't do them because I probably would have fucking loved them, 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. 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, $0.25 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. Employees, right. So if you're providing employees with a union contract, good wages, good benefits, you know, there's not going to be a turnover ratio. Right. You know, we first started this organizing campaign. We were seeing, you know, 2021 year old kids that, you know, they weren't. They weren't stealing a banana. They were sampling the product, right?

Oh, yeah.

And they'd get, you know, fired or they'd leave. So, you know, we've actually instilled some stability in this, in this industry just because they know there's an opportunity and they're organized as a contract and, you know, there's a future.

Yeah, I think then you feel like you're part of something.

Absolutely.

Which is the same thing, like, in it, which goes back to our conversation about America, just like, feeling like you're a part of something. Feeling like, you know, I think it used to feel like your country was unionized. You know, it definitely felt like that when I was a kid. And, and we haven't catered to that, you know, and our leaders haven't catered to that and our decision makers haven't catered to that. One last question. Wait, so do the, 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, you know, legislation that benefits, you know, both our members and the company. There's a lot of common fights that we have to work together on. It's not, it's not always a line drawn in the sand. And the good thing is it's like, you know, a lot of political issues we have coming up, like, you know, certain issues with reauthorization act, and, you know, a lot of federal legislation will 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 know, you'll never be able to work with. They just, you know, they just dig in and they want to fight all the time. But, you know, we're ready for it either way, but we'll work with anybody.

Do you think you'll be able to unionize Amazon workers?

Oh, without a doubt. We're going to be able to walk in them.

Hell, yeah.

Without a doubt. It's gonna be, you know, it's gonna be a battle. It's gonna be a fight. But that's where, you know, we're gonna call on, you know, the Dems and the Republicans and everybody involved that say they are passionate and supportive of these workers. We're gonna, we're gonna call them out, we're gonna, we're gonna expose them, and we're gonna put them to the test, and that's, that's what needs to happen.

Good.

We're gonna be there. We're gonna be their conscience. I want to represent your mother. Yeah, absolutely.

I appreciate it. Some. Yeah, 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. You know, it's probably her favorite thing to do.

Absolutely.

So.

So where did you get your work ethic from?

Probably from her, I guess. You know, it's funny. It's like, yeah, there's so many things that. But I do. I do thank her for that, actually. A lot of times it was like she was always working.

But.

But, yeah, I do have a strong work ethic because of her.

Yeah, no, it's. Well, your product or environment, if your parents sat on the couch, smoked butts and drank beers, chances are that's probably what you're gonna do. I had the ability growing up. Where I grew up, my father worked two, three jobs and hustled his whole life. My mother, the same thing. So we try and steal that work ethic and my two kids and my nephews as well, you know, which is important. And that's, I think we got to get back to basics in this country. And, 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 they don't, and there's no sense of a family. And it just, everything starts to dissolve, you know, and it's just, and it definitely is. There's a part of it is greed at the top, and 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. 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 gonna, they're gonna work that much harder for you. Right. And you reward, more importantly.

Yeah, reward. I think for sure. Sometimes it's, you know, it's tough to be the certain type of employer to everybody, but that they should be rewarded for sure.

There's no doubt, you know, 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, those are good old days. Wasn't, oh, dude, my mother would hit us like Teddy Bruce. Yeah, yeah, she would just fucking, my.

Mother had more hits on us than Justin Bieber.

Oh, my mother would put on a Pedroia jersey and just fucking tear into us, dude. Just hitting triples right off of my brother.

Oh, that's good stuff, you know. Did you laugh when your brother was getting beat?

Every now and then I chimed in, dude, I shatter a wooden chair over that freaking mixed breed.

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, be Jesus fucking Christ. And you'd start, you'd be firing your fork and 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, 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. And it's, 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, that produces this much, 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.

Sean's all right. Sean's good.

We'll see.

Yeah, we'll see. Jerry's still out, but I know 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.

Yeah, you can't. You can't survive as an american work and not represent it now that the. The deck is stacked against you, you know, 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 employer. Make a call and say, hey, you know, it's your business agent. You work for me. This is my issue. This is my grievance. I have fate. You're going to fix it.

Yeah, right? Yeah. You don't have to be take on all that stress. What do they lose by being a part of a union as a worker?

Not a thing.

Not a thing.

Not a thing. Not a fucking thing.

Before you go, Shawn, and thanks so much for your time.

I appreciate.

Thanks for representing people and supporting people and being a voice for people and. Yeah. 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 drop kick Murphy's or something from a movie? Just something that, like, really you feel like is like. Like, has a union fucking feel to it for you ever.

I mean, one of my favorite movies 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 Christopherson. But all the dropkick Murphy's the best. Kenny Casey's a buddy of mine.

Chris Christopherson right there. He just passed away.

Passed away.

People love him.

Yeah. Yeah. Road Scala too, I guess.

Was he really our guy?

Yeah.

Wow. And. And he drove truck too?

Well, I don't know if he drove. It's just for the movie maybe. There's probably a team, so I'm sure teams. That was driving it back in the day, that was film.

Nobody's driving. You don't have anybody to flip off if they go by.

I know. Robots gonna give it a finger.

What fucking fun is that? Yeah. How you gonna do that?

I know that 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 truck or dude.

Well, like picking your nose like that. That's crazy.

What is this country coming to? We can't even flip all dropkick Murphy's the best.

Kenny case. He's awesome. Yeah, he's my guy. He is my guy. He's a good friend. Very, very active in the soba community as well.

Oh, is he?

Which. Yeah.

Kenny Casey. I'm gonna 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. But very, very committed to sobriety. Very committed to working people. Working class guy. He loves unions. Real good friend.

Wow. I'm have to tap in with him. I'll send him a DM or something.

Yeah, I can. I can hook you guys.

Yeah, it'd be cool.

Absolutely.

Yeah. People loved him from up there. That's definitely. I mean, people get married to their music and buried to it.

Coming up to boss shipping up to Boston. I was and the departed.

Yeah. You were in it.

No, no, no, no.

That was in it.

Not the song was in.

Oh, their music.

Yeah.

Yeah. Dude, I'm a Boston Bruins fan.

Dude, we're gonna sign that goalie or what?

Huh?

We're gonna sign the goalie or what? Oh, rat let no when swamin.

Oh, I don't know. Not that big.

He's in a big contract fight right now.

He is?

Oh, yeah. Public to Cam Naily.

Jeremy swam in there. He is.

Yep.

Yeah. Fucking sign him, dude. Is he unionized?

They are. Marty Walsh is representing him. Right? Former secretary of labor. He's the head of the National Hockey Players Association.

I love their coach, man.

Oh, yeah, he's good. Well, my friends, their assistant coach, Joe Sacco. Oh, yeah, guys, the best. We all grew up together. Yeah. Family? Best friends. Joe's the best.

Oh, that's cool right there.

There is.

Yeah. Monty's the best, dude. Joe Sacco. That's cool. Money, just a fucking. Money's hilarious too.

So where I grew up, we had about four or five guys. Make the NHL. One on my street, Keith Kacchuk. His two sons play in the league.

Tcac.

Yeah.

They're calling the rat or. No, no, that's a brother.

No. So the father was my age, we grew up in the same street. And he's got two sons that are in NHL right now. Brady and Matthew. Matthew just won this. 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, with 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 gonna say, cuz you kind of look like Dana White.

Dana's a good man. Yeah, and is the best, but.

Oh, that's him. That's the guy. They call him the rat. Yeah, right. What's his nickname? Matthew took a check.

That kid is hilarious. So the mother's a longshoreman?

Yeah, they call him the rat King. 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. Retired a few years ago. Boston fire department. Great family.

Wow, the Kajiks. No, the Kotchik Kachuk. Yeah, they're definitely. Look, I'm not saying they're. They're using extra letters, sir.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

I'm not trying to snitch or not, you know, so it is what gonna.

Fill the back of that jersey up?

Hey, also, in Boston, fucking who knows how to spell anything?

Yeah, yeah, we. Listen, we have a. We have a rule in Boston. If it's any more than three claps as a word, you don't use it.

Three syllables.

Three claps. You know, you gotta sound it out.

That's a nice rule. Yeah, dude. Um. Wow, son, I appreciate it so much, man. Um, yeah, thank you so much for your time, brother.

I appreciate you, sir. Thank you.

Really appreciate. It was informative. And, uh, anything else that you think you need to share?

I'm an aries and I like long walks in the park, my friend.

Look, long as you're back in an hour.

Absolutely.

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 piece of mine.

I found I can feel it in my bones but it's gonna take.