TDS Time Machine | Labor Day

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While America's largest car maker struggles, America's largest retailer is thriving, Walmart has become a fixture in our country with its low, low prices and low, low employee morale.

Now,

as Samantha B reports, the company is, however, having a harder time gaining acceptance north of the border.

Here I am in Quebec.

They've taken the letters off this boarded-up shell of a store that just maybe could have been something.

But that dream was mercilessly crushed by this man.

Oh,

I didn't realize you were here.

Walmart, a plucky retail underdog, tried to realize its dream by opening up this quaint 50,000-square-foot shop in Champierre, Quebec.

The store was just getting on its feet when employee Gaytan Plured did the unthinkable.

He started a union.

Okay.

Say that again, only this time

not in gibberish.

I participated in the formation of a union in

Walmart modifying

Walmart to modify their way of doing things.

There was a large sense of panic at Walmart store.

The company was frightened.

For years, Walmart protected its employees from the burden of union dues by keeping unions out of every one of its 5,711 stores.

But Gaytank could care less about maintaining Walmart's rich history.

It's easy to be the biggest

store when you are exploiting the small workers.

Okay, fine, you're the little guy.

But what about the biggest guy?

You're crushing the dreams of every Walmart shareholder.

Probably

I'll thinking about

sending them a little piece of my welfare.

So, you wanted a livable wage and respect.

No, I need you to do the air quotes.

I need you to do my air quotes.

Well, the conclusion is very clear.

If you are working in other Walmart stores, if you want to form a union,

well, they're going to close the store.

Now that you're out of work and struggling to make ends meet, isn't this the time that you really need Walmart?

For its part, Walmart has denied closing the store because of the union.

They said it was for financial reasons.

We tried to reach Walmart for comment, but they didn't respond.

So we set fire to a bag of dogs outside of one of their stores.

To protest the closing, Guetin organized a terrifying 160-person multicolored unhappy face.

Any Walmart executives that may have been flying by in a helicopter would have been plenty PO'd.

It was a clear jab at Walmarty, Walmart's demonic, price-slashing Pac-Man.

What is Walmart's raison d'être?

Did you notice that I incorporated some French phrases into that question?

Did that impress you?

What would a world without Walmart be like?

Americans would be forced to buy things at rickety mom-and-pop stores like these.

A world where you have to go outdoors and cross streets to run errands.

Hi.

Hi.

I need a 50-pack of Fritos, the DVD of beaches, and a 12-gauge shotgun.

To call it inconvenient is an understatement.

I need to get some winter radials for my car.

Oh, we don't have those here.

Oh, fing off.

It's a hell on earth.

I need diapers and I need funions.

Can you help me?

No, I'm sorry.

Damn it.

Ultimately, Gaytin had his union, but no job.

Yet one question remained: Is there room in any union for two men who are so obviously in love?

Say it.

Say it.

combo songs,

no.

What about my guest tonight, an author whose new book is called There is Power in a Union: The Epic Story of Labor in America.

Please welcome to the program, Philip Dre.

Thank you for being here.

Thanks for having me.

There is power in a union.

Have we in this country, do you think, have we forgotten the story of labor in this country?

Have we forgotten the struggle that people went through at the turn of the century, last century?

I think to a great extent we have, and that was really what prompted me to write the book because I felt that this movement, which our grandparents and great-grandparents were so involved in and that accomplished so much, a lot of the standards of workplace safety and hours and conditions we take for granted that story had largely been forgotten it's a great story of a social movement and I thought it was worth remembering it is you know

the violence that came along with fighting to not have to work in a mine for the hours that they had to or not have to shop at a company store

How were the workers able to withstand the kinds of assaults that were on them?

Well, it was, of course, you're right, it was very violent, particularly in the 19th century.

The workers really had, you know, the government took sort of a hands-off attitude until they started sending in the federal soldiers,

and workers were often put down violently.

You know, the armory buildings we see in our big cities today, most of them were put there so the troops would be able to gather near places of work to return.

The steel strike in particular, the Pinkerton fellas went in, then the 300 Pinkerton guys.

The homestead strike in 1892.

Very violent.

And of course, what would happen usually is, you can imagine, the nation would be outraged at the violence.

People had been killed.

There'd be promises of reform.

And that actually did slowly kind of move things forward to the point where we reached in the progressive era what they called industrial democracy, a feeling among progressives and even government officials that there must be a better way to do this.

It's hurting productivity and profits.

And also it's just we don't want to have this kind of

large group of unruly, angry people in our nation's cities.

Right.

And that's that's gotten us to the point today where the biggest problem in the workplace obviously is you're just not supposed to look at that much porn.

You're supposed to.

Have the unions though

the journey now, and I imagine there's another movement afoot, but

So these groups that fought so hard to gain the basic respect and rights for the workers, have they themselves now become so entrenched and bloated that they have become the agents of corruption?

Well, I think to a certain extent that's been one of the problems for unions over the last half century or so.

The problems have been self-made in that a lot of the big unions began to mimic big business.

Of course they had huge amounts of money on hand.

The leaders tended to be people who had never actually been rank and file themselves, so there was a kind of a distance.

And they use the same type of intimidation.

in some respects.

Exactly.

And many of the leaders were sort of charismatic figures who couldn't be questioned from below.

On the other hand, even though, of course, a lot of these corruption cases are famous, I think one has to be careful not to taint the entire labor movement with this idea that it's corrupt.

I think people hold it to a higher standard because it's sort of a social and economic justice movement.

But for every headline about corruption, there's hundreds of legitimate, legally functioning local unions across the country and always have been.

Where do you see the vibrancy of the union movement right now?

Where do you think the best work is being done and where do you think the most work needs to be done to reign in their power?

Well, a couple of different things.

One, of course is the last, I think for many years unions were kind of asleep at the wheel.

I think they've come alive a little bit in the last generation or so.

You see a lot of organizing of people who had never really been organized before, janitors, hospital workers.

Just a couple weeks ago out in Los Angeles the car wash, 10,000 car wash workers began to organize.

So you see that in America.

You also see kind of an attempt for

labor to sort of go global really.

In other words, that's what's happening now with globalization because jobs have been sent overseas.

Labor has to find a way to coordinate with workers overseas.

And that means a different kind of labor movement, one that involves human rights groups, women's rights groups, environmental groups, anti-sweatshop organizations involving consumers.

That's sort of picking up speed.

I think we have to wait another 10 or 15 years to see if that'll really evolve.

Right.

And in terms of the areas where you think it needs reform, the actual union movement itself needs reform.

Where do you see that?

Well, I think you see that in a lot of unions now that are being asked for accommodations or pushback, in other words, to keep institutions or companies viable.

Have the unions been good partners to the businesses where they've been?

Have they been good partners to the automotive industry?

Have they been good partners in education?

Do you feel like those unions have been good partners?

Well, the United Autoworkers, I think about a year or so ago, did

give a number of things back in terms of privileges and benefits they had accrued.

You know, it's always hard to give up something you fought for and won.

You know, this goes back to the 1950s when they decided that they didn't need firemen on locomotives anymore.

The firemen didn't, they didn't want to lose their jobs.

They were protected by the union.

And there's been variations of that all along.

And now you have the teachers' unions as well trying to work with the new charter schools, trying to find a way to accommodate reform without jeopardizing their own rank and you had a great story about you were in the musicians' union.

Yes.

And apparently there was an incident.

Well this was yeah this was my introduction to being a union member actually.

I was in the Minneapolis Musicians Union many years ago and one of the first after having to swear I would never play a mellotron which of course was an instrument that could emulate other instruments and take other people's jobs

they began to call me and say we have to stop the Harlem Globetrotters.

Yes.

The Harlem Grotters.

Someone.

The Globetrotters.

The man.

And

the union was upset because the Globetrotters were coming to town but this year they decided they didn't want to hire an eight-piece orchestra.

They wanted to use a tape recording.

Sweet Georgia Brown.

Of Sweet Georgia Brown, their theme song.

And so the older members began calling people like me and saying, we need you out on the picket line.

And of course, we were inclined to say, well, of course they want to use a tape recording.

That makes perfect sense.

So that was kind of an example of a kind of a generational switch, a different way of looking at things.

I don't believe they ever stopped the Harlem Globetrotters.

Unfortunately, five people died.

Five, including Georgia Trotter.

But it is, you know, it's so important for people to remember, though, where the movement came from and the struggle that it did just to get people the basic human rights that workers should enjoy.

And it's a really fascinating and great story.

So thank you for writing it.

There is Power in a Union.

It's on the bookshelves now.

Philip Dre.

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We're beginning in Wisconsin with our continuing coverage of

milk all over it

in few places was the Tea Party's sweep last November more stunning than in Wisconsin where voters tossed out three-term progressive Democrat Russ Feingold from the Senate overturned Democratic majorities in the state assembly and Senate and for the first time in eight years, elected a Republican governor, Scott Walker.

School districts spend millions more of our tax dollars than they need to for employee health care.

We can save $68 million per year just by letting schools get into the state health plan.

That relaxed guy on someone else's couch is right.

So you can imagine Wisconsinites were plenty prepared when their newly elected governor tried to institute his cost-saving plan and were prepared for the, oh, I see.

Wait now.

What?

No,

right back.

No, not that.

No, I understand.

But he was just, I under,

guys!

He said he was going to revisit the benefit plans of teachers and state workers.

What's the problem?

State workers, a lot of them teachers, furious over Governor Scott Walker's plans to cut their benefits and collective bargaining rights.

Oh.

So he's not only cutting union members' benefits, he also wants them to give up their ability to ever ask for them again.

That can't be right.

Take away a union's right to collective bargaining.

I believe that makes them just a bunch of people wearing identical t-shirts.

I think that's

like telling the Green Bay Packers they can't play football or telling Craigslist no adult services.

It

really defeats the purpose.

I'm sure that that is not what the pleasant, casually dressed man in the advertisement meant.

For us, this is about balancing the budget.

We've got a $3.6 billion budget deficit.

We're broke.

Just like nearly every other state across the country, we're broke.

He's broke!

These guys are walking around money.

He's got nothing.

And while, as of yet, Walker hasn't proposed any other specific cuts to the budget, he's going to do it tomorrow, and has even passed a plan to further reduce tax revenues for the state.

through tax breaks.

He's not looking to strip the union of its power.

He's just looking for savings.

The deal would be that the unions agree on the money issues, but they keep their collective bargaining rights.

Governor, are you willing to do that?

Well, no.

So to close your $3.6 billion budget gap, the union must die.

Less of a fiscal sacrifice, more of a ritual sacrifice to appease the gods of deficit.

Well,

I'll tell you what, the remaining 14 state Senate Democrats are going to have a field day with this dude.

In an effort to postpone the vote, 14 Democratic senators fled the state.

You know when they say when the going gets tough, the tough get going?

I don't think that's meant to be taken literally.

Hey, honey, pack your bags.

The going's getting tough.

And so it fell to the good people of Wisconsin to make their case directly.

The elegance of direct democracy in its purest form.

You talk about coming to the table, the governor coming to the table.

Do you think it was the right tactic for the Democratic senators?

United, we stand.

United, we stand.

United, we stand.

United, we stand.

United.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

sorry.

I'm being told that we have a satellite delay to the 60s.

I'm sorry.

She's just asking you a question.

Good old chanty on her.

All right, a governor elected by the people to cut costs.

First attempt at doing so comes at the expense of those that are in his employ, enraging them.

I believe this is a recipe, A, for the worst Christmas party ever.

But B,

there's something familiar to the dynamics of this political back and forth.

Is Madison, Wisconsin, Congressman, the tunisia of American politics now?

There is an unbelievable parallel to people in the streets of Cairo and the people in Madison, Wisconsin.

The thousands of demonstrators are clearly inspired by the pro-democracy protesters in the Middle East.

They're not the same in any way, shake or tongue.

At all.

At all.

Not at all.

It's.

This is the same as people in the Middle East overthrowing years of dictatorship?

Or is that just the last story you saw in the news?

You know, the protests in Wisconsin remind me of the struggles of actor Charlie Sheen,

bravely fighting his addiction, which in this analogy makes Governor Walker crack.

Wait, no.

Look, if I may, there are a few small differences between this and Cairo.

The Egyptian protesters risk being shot.

The Wisconsin protesters risk being caught in a drum circle.

And as for protesters charged that Walker is a tyrant, I will remind you that he was elected with 52% of the vote.

Tyrants tend to poll in the high 90s.

So,

come on, man.

This is a cut.

400 people died in those protests.

Reporters were brutally beat.

I'm sure you can come up with a more appropriate comparison.

Many other states ultimately might not have the same balance sheet as Wisconsin, but I think ultimately collective bargaining, even from a federal level, these are big issues, and these costs need to be put under control.

If the country is ever attacked like it was in 9-11, we all respond with a sense of urgency.

What's going on on balance sheets throughout the country is the same type of attack.

Thank you.

Wait.

That's insane.

Collective bargaining and unions are then al-Qaeda for balance sheets.

What does that make Wall Street?

By the way, you work for CNBC, and since your network helped helped to promote that disaster, I guess you're Al Jazeera?

Well, the budget crisis, it's not Cairo, it's not ground zero.

What is it?

Take a closer look at the vitriol and the violent rhetoric being spewed by these left-wing unions at these rallies.

It's about the people looking to create chaos.

On the backs of the worker.

These union thugs who've taken over the capital, they certainly have a lot of chutzpah.

This is what happens when you disagree with the left-wing in America.

First of all, chutzpah?

That's giving me a lot of cirrus.

Wait a second, Fox.

I thought you guys loved protests and the Americans that take to the streets.

Remember the tea parties?

These are ordinary, decent, hard-working Americans.

They're singing, God bless America, Beyond me.

These are just average, everyday people.

God-fearing, freedom-loving patriots.

What happened?

But if my theories are correct,

if my analogy is to work, then there must be another news network that hates the Tea Party protests but loves the Wisconsin Union protests.

Tea Party wackos are dead set on repealing the health care law.

These are real American people who want a future and feel like they're being deprived of it.

See, they're real people, but the other people were wackos.

Don't you get what's happening here?

The Union Wisconsin protest is the bizarro tea party.

Yes, you've all seen that episode of Superman.

But wait, this is correct.

Tea partiers wear tri-corner hats.

What would the opposite of that be?

All right, that'll do.

As you know, if there's one thing all Americans can agree on,

we love Black Friday.

Whether you're a fan of shopping or trampling.

Which is why I was so upset to see on this holiest of days a news story about people protesting in front of their local Walmart.

Thousands of Walmart employees are staging walkouts and protests over this holiday weekend.

The workers are upset about having to work on Thanksgiving Day, and they're also speaking out for better pay and and benefits.

What?

You bastards!

You get to work at Walmart on Thanksgiving Day,

a ringside seat to the greatest show on earth.

It's a Black Friday tradition.

We'll stab one of you, motherfuckers.

Do you know how much people pay to go to fights like that?

You get paid

some

to see it.

Isn't that benefit enough?

Truly, your vest runneth over.

But that's not enough for you, greedy, hourly, slightly over-the-federal poverty line employees.

Now you want to unionize.

Besides, everyone knows, comparatively speaking, in the Walmart world, you've got it pretty big good.

Violent protests in Bangladesh this morning after a deadly garment factory fire.

Saturday's fire killed at least 112 factory workers.

The factory is owned by an exporter whose clients include Walmart.

See?

I work at Walmart in the United States.

I can't afford to take my kids to the doctor.

Well, at least where you work, there are exits.

And the worst part of that fire.

The worst part of that fire is the devastating impact that it's going to have on Walmart.

This is the big giant prize for unions.

This is the big giant prize for those who are anti-capitalism.

If it's not this, it will be something else.

I think it's a stretch, an amazing stretch, to sort of try to pin this on Walmart.

I can't think of a worse target.

Oh,

I actually, I believe that's Walmart's slogan.

Think of a worse target.

But I'm sorry, you were being.

Yeah.

That was Joe.

Joe came up with that in the meeting and we're all like, we're using that.

But I'm sorry, you were...

I'm sorry, you were being callously dismissive about the working conditions in Bangladesh to score points against American unions.

Continue.

Don't think that the people in Bangladesh who perished didn't want or need those jobs as well.

You know, I know we like to victimize everyone in this country, particularly when it comes to the for-profit motivation, which is being assaulted.

Again, it is tragic.

And, you know, listen, it's one of these things I don't think something like this will happen again.

Okay, that's a relief.

So, um,

your first argument appears to be, yes, okay, they died in a fire, but they had jobs.

You know, I think it's reasonable to assume your job won't entail some kind of inferno unless it's mentioned in the ad, which it's, oh, okay, well, I didn't realize.

Now, your second argument is this.

Your second argument appears to be,

your second argument is, hey, man, this is just a one-off.

Which could be a powerful hypothetical argument that I might buy into if moments earlier the giant graphic next to your head had not mentioned the 500 people over the past two decades killed in garment fires.

Although perhaps you're just saying this type of fire won't happen again in this particular now burned down factory

to which I would say

touche.

But I guess the point is unions will stop at nothing to destroy our way of life and Walmart is not the only American treasure on their hit list.

If you love Twinkie's sorry, brace yourself for this one.

Let me stop you right there.

If you love Twinkies, you're probably already used to being told to brace yourself for bad news.

Only usually

from a guy who looks like this.

But all right, continue.

If you love Twinkies,

sorry, brace yourself for this one.

Time is run out for America's iconic baking company.

After 82 years, Hostess is shutting down following a bankruptcy filing.

No more Twinkies, no more ho-hos, no more snowballs, no more ring dings, no more ding-dongs, no more dong rings.

No

oh my god, that's not cream.

Hostess willess Hostess will be no more.

Oh no!

Where will I go now for my stomach aches and self-medication?

Where will I get the crap to fill the bottomless pit in me that will never be filled?

Boxed wine?

Armies?

I'm not going back there.

What could have destroyed this beloved American diabetes dispensary?

The unions really did it in because they would not allow hostess to operate efficiently.

Hostess, which was forced to close its doors due to union demands, they couldn't afford to stay in business during a long worker strike.

The union preferred killing the company to accepting what they thought was a bad deal.

Unions.

And you got to imagine Gingrich is taking this heart.

He is, after all, half snowball on his father's side.

Just to play Devil Dog's advocate here, could there be another reason Hostess went bankrupt?

This company could not run itself itself efficiently.

In the last 10 years, they've had seven CEOs.

Oh, uncertainty.

I'm told the market abhors it.

After the 2004 bankruptcy, the workers took wage and benefit cuts.

It wasn't enough.

The CEO gave himself a 300% raise.

So the unions had already taken a cut.

in somewhat inverse proportion to the CEO's rising compensation, which he totally deserved for convincing the union to take that cut.

Anything else other than unions that could have sabotaged the company?

Sales dropped as moms began swapping out those fat-filled goodies and white bread for healthier lunchbox foods.

Moms.

How dare you, moms!

You know, maybe I just love America this much, but I say let Mars have them.

So So Mars needs,

I see a lot of children's movies

because I have children.

You know what I also think, and this is just a marketing tip, let's not forget that the hostess mascot is some kind of high-spirited country Western dildo.

But as always, the real victims here be the children.

Just sad that they're not going to know what Twinkies are.

They're going to grow up not knowing what Twinkies are.

You know each generation has its burdens.

My kids might never know the pleasure of doing donuts in their high school parking lot in an AMC gremlin.

I grew up not knowing polio.

You get that.

And if we're really craving a hit at Twink, we can always make our own.

There are 37 ingredients in this little cake.

Many you'd expect.

Some flour, lots of sugar, corn syrup.

But how about corndextrin?

That's the sticky glue found on the back of envelopes.

And that smooth, creamy center?

It's made from cellulose gum.

That's used in hair gel, shampoo, even rocket fuel.

Rocket fuel!

That explains the blue flame that shoots out of my ass whenever I eat a Twinkie.

Rector, we have a problem.

You know what, though?

When I I was making my Twinkies, I forgot the cellulose gum.

Oh, I'm an idiot.

But you know what?

I made myself a Twinkie using only 36 ingredients.

It probably won't make that big a difference.

I'm sure it's going to be about the same, right?

It's going to be a oh, they're ready.

Let's see what we got.

Kill me.

Please kill me.

I'm so sorry.

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Mike and Alyssa are always trying to outdo each other.

When Alyssa got a small water bottle, Mike showed up with a four-liter junk.

When Mike started gardening, Alyssa started beekeeping.

Oh, come on.

They called a truce for their holiday and used Expedia Trip Planner to collaborate on all the details of their trip.

Once there, Mike still did more laps around the pool.

Whatever.

You were made to outdo your holidays.

We were made to help organize the competition.

Expedia, made to travel.

There's a philosophical discussion underway in America about the minimum wage.

Some people, like financial commentator Peter Schiff, think increasing it could have devastating effects.

There's

a law in economics, supply and demand.

It's something that you learn in Econ 101.

And as you increase the price of something, you decrease the demand.

And wages, you know, that's the price of labor.

The higher you make the minimum wage, the more jobs are going to be destroyed.

I mean, you care about the poorest.

Of course I do.

Yeah.

I just acknowledge that government programs are trapping them in poverty.

Why have one job for $15 an hour when you could have two jobs for $7.50 an hour?

Would you rather do that or pay twice as much for your burger?

I do like to taste the tears of poverty in my milkshakes.

I couldn't wait to discuss these economic theories with real-world fast food workers protesting for higher wages.

If we raise the minimum wage, you know, eventually the market is going to adjust to that and then everybody's going to lose purchasing power.

We cannot survive on the bare minimum.

If we could just keep this out of the personal realm.

All these fast food workers looking at things through their personal experience goggles.

I found it so hard to explain those kinds of complex economic theories to those desperate people.

I mean, did you ever go into a McDonald's or Burger King?

I mean, I don't really eat there, but they don't seem desperate and hungry to me.

They're young kids.

They seem to be enjoying themselves mostly.

Those irrepressible teens with their teen hijinks.

That's right.

These protesters are just teens having a goose.

I mean, what are you complaining about?

This is fun for you.

You're a teenager just making some funny money to throw around and party with.

I actually have

five siblings, youngest siblings that I have to support.

Ugh, this was getting harder than I thought.

Hypothetically,

how would you tell a 48-year-old man with a bachelor's degree who works full-time in fast food that he is not entitled to a living wage?

You're creating a hypothetical situation that's not going to exist.

I'm 48 years.

You're 48 and you're still in high school?

I have a bachelor's degree.

And I end up working there because I was out of the job and couldn't find a job at the time due to the economy.

Putting a face to the people on supply and demand graphs is really confusing.

Thank goodness, goodness the economic theories on how the minimum wage destroys jobs are ironclad.

Author and equities analyst Barry Ritholtz.

There are a number of studies that have come out that show increasing the minimum wage actually improves the economy.

Shut the f

up.

If we raise people up just $11 so they're at the poverty level, they'll go out and they'll spend that money on food and medicine.

Sure, that sounds good, except for one simple thing.

People don't go hungry

in a capitalist economy.

It's socialism that creates

scarcity, that creates famine.

In a free market, there's plenty of food for everybody, especially the poor.

And the fact that people in our economy aren't hungry is all the proof you need that free market capitalism is the answer.

Lots of people working full-time for profitable companies like Walmart and McDonald's need food stamps and welfare because they can't afford to feed their kids.

McDonald's and Walmart Walmart are the biggest welfare queens out there.

What?

They're taking advantage of the safety net in order to capture more profits and lower their costs.

As it turns out, the fast food industry alone costs taxpayers roughly $7 billion a year in public assistance to their employees.

It's practically McWalmark's cyst.

But for many, when it comes to our economy, it's our country's founding principles that matter.

If we eliminated the minimum wage law, then individuals would be free to accept jobs at whatever pay they are able to get.

Paint me a picture of a person whose work would be worth $2 an hour.

You know somebody who might be?

Maybe somebody who is,

you know, what's the politically correct word,

you know, for,

you know, mentally retarded.

What's the new...

Okay.

That's what I believe in the principles that the country was founded on but I'm not going to say that we're all created equal you're worth what you're worth

what you're worth just like our founding fathers said you're worth what you're worth and we're not all created equal

yesterday the NCAA settled a lawsuit with former college basketball and football players who were seeking compensation for the millions of dollars of profit the NCAA had made off their likeness in video games.

So now,

the NCAA advances in the bracket to their next lawsuit.

But where will it end?

With fairly compensating athletes for the ungodly amounts of money they bring into the NCAA?

I hope not.

This is America.

How far can it go?

Jordan Klepper has more.

College football is the last bastion of sports amateurism, where student athletes play for the love of the.

Oh, damn, did you see that hit?

He got crushed.

But now, this sport is being ruined by players like Kane Coulter seen here selfishly writhing on the ground who insist they deserve more you know right now not one penny is is guaranteed to pay for our medical expenses you hear all these horror stories about players losing their scholarships after they've been injured you know what are these kids gonna do they should get a second job we already have a full-time job we don't have time to get a second job Okay, well then why don't you just sell Kane Coulter jerseys?

Make some extra cash.

You're not allowed to profit off your likeness.

Why don't you just join another league?

There is no other league.

You got a lot of complaints.

Unfortunately right now, you know, a lot of those expenses down the road are going to be coming out of our own pocket, even though, you know, we suffered the injuries wearing our school's colors.

Don't you think when you go in with back pain that that doctor instead of money will accept a nice little anecdote about how fun it was to beat Wisconsin?

We didn't beat Wisconsin.

Well, well, that's on you.

Whether it's Coulter and other collegiate athletes once again whining that they deserve a cut of NCAA profits or brand new complaints about losing their eligibility because they played pickup football while serving in the military.

It was just an intermediate league, you know, to build camaraderie between troops.

I didn't figure they would penalize me for that.

But then Coulter did something truly despicable.

Northwestern University's football team is asking to be represented by a labor union.

Yes, a union.

Coulter is actually trying to claim that he's an employee of the university.

Clearly, the football players should stick to football.

Fumble!

Fumble!

You alright?

Yep.

You okay?

Yeah, we're good.

You're not an employee.

You're a football player.

No, we are employees, just like the NFL players are employees, college football players are employees.

An employee has to sign a contract.

College football players sign one-year tender agreements for the scholarship.

Alright, well, employees have to work like 40 hours a week.

We spend 50 to 60 hours a week practicing in the offseason.

Well, they.

Employees get compensation.

We're compensated in the form of a scholarship, room tuition, and board.

Employees don't live in dorms.

Oh!

Oh!

Gotcha!

Meanwhile, true college football fans like Republican strategist Dee D De Banky understand that to offer the players compensation of any kind would destroy this beloved sport.

They get free room and board, a free education, and they're playing the game they love.

That's not enough.

These guys are getting free water on the sidelines.

Yeah, exactly.

Free Gatorade.

Yeah.

Free trips on that little cart that takes you to the emergency room.

Well, that's up to them.

If they don't want to play football, they can do something else.

These football players should be playing for the love of the game.

Exactly.

Take a lesson from the NCAA and their sponsors who put on their annual bowl game series for the love of the...

Wait, who the f is Beefo Brady?

Okay, maybe the NCAA does make $11 billion a year, but unions are not the answer, says the NCAA.

Using

a union employee model strikes most people as

a grossly inappropriate solution to the problem.

And these players had no idea how inappropriate.

What are these football players going to do if they unionize?

Do they get a mandatory smoke break every hour?

What happens if they strike?

Unions are overbearing.

They're worthless.

They want to control everything.

And they just try to be money-grabbing losers and try to take the money out of hard-working Americans' pockets.

Dee Dee, these.

The cruise union.

So they control the...

The players are determined to take this to the courts, forcing critics like Bankie to see that, okay, maybe these players should get a small, small, tiny slice of the pie.

And CAA, they have a ton of cash.

They need to beef up the scholarships.

I agree with that.

I think most people do.

They need to beef up these scholarships a little bit.

They just need some sort of group who can maybe collectively bargain on their behalf.

Well, I don't know about that.

No.

Keep the unions out of it.

Keep the unions out of it.

Now is the time to show culture what unionized college football would really look like.

Oh,

you don't run all the way.

You don't.

You are 40 to 30.

You hand it off to my man right here.

He is 30 to 20.

A game that's nothing but half-assed work punctuated punctuated by smoke breaks slow down slow down this team gets paid by the hour give it to your local 10s fill out your w-9s and let the end zone dancing local 20 finish the job

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My guest tonight is the president of the Amazon Labor Union.

He led Amazon workers at a Staten Island warehouse to successfully form the first union in any of the company's U.S.

facilities.

We went for the juggler and we went for the top dog because we want every other industry, every other business to know that

gangsters teams.

We're going to unionize.

We're not going to quit our jobs anymore.

And,

you know, this is a prime example of

the power that people have when they come together.

What's going on, Abu?

Welcome.

The man who took on Amazon and won, Chris Molles, welcome to the daily show.

Thank you.

Thank you, man.

What an insane story.

Like, I remember when this first started, you know, the pandemic was happening, Amazon was ramping up production, the workers were struggling, people were complaining.

and then your story popped up as an idea and everyone said the same thing and said, this guy's crazy, this is going to fail, you cannot beat Amazon and you did.

Let's start at the beginning.

Did you think you stood a chance?

I know you did what you did, but did you think you stood a chance?

I knew the whole time.

You knew you were going to stop.

The reason I ask you that is because Amazon, like people have tried to form unions in some of Amazon's other warehouses.

They failed dismally.

Like Amazon's got a really good marketing marketing program inside.

You know what they do as an Amazon worker.

Talk me through that process.

So you were inside Amazon, you're working, right?

Well, I was fired two years ago after I let a walkout.

But I worked for the company for almost five years.

I started in 2015 in New Jersey.

So I was promoted up to a supervisor level.

I was in that position for four years.

up until my termination and I definitely learned the ins and out of the warehouse and the operations.

I trained thousands of their employees, hundreds of their management that are now upper management to this day.

So for me, organizing was just I'm playing for a different team and I'm with the people.

I love that.

When you thought of organizing, obviously there was a reason.

You know, every one of us reads about Amazon from the outside.

We hear these stories.

People don't get enough breaks.

Some people are peeing in bottles.

Some people are stressed out because they have to meet random quotas that Amazon imposes on them.

Just the other day, for instance, I think it was on Easter, you know, there was a sign-up that said,

thank you for working on Easter, and if you meet your quota, you're going to get like a bag of chips or something.

It feels dystopian from the outside, but how much of that is actually true?

What is it like to work in an Amazon warehouse?

It is true.

As an Amazon worker, we're disconnected from outside.

We work 10 to 12 hours a day.

If you work in New York and you're going to Staten Island, your commute is two and a half hours, three hours, depending on what borough you live in.

I lived in New Jersey, so my commute is definitely a long commute.

And I used to tell my new hires, if you got a gym membership, you might want to cancel it.

Wow.

You know, because you're working 10 to 12 hours, you get a 30-minute lunch, you're doing calisthegs all day.

When you're in the warehouse,

what is the thing that you're fighting for the most?

Because you know, some people hear the fights against Amazon, they think about wages, you know, they think about time off, they think about the way people are treated within the warehouse.

You know, obviously, everyone wants a better workplace altogether, but when you looked looked at the hierarchy of needs, what was the top priority?

And then as you came down that pyramid, what were you looking to get?

Well, I noticed that Amazon is ran completely off metrics.

You know, there was no human aspect to it.

You know, you get fired by email or

app, A to Z app.

Were you serious?

Yeah.

You know, people didn't have an interaction.

They didn't know their managers.

And there was a system in place to hire and fire.

And, you know, it was before COVID when I realized that there's a system that's not only in place to fire people, but it was also discriminatory.

I applied to be a manager, a salaried manager, over 50 times in five years, and I was only interviewed twice.

So

it wasn't fair, it wasn't consistent with everybody

that worked there.

And I knew before COVID that something had to be done.

And when COVID hit, it was a life or death situation.

I decided to take further action.

When you look at how to start a union, one of the hardest things is, if I understand

correct me if I'm wrong, is you need 30% of the signatures of the workers to begin the process.

One of the hardest reasons you can't do that at Amazon is because they hire and fire so quickly.

So how did you get around that obstacle of getting people on board and then having them be around long enough to be part of the beginnings of a union?

Yeah, well, education is key.

You know, we had to educate them on what the union provides.

Educate them on laws that protect them.

without a union.

So certain protections we do have that workers don't even know.

So we had to make sure that we are educating the workers to get to a point where they start organizing themselves.

And once we got to that point, we said, okay, you know, we're not going to go for, there's four facilities over there, we're not going to go for all four.

We're going to break it down and go one by one by one.

And I think Amazon was caught off guard by that.

They thought that we were going to go for all four, which we did try and we had to withdraw.

But then we changed up our strategy and started doing it one by one.

We were able to get to our threshold.

They came for you as well.

You know, I saw one of the emails that circulated from, you know, you never know where it comes from, but inside Amazon, where they came after you.

You know, they would disparage you to the other workers.

One of the worst things I saw they wrote about you is they said

he's unintelligent, he's not well-spoken enough to start a union.

No one should follow this guy.

I mean, basically, they were like, he's a rap black man, essentially, was what they were saying about you.

And so they're telling people, don't trust him, and they were saying, he can't do this.

Now, obviously, you proved them wrong.

Well, they said it.

Yeah, they said it.

And I wondered like

Because you were a rapper before you started working

in warehouses and I wondered did you did you take this as a rap beef?

Were you like, oh, okay, we're doing this?

Was there a feature that was like, all right, Amazon, we're doing this?

This track coming.

No, you know what?

I haven't rapped.

I haven't rapped in so long.

I haven't rapped since my college years, but I guess it just keeps resurfacing.

Media, they dig into your past oh yeah they do definitely so so you know I haven't rapped in so long but you know my my mom would tell you you know my voice is meant for something else so yeah this is it I really love that

so then let's talk about the future

You're in an interesting situation now where so you are the ALU president, right?

You've done something that no one thought was achievable.

The vice president, as I understand, still works at Amazon, which was a smart move because you wanted someone on the inside.

What are you looking to do now?

Because I know this is not the end.

This is the beginning of the story.

And when the union was formed, you even

sent a message out to Jeff Bezos.

It was like pretty direct where you were going like, this is the beginning.

This is only the beginning.

And you thanked him.

That was interesting to me.

You thanked him for flying in his penis-shaped rocket.

No, I'd love to know why you think that was so significant.

Why do you think that that actually helped with the unionizing efforts?

Well, well you know we while he was up there it was true you know we were outside I was outside signing workers up so I'm just telling the truth you know and he needs to know that you know he thought he thanked us when he came back you know we paid for that trip so you know in this case we wanted to remind him that you keep going to space we're going to continue to unionize I love that damn

what's what are you what are you trying to do going forward now so You know, many people out there, this is something I've really enjoyed about watching how you work.

You've centered the union around the workers and the workers alone.

You know, politicians will always try and make it like the union is theirs.

You know, they'll go like, oh, this is the Democrats, this is the Republicans.

And you've gone like, no, no, no, this is the workers' union.

You know, because unions help all the workers.

It doesn't matter what your political affiliation is.

You're fighting for the workers.

I'd love to know why or how you thought of doing that where so many would have aligned themselves with politicians.

You've gone, no,

I'm choosing not to do that.

Yeah, you know, we want to represent all people, you know, your worker, whether you're left, right, up, down, middle, red, yellow, green, we don't care.

We want to make sure that it's all inclusive and putting workers in the driver's seat, that's the ultimate power.

You know, if you start to align with certain groups, then Amazon uses that against you.

You know, all right, this union president from this established union salary is half a million dollars.

Yes.

With me, they can't do that.

I'm unemployed.

So it's different.

You know, it's different.

You know, and having the workers in the driver's seat

and having them at the negotiating table,

putting together a contract that protects them, especially the ones that work for the company and know the ins and out of the company.

That's the best thing ever.

And I want to give the power back to them by this union.

And that's exactly what we're trying to do.

What do you hope to achieve with the union?

So give me some of the things that you know need to change now in an Amazon warehouse that all of us watch, because everyone, we use Amazon.

People love the service, but at the same time, you know, it's conflicting because people go like, wait, how are they being treated?

You know what I mean?

It's a a weird position for many people to be in.

So

what would you say to everyone going like, hey, this is what needs to change in Amazon?

This is why we're trying to do this.

Right.

You know, well, customers need to know that just because you hit one click buy, it's not magic.

You know, these are real people being affected.

You know, we want y'all to stand in solidarity with these workers.

They come from y'all community.

They're your neighbors.

And we're customers too as workers.

And the first thing we're fighting for is job security.

Like you mentioned, they hire and fire people all the time.

You know, there's people that are homeless working working there, people in shelters working there that we help.

We're fighting for $30 an hour with higher wages, better medical leave options, making everybody a shareholder again, who they stopped in 2018, bringing back the monthly bonuses.

Amazon workers know what I'm talking about.

VCP, which was for productivity and attendance.

We used to get that.

They stopped that in 2018 as well.

Bringing back hazard pay.

They think the pandemic is over.

People are still working, catching COVID, still being sick.

And also, you know, providing a better quality of life, a pension, free college for themselves and their children as well.

Everything a union can provide, we want to provide with this union.

You're a legend, my boy.

Thank you so much for being here.

For real.

Man, everything you've done.

Push them all, everybody.

Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by searching The Daily Show, wherever you get your podcasts.

Watch the Daily Show weeknights at 11, 10 Central on Comedy Central, and stream full episodes anytime on Fairmount Plus.

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