This ONE SIMPLE TRICK Will Help You Beat Union Busters - TVLR 9/12/26

0:00I'm all you poor workers, good news to you, I'll tell. How they good old men has come in here to dwell. A battle in the heart of Alabama caught our attention. Colminers in one community have been on strike now for months. Working is as long as 12 hours a day, seven days a week and some of the most dangerous conditions. I really think the labor movement is the single greatest force for democracy in the history of the United States. The story of Alabama is a story not just resilience, but of no intensity. I say no, contract, you say no, no, no, contract, contract. If we ain't all free, ain't none of us free. You're listening to Alabama's only union talk radio show, The Valley Labor Report with Adam Keller and Jacob Morrison. The largest union talk radio program in the South. This is the Valley Labor Report.

1:01My name is Jacob Morrison. My co-host is Adam Keller. Folks, you can leave us a voicemail at 844-899-tvlr. That is 844-899-8857. You can also send a text message to that number or send us a written note at tvlr.fm-slash-contact. We got a great show for you today. The first stop is some local news. Last week, the Hunsville City Council voted not to eliminate the sales taxes on hearing aids. We got a voicemail from a resident in Hunsville who has been pushing to eliminate the sales taxes on hearing aids as other municipalities have done. The state legislature has allowed municipalities to do a year or two ago. Here is Tara calling about this issue. Clip 1. First, I want to thank Jacob and Adam for giving me the opportunity to talk about this issue today.

2:02Hi, I'm Tara Bailey. I live in Madison. I've been working since June of 2024 to get Hunsville to do what Madison did first. Eliminate the local sales tax on hearing aids. In 2024, Alabama eliminated the state sales tax on hearing aids. Recognizing that hearing aids are essential health care, not a luxury. But local governments still have the ability to tax them. A number of cities and counties across Alabama have taken the next step to eliminate that local tax. But unfortunately, there still aren't many that have done it. Madison was the first city in Alabama to take that step. And now I'm asking Hunsville to do the same. Hunsville currently charges a 4.5% local sales tax on hearing aids. That $180 on a $4,000 pair of hearing aids. For someone who needs them to communicate, work, and participate fully in everyday life. That's not an insignificant amount of money. At Thursday's Hunsville City Council meeting, councilmember John Meredith

3:02introduced an ordinance that would eliminate that local sales tax. He asked for unanimous consent to move it forward. But only Michelle walk in supported that request. Every councilmember has received the information about this proposal, including the estimated impact to the city around $125,000 a year. Based on figures we've heard from the city finance director. So I think it's fair to ask is collecting 125,000 a year in taxes on hearing aids. Really a priority for Hunsville. This is a city with a budget of hundreds of millions of dollars. We're talking about giving up a relatively small amount of revenues to make an essential health care product more affordable. And this is why the North Alabama labor council supports eliminating this tax. This is a workers issue for workers who rely on hearing aids hearing clearly can make can mean communicating with co workers hearing instructions and warnings participating in the workplace and doing their job safely and efficiently.

4:05Cost should not be another barrier. The final vote is September 24th. If you live in Hunsville contact your council representative tell them you want this tax eliminated. And if you're able to show up on September 24th and speak during public comment. Other Alabama communities have already done this Madison did it first. Hunsville has opportunity to be next. The question now is simple. Is it possible to make hearing aids more affordable or will it choose to keep collecting attacks on something people need to hear. I think Hunsville can and should be better. Pretty crazy. And so the she saying the final vote is going to be on the 24th. But I thought that I saw something saying that they voted against it last like a couple of days ago on Thursday. Am I misremembering? Well, my understanding. Based on the voicemail is that. It was not approved for unanimous consent.

5:07So it's going to have to actually be voted on at a subsequent meeting. And so there's still, you know, opportunity to do the right thing. And something that's interesting to me is is like Tara pointed out it's a really insignificant amount for the city's budget. But for folks on limited incomes, which would be a large number of folks needing hearing aids, whether they're dealing with disabilities or older and age or. Work related injuries, right? Like I'm a member of IOTC local 900 and we are stay chants and behind the scenes entertainment workers. And we're around a lot of really loud equipment, right? As you can imagine, working at rock concerts and musicals and things like that being close to really large speakers. It's it's a pretty common injury in a lot of industries. So, you know, I appreciate her referencing the North Alabama area labor council because. The labor council has adopted a workers agenda for, you know, municipalities in North Alabama.

6:14This is definitely consistent with the agenda to provide some relief to working families. So yeah, I really appreciate her advocacy on this issue. It was not something that was necessarily on my radar until I guess the last couple of years really thinks the Tara's work. And, you know, it's something that I've also made other cities aware of as well. The city of Athens, I know is looking into it is, you know, at least according to the mayor. You know, and his response to me, they're looking into it. So September 24th is next city council meeting. And there's a couple other interesting things. I don't know if you saw this about the city council meeting Thursday night, but there was some dispute between a councilman John Meredith and councilwoman, Jenny Robinson. So, there has now been a call for investigation of Jenny Robinson by John Meredith, who is the district five councilman. He is saying that basically she abused her authority to change the nature of a meeting that had already been scheduled.

7:21He's requested official guidance from the city attorney and the attorney general is my understanding based on some reporting from WZDX. So that is all in the works and all by the way, there is a runoff election September 22nd. In the midst of all this district three will be voting on who will be the next city council person for the next four years. They're voting between Jenny Robinson, the long time incumbent who is in the midst of this controversy versus Lilliana painter. I know there's been a lot of attack ads coming out. You know, from the incumbents campaign, a lot of flyers and things of like, you know, things like that have been mentioned. I don't know if we talked about it on the show last week much, but maybe we did, you know, the AFL CEO was listed in a negative light as a bad endorsement basically as a scary thing.

8:22Right. And so based on some research I saw from Andrea Alvarez, who is the outgoing school board member for district three, I saw that over $100,000 has been raised by the Robinson campaign for the city council race. And at least according to the math, the Alvarez worked out, she is spending significantly more per voter than Tommy Tuberville is in his gubernatorial race, which is interesting. You know, so there's some big money going into the city council election and they really want Jenny Robinson to stay in there. Got to wonder why. We got a couple other things to get to before we get to our first break. So wanted to go ahead and change topics. You were in Auburn yesterday, right Adam? Yeah, there was a lot happening in Auburn. We've got a couple stories out of Auburn to talk about. But I was there on behalf of the North Alabama area labor council. We were lucky enough to co-sponsor the advancing Alabama labor history symposium. It was a really fantastic event.

9:30How to mix up scholars, activists, students, just a lot of different folks who were gathered to learn more about the rich heritage of labor struggle and organizing in this state. So, you know, I really, really enjoyed it. We had a lot of great folks as panelists as speakers. I think we've got a voicemail is going to tell us a little bit more about it. So I'll. Yeah, let's play. Let's play clip two. To this credit president George Bush tried to. Tommy Temerville did not leave us a voicemail. He's wanting this is Whitney Washington vice president of the North Alabama area labor council. I just wanted to share about the advancing Alabama labor history symposium that was held yesterday. And Auburn. We co hosted that with the Auburn Center for Humanities.

10:32It was a really incredible event. We had a full audience. I think about 80 people were attendance in person. It doesn't. We're viewing online. And even more registered and there was actually a wait list. So we had a really incredible turnout. The keynote speaker was Dr Robin DG Kelly author of the hammer and hoe, which is about. And racial organizing in Central Alabama in the 1930s. It's a really incredible book. And he delivered a really amazing keynote speaker keynote speech just talking about the history of organizing in Alabama what we need to be doing today and how to grow the labor movement. We had some really wonderful panels about oral histories and working with archives and current scholarship and labor history.

11:36We heard from people that are working on, you know, early 20th century, convictly saying to doing scholarship on contemporary waffle house workers. So there was there's a ton of interesting research happening. We also heard directly from labor leaders like Reverend Charles Clark, who was a former seven director of the AFL CIO, who came and just had a conversation with Adam and I. And it was a really great event that got to bring together academics, people actively in the labor movement and our elder labor leaders to just learn about how we can be documenting labor history as it's happening. I think it's really great event. I'd love to see us continue to grow labor history in Alabama. It's so important for us to share and report out and learn about working people's history, not just the rich and famous and industry, but what are the workers doing because that's really the story we should care about.

12:51Great time. How did how did time meeting with people so hope it happens again. All right, again, that was Whitney Washington. Yeah, so Adam, what else what else would you want people to know about the symposium yesterday? I think for one, it's a start and based on the overwhelming positive feedback, we want to do these kind of things again. There was a ton of interest. You know, I can't help but think about UAW and they're organizing down here in Alabama, which has been some of the most high profile organizing in the state in the last several years in Mercedes, Hyundai, et cetera. And, you know, there was this overwhelming response from state government as those campaigns heated up a few years ago, where unions were portrayed as this outside entity as this foreign interest, you know, maybe a Yankee interest. You know, it's something that is used as a talking point, right? Like unions are going to come in and disrupt our Alabama way of life.

14:00You know, we could ask about the Alabama way of life and whether that is going well for a lot of folks. But the truth is, like unions have been around in Alabama for a really long time. We have a really rich story of labor struggle in this state and working class organizing in this state. It's complicated. You know, it hasn't always been successful. It hasn't always been just. But we have a really rich history at one time, one in four Alabama and it's a labor union members Walker County. Walker County was the most unionized county in the country. And those are statistics that we love to remind folks about because, you know, when politicians or media or industry trust with trade unions or something, not for us. They're just really being ignorant of the history that we have. And of course, they're not being ignorant. They know about this. But they're relying on our ignorance. And that's why labor history is so important to me and to so many of us who are actively participating in the movement right now.

15:09We're trying to make history ourselves. And we can only do that if we really know where we came from and know about these struggles of our ancestors. It was really powerful to hear these stories. A couple of other reflections. For one, I noticed a lot of the archives. The material they had on labor quote unquote was often from the industry side. There was a real deficit of records when it comes to our side as working people, whether that's formally through our institutions like labor unions and other organizations are more informally. So that stood out to me. So there's a real gap there. And something else that stood out to me was Dr Kelly's remarks and, you know, I think a lot of the stories he's documented over the years in terms of Alabama working, working class organizing is pretty tragic.

16:12It's, you know, there's not a lot of happy endings necessarily. But as I said yesterday, like it's still I think gives us hope because folks who were enduring conditions even worse than we have it today. Dare to organize and do what they weren't supposed to do right and work with people who were different from them when it was against the law to do so. That is really powerful. And I think, you know, for me and for generations of activists at this point, we've been inspired by those stories he's documented and uncovered. Because yeah, I mean, every day, Alabama is dared to dream that we could have a better state that we could have a better world. And they were willing to sacrifice everything at some point to do that. So that was really powerful. And also, you know, I think it was fitting that we, we did this just a couple hours after there was a rally by our siblings in CWA with the United Campus workers.

17:19And I know we'll talk about that in just a second. We got a voicemail about that action as well. But you know, it was a real full circle, full circle moment, I think for different generations of the movement. And different generations of folks who aren't necessarily in the movement or would identify themselves as being part of the movement, but they're interested. Because they see that there's an importance to it. Like Whitney said, you know, a lot of our history is especially, you know, in high school and you think back to your whatever history you may have learned in your formal education. It was often about like president, straight leaders, generals, you know, important famous men who are often very wealthy. That often is, you know, the history we're told. But I think it's really important and motivating for us today to think about the fact that everyday folks just like us did remarkable things when they organized when they came together collectively.

18:21So we're really excited. It gave us some good momentum. I think long term, we would love to form a labor education and history organization for the state of Alabama. I know that some of our other states have these kind of organizations. Shout out to Illinois and Iowa. I know both have had thriving labor history scenes. We've got friends up in New York. I know doing some great work with labor history organizations. So I think there's a real opportunity for us to build on this to do future events, to build out more research, to get more materials and archives. And so I also want to just make my final plug here about it. Those of you who are participating in unions are have, you know, parents, grandparents, uncles, talk to them, get their stories recorded, get their memorabilia, get their documents, anything you can do to, you know, get these stories preserved because we don't want to lose these stories.

19:29And it's so important that the next generation knows where we came from and knows the struggles we've had to win what we have. And know our defeats like why things are getting worse. Well, you know, it's important that we have those stories documented. So yeah, really appreciate everybody who came together for that event. I'm really excited to see it happen was a bum that I wasn't able to go, but, you know, like you said, lots of support from all across the movement. I mean, you had people who were, you know, previously very high up in the AFL CIO and DC there. Down to, you know, rank and file union members who just joined their union like a few months ago. Right. Yeah. And that was really exciting. That was really exciting. I was really excited to see it happen was a bum that I wasn't able to go, but you know, like you said, lots of support from all across the movement. I mean, you had people who were, you know, previously very high up in the AFL CIO and DC there. Down to, you know, rank and file union members who just joined their union like a few months ago.

20:31So yeah, I think that's really exciting. That dynamic mix of people and I think that shows there's a lot of potential and there's a lot of interest in this like people want to know people want to know the stuff because we're not really told these stories growing up. Unless you're fortunate enough to grow up in a union household, right. And the union household where it's really talked about because even in some union households, these stories aren't really passed on. It's not necessarily like, you know, kitchen table talk or whatever. And so I will say I was really proud my daughter, I was able to come to to the event yesterday. So she can brag to her future professors that she hung out with Robin DG Kelly. So by the way, also mentioned the Valley Labor Report, I have to report. He is apparently a listener on Apple. So does he listening on Apple, make sure you give a five star review.

21:31So that felt really really cool just to know that folks that we have looked up to for years, find some value in this project. We're not scholars, we're not experts necessarily. We're just, you know, couple of union brothers. You think we need to preach the good word of solidarity. And it means a lot that, you know, folks, notice and care about what we're doing. We got a very funny email last week about the symposium, letting us know about it and saying that it sounds some, it really sounds like something that Adam would like. That's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah. I love that. Totally oblivious to the fact that like you're the one. Well, it was many, many hands make light work, but I love that. And also, that's funny because just recently I had another situation like that. Where someone was like, hey, did you hear about the UNA workers forming a new union? And I was like, yeah, yeah, I've heard about it.

22:32I may have been in the press release about it, because I was really proud. I'm really excited about it. United Campus workers is doing such great work, which I think is our next speaking of the United Campus workers. Wow, look at that. It's almost like we're, we're pros at this and have been doing it for over half a decade. Don't put it like that, man. Now you're setting the standards too high. Now you're getting expectations up. The campus workers held a rally yesterday ahead of the symposium. We got a voicemail from one of the organizers of that rally. That rally also covered in 1819 news, funny enough. But let's play clip three. This is Brooks House from United Campus workers at Auburn University. And I just wanted to leave a message to talk about the super successful visibility event that we hosted today outside of where the board of trustees that Auburn hosted their meeting.

23:33I'm a co-organizer in grad student workers here. The United Campus workers is our labor union that represents faculty staff and student workers. It's a wall to wall group. And we are currently campaigning to express that we are not. We do not agree with and we do not stand for the board of trustees actions from their gym set to meeting and we host you an event this morning. To basically get the word out that people are upset about this and that we wanted to. And we're not really thinking about people who are upset about this. So the visibility event was talking specifically about two policies that were passed on June 6th, one of which dissolved the university senate, which was the only body on Auburn campus that represented the faculty as a job class here.

24:42And we have changed the core curriculum, the board changed core curriculum in the history department with absolutely no faculty input. In responses to the United Campus workers has created a declaration of concern, which garnered 600 signatures in two weeks, in just two weeks in the past. And we have a lot of work to do as well as a UCW and jointly with American Association of University professors really the statement that we read this morning. We just wanted to get out there and express that faculty are, it is important that faculty has a say and shared governance. Auburn University to have a say in what is being taught in classrooms to be cutting edge to be the, to make sure that Auburn has cutting edge research and to teach the right things.

25:47And we have a lot of work to do as a classroom. So anyway, we've got a hundred coverage this morning. It was fantastic event as a hundred people attended. And I will send some links to Adam that has some more info about it. So, so appreciate that that voicemail from workers at Auburn University campus workers have been doing a lot of really cool stuff and glad to see their momentum continuing. If you work on a campus in Alabama, you should definitely join the UCW. Our other places, you know, depending on where you're at, you're not a campus workers is particularly strong in the south where there's not a large large union presence already on colleges and universities often because there's a lack of collective bargaining rights. You know, so, you know, a lot of academics who worked in other states and then come down to Alabama are really shocked at the conditions, right, they're shocked at the lack of input and, you know, not just the lack of contracts, but just the general environment in which they're operating.

27:04And so, you know, the more I've engaged with faculty in various universities across the state, it's clear they're facing a lot of pressures from various directions and, you know, it's getting worse and worse to work in higher education. I know that's not a unique to higher education, right, I mean, it feels like it's getting worse in a lot of industries, but that is definitely the case there. And so, I really am glad to hear that folks are organizing and coming together across classifications and looking out for each other, because they do like, especially in the university environment, I feel like they are really good at dividing folks based on skills and degrees and class. And classifications and right like, but at the end of the day, it does take everybody who's working on campus to make it a successful school and to make it a successful experience for students, which is what is supposed to be about, right, so, you know,

28:07really, really, yeah, I want to shout out, you know, in campus workers for their willingness to organize workers, where a lot of folks don't want to do that. And also, I want to lift up you eat for some of their work, particularly in North Carolina, where they've been organizing grad students and organizing in environments where, you know, it's tough and it's not, it's not easy to rain because of the law. But as we've talked about on the show a lot, like, it really doesn't matter too much, it matters, but it, you know, at the end of the day, if the government doesn't recognize you, if the boss doesn't recognize you, you can still be a union. If you were gathered together in solidarity, taking collective action to advance your interest as workers, you're a union. Yeah, well, one thing that I'm glad that I heard in the voicemail was cooperation with the AUP, and I actually noticed a last week that the AUP at UA sent out and a press release about some of the 10 year stuff, some of the same stuff that they were protesting yesterday at Auburn.

29:17And so it made me concerned because like, I think the United Campus workers are accepting professors at UA as members. So there's a little bit of like jurisdictional blurriness. I think you could be doing a little harder, you know, yeah, it's probably what it does a lot of folks do. Yeah, it doesn't seem like there's any any sort of like bad blood at this point. So hopefully there hopefully those jurisdictional lines get cleared out as more and more campus workers in this out. And in Alabama in particular, want to join the labor movement, you know, the doesn't become sort of a nasty turf war. That would be very detrimental. We're coming up on our first break. We got a great interview lined up for you here in just a few minutes. We're going to be talking to teak Wiggins of labor lab about their new tool to help beat union busters really excited for him to show you that. Also, obviously have last week in Southern labor coming up and more. If you'd like to call in, we'll go ahead and open the lines that film numbers 844899 TVLR that is 844899857. We'll be right back.

30:24The attorneys at Maple's Tucker and Jacobs have stood with the working people of Alabama for over 40 years providing skilled legal representation for your workplace injury claims. When you are injured on the job, it can be a scary time. The attorneys at Maple's Tucker and Jacobs have the experience to guide you through the process to make sure that you and your family are properly taken care of and your rights are protected. If you need help, call the attorneys at Maple's Tucker and Jacobs at 8556179333 or visit online at www.mtmj.com. No representation is made that the quality of legal services provided is greater than the quality of legal services provided by other law firms. Support for the Valley Labor Report comes from the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers Union. Learn more by visiting www.ifbt.org. Are you looking for a better future, a career that can have you set for life and to be a part of something that's bigger than yourself?

31:24If you are then consider a skilled trades apprenticeship with the International Union of Painters and Allied trades. The work of IU Pat is all around us from the industrial painters who work on the bridges to dry wall finishers, floor coverers, the glazers who install the glass in our skylines and so much more. With an IU Pat apprenticeship, you earn while you learn and receive benefits while learning the trade, including a pension. You provide world-class education free of charge. That's right, no student debt. Our starting salaries for apprentices that graduate is above the national median salary with benefits for entire families and you have the flexibility to take your trade wherever you'd like in the country to work. The Pat District Council 77 covers our entire region so give Adam Booth a call at 205-603-3142 for more information. Again that phone number is 205-603-3142. Come build a better future with us today and join IU Pat.

32:24We're the nurses, firefighters and claims representatives that help keep our government services running. We respond to natural disasters. We care for our nation's veterans and we investigate discrimination in the workplace. We are federal and D.C. government workers and we are proud to serve the American people. Working in more than 70 agencies across the government, we know we can fulfill our mission because our union has our back. Learn more at afge.org. Paid for by the American Federation of Government Employees AFL CIO. Since 1889 the National Association of Letter Carriers has protected the rights of city carriers as they deliver the mail and offer support for their community. The Alabama State Association of Letter Carriers makes their legislative voices heard when it comes to issues involving the U.S. Postal Service and the working members of the union. The National Association of Letter Carriers has been long time supporters of the Muscular Distrophy Association and the Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive.

33:29This message is sponsored by the Alabama Association of Letter Carriers to learn more, visit nalc.org. Unite here is also a supporter of the Valley Labor Report. They are a labor union that represents 300,000 working people across Canada and the United States. Their members work in the hotel, gaming, food service, manufacturing, textile, distribution, laundry, transportation and airport industries. You can learn more about Unite here at unite here.org. I'm on your poor work, first good news to you, my town. How the good old union has come in here to hell. That's right folks, from the mountains of Tennessee to the bayous of Louisiana. Broadcasting online and on the radio from the heart of the Tennessee Valley, the Spice Radio Studios and Huntsville Alabama.

34:30This is the Valley Labor Report. My name is Jacob Morrison. My co-host is Adam Keller. Today on the program we just talked about the Alabama Labor History Symposium in Auburn. Also talked about some Huntsville City Council news. We are soon going to be talking to Teak Wiggins of Labor Lab about their new tool to beat back the union busters. All that and more on today's program. If you'd like to call in the phone numbers 844899 TVLR that is 8448998857. You can also send a text to that number. Leave us a voice mail at any time or send us a note at tvlar.fm-contact. If you haven't gotten enough of us by the time that we wrap up here on the radio or if you just want to see what we're up to throughout the week, you can find us anywhere you find anything online. We are also on YouTube, Facebook and wherever you get your podcasts all at the Valley Labor Report. Just a reminder your support helps us stay on the air at a huge portion of our funding comes directly from our listeners.

35:35So if you want to become a sustaining donor to the program or make a one time donation, you can go to tvlar.fm-donate or patreon.com. We've got a bunch of cool merch for sale at tvlar.fm-store and finally, if you're a member of a union, you should get your local, your district council, your region or your international sponsor to the show. You can reach out to us for more details on that. Hey, all that me added disclaimer that any viewpoints or opinions expressed in this program belong solely to their author and do not necessarily represent any organization or sponsor. And we want to welcome all of our listeners, whether you're on YouTube, Facebook, WVNN, WZZA, WHIV, WGOW, WMSP, WCPT, KTNF, MeansTV or through your favorite podcast app. Wow, we keep adding stations. We're going to have to change this at some point. We're also proud to be part of the Labor Radio Podcast Network and encourage our listeners to check that out at laborradionetwork.org.

36:36As most of you know, we are not media professionals. Just a few diehard unionists who want to amplify the voices of the working class in the American South. We're hoping this project can make a difference on that front and we can't do it without you. So we want to thank everyone for tuning in whether you're a loyal fan or a first-time listener. We appreciate your spin some time with us. Yeah, we haven't added the newest station WBDY in Binghamton, New York. So now who would have guessed we would be on the air in New York, Minneapolis and Chicago just a few years ago. Who would have imagined? All right. That's right. I think people recognize that we've got to organize the South. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool being on now. What is that? Eight radio stations in six states, eight radiosations in six states. That's pretty nice. How many do you think that we need to get on before we stop listing every station? I don't know. Let us know in the chat. Is it too long? Is it already too long? How many more do we need to add?

37:40And just a friendly reminder, if you've got connections at a radio station and would like to help us get on the air wherever you're at or wherever you know people, we would love to do that. We partner with all kinds of radio stations, some conservative, some progressive, some for-profit, some nonprofit, you know, a real mix of, you know, geographies and demographics. So any kind of radio station that is interested in airing some or all of this program, we are happy to try to work something out with them because we think it's important to reach folks on the radio. We love our online audience. We really do. We appreciate all of the folks who listen on podcasts, YouTube, Facebook, all that good stuff. But there is something special about being on the radio and just getting random folks are being on in the shop or in the store and knowing that, you know, we might just reach someone who wouldn't have otherwise been exposed to this message.

38:45So we appreciate all the support. Can't do it without all of y'all who, you know, share our stuff, donate and just tell people about the program. It really means a lot. Yep, absolutely. Every week in the South workers organize new unions, they bargain for new contracts, they fight for good legislation and against bad legislation and they put the boss in their place. These are some of the stories that we could find from September 4th to the 11th. This is last week in Southern life. Over the last week, 233 workers in seven bargaining units have gone public with their union campaigns, 30 workers across three bargaining units withdrew their petition for a union election. And 59 workers across four bargaining units unionized here are the details in new union campaign 17 workers at two lane university in New Orleans, Louisiana filed a petition to hold a union election with workers united 150 workers at American farmland trust in Washington DC filed a petition to hold a union election with the service employees in a national union SEIU local 500.

40:0216 workers at slash pine EMC and Homerville, Georgia filed a petition to hold a union election with the international brotherhood of electrical workers, IBEW local 84. 10 workers at unity health care in Washington DC filed a petition to hold a union election with 1199 SEIU united health care workers east three workers at equipment share dot com in Columbia, Missouri filed a petition to hold a union election with the teamsters local 688. 4 workers at Johnson controls in Bosnia city Louisiana filed a petition to hold a union election with the United Association of plumbers and pipe fitters UAs rode sprinkler fitters local 669. 33 workers at TRDI training rehabilitation and development institute in Lexington, Kentucky filed a petition to hold a union election with the international association of machinists and aerospace workers I am a W.

41:02In election results 12 workers at the inkwell press in New Orleans, Louisiana voted 9 to 0 in favor of unionization with the teamsters local 270 18 workers at the Ziganfelder company and Wheeling West Virginia voted 4 to 13 against unionization with the international union of painters and allied trades IUPAT district council 53. 14 workers at Pinola Harrison electric cooperative in Marshall, Texas withdrew their petition with the IBEW local 738 16 workers at Starbucks corporation in Conway, Arkansas voted 14 to 1 in favor of unionization with Starbucks workers united. 29 workers at the Karns fire department in Knoxville, Tennessee voted 14 to 0 in favor of unionization with the United firefighters of Karns local 4900 and IAFF affiliate two workers at children's hospital in Washington DC voted 1 to 0 in favor of unionization with the district of Columbia nurses association.

42:20In strikes and bargaining updates the communication workers of America CWA southeast announced that they have a tentative agreement covering thousands of workers at direct TV. The agreement includes a 14% pay increase over four years along with increased time off however health insurance costs are set to rise in the agreement union members are reviewing the proposal. Now and will be voting on it between now and September 25th the current agreement was reached in 2023 after a strike authorization. The IBT staff council the union representing organizers said the international brotherhood of teamsters IBT say that after initially agreeing to bargaining dates months after they organized which would be a violation of Sean O'Brien's pet political project the faster labor contracts act. IBT unilaterally canceled those dates and has so far refused to offer new ones we talked we talked to leaders of the staff council on the show a few weeks back and they talked about how they are fighting for basic rights and protections that basically every union worker has already and the IBT still won't negotiate with them.

43:37If you're a teamster you should tell your union to bargain in good faith with their staff and you can tell the IBT staff council that you support them by following them on Facebook. The Florida farm workers who grow your house plants are demanding their employer protect workers on the job the farm workers organized with the farm workers association of Florida delivered a petition to cost of farms the largest producer of house plants in the world which sells plants directly to customers. And for a big retail outlets like Amazon lows target etc. calling on their employer to implement protection measures against extreme heat pesticide wage theft and sexual harassment workers point to a new report that found 86% of Florida plant nursery workers experienced accidents or injuries on the job nearly half said they have never received any help or safety training from their employer. McKinney Schuhler at the Orlando weekly has more the title of the piece is called worlds largest house plant company faces pressure to sign on to worker protections you should check it out.

44:46In political and legislative updates the Trump administration is attempting to do away with decades of long standing with decades with the decades long standard of objective and merit based system of performance evaluations and repression. And replace it with a system that does not allow supervisors to rate more than a certain percentage of employees highly even if all those employees met the objective standard for a high rating that would be the effect of a new rule that was finalized by the office of personnel management OPM federal unions have challenged the new rule in court with the American Federation of government employees AFGE noting that the civil service reform act CSRA requires. That all performance ratings be based on an objective assessment of an employee's actual performance and that by grading on a forced curve OPM would ensure that this does not happen in every case.

45:48The union said that this rating system would create an open path to exactly the type of favoritism that the merit system principles are designed to avoid. If we missed anything, let us know at tvlr.fm slash contact and subscribe to the newsletter at tvlr.fm to get last week in southern labor in your inbox every single week. Yes, we've got our guest in the zoom now. Teak Wiggins is the strategic coordinator for labor lab. Teak welcome to the program. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate you taking the time you have an exciting new tool to help workers and union organizers during campaigns. Can you talk to us about the tool and what it does? We'd love to. So we've rolled out two tools that we think will be helpful resources to a whole lot of workers who are organizing a union buster search tool and a union bus and cost calculator.

46:52So let's talk about the union buster search tool. So that tool brings together data from different government databases about both attorneys and consultants and it makes it possible to search for those consultants and attorneys and see statistics on them so you can recognize. Patterns and their activity unions that they tend to go up against employers that they have worked for in the past with previous databases government database it wasn't possible to do that at all for attorneys and it was like you could technically do it for consultants, you know trying to find individual consultants, but it was very hard. So I think these search functions can be quite valuable. Maybe most of all because they make it easy for workers to like I said identify unions who have faced a particular union buster in the past. And then to contact them to hear about the experience and learn about their tactics.

47:57And then at the time this, you know, this tool just underscores that these are, these really are hired guns that we're talking about who are deploying like a carefully on set of tactics that they use after employer after employer after employer and you can just see the history right there on their page. So you can see right there that they charge $500 an hour, maybe that they repaid $100,000 by your employer the previous year and again, yeah, every engagement they've ever reported. So we're excited about this because we believe it could foster more communication and cooperation across unions and between workers. And helping workers prepare for and anticipate the style, the tactics and the messaging of an attorney or consultant. You know, they're there, there's like sort of a template that they draw on, but it's adapted to different contexts and consultants do have their own style, their own framings and you can learn about those by contacting unions who you can see have faced them before.

49:07So the other tool is a union bus and cost calculator and we view this as a tool that compensates for the fact that employers and consultants. Overwhelmingly ignore or circumvent a legal requirement that they report the use of third party consultants to indirectly or directly persuade workers not to unionize along with the payments made or received for such services. And so our calculator accomplishes this by allowing workers to generate reasonable estimates of those fees, but it doesn't only generate estimates of like attorney and consultant fees. It also captures a range of hidden additional hidden costs, including the pay time of supervisors and workers that's lost to anti union meetings surveillance and other activities. As well as like the productivity losses that tend to result from campaigns like anti union campaigns due to like the negative impact on morale and the tension and distraction that they can cause.

50:12And so workers are able to use the calculator to see how much like, you know, while they're in the middle of campaigns, how much their employer spending per day. Take that number and show them the estimate the breakdown and say we know, you know, we know you're spending this, this much money. Stop, just stop. Save the money, get rid of the consultant, give us a raise in a first contract, stop paying a hired gun, $500 an hour to manipulate us. You know, past research, our independent research. It reveals that employers are spending, you know, about $4,000 per worker, typically. Sometimes $10,000 or more per worker. And it's just like, hey, boss, what are you doing? We're telling you that we need this money. Let us make up our mind for ourselves, save the money for us. Right. And we just want to make one more point about the calculator.

51:14You know, we put a lot of time into making sure the like default assumptions and the whole framework is quite rigorous. And that's because we really do want these estimates to be as accurate as possible. We want it. We want the calculator to be taken seriously. Not only by unions, but by employers, by journalists, by social scientists. You know, why do we want to take and seriously by employers? Because there actually are small and small employers that can get scammed by consultants and attorneys. They have no idea what they're getting into. They get called when a petition is filed by three consultants who tell them union will absolutely destroy their business. And so they end up spending vast sums of money, you know, like $10,000 or more per worker. And then they lose. What was the point now they don't have that money. So to that end, just just to sort of demonstrate the rigor to this calculator and the default estimates. We've published a 28 page explanation of our recommended defaults with 64 end notes. And this is kind of the product of my research on union bussing as a PhD student for the last five years.

52:25So the assumptions behind our calculator are like really grounded in research and a variety of sources. So it's there for the skeptics. And I also just want to thank one one person in particular for helping design the calculator. Their name is Chris Rosenthal. And without them, it wouldn't have been possible to put this all together. It's a very exciting tool. You're going to be giving us like you're going to be sharing your screen. I think that we're going to be able to allow you to do that. And you're going to go through, you know, like how people can use it. But before we do that, you know, can you remind us, and you did it a little bit there. But, but why is this something that's necessary? Why did you spend all this time doing this research into your default assumptions? Why did you spend all this time putting the tool together? You know, what are some of the things that you all are trying to combat here? Yeah. I could go on about this for a long time. So please cut me off if you feel like we've covered this topic enough, right?

53:30But so, yeah, due to Lou Poles, a legal disregard of the law, an absolutely pathetic enforcement. So, you know, somewhere between one and five percent of consultant activity is reported within the required 30 day window. And even less of it is reported before the union election actually takes place, right? If workers can't access the disclosure before the union election, then the data is basically worthless. So, when these disclosures are available, they can have a big impact on campaigns. And I'll just go into like a little history here. So in 1959, Congress passed this disclosure law after public hearings showed that the tactics that were used by consultants and employers against unions at the time were as like congressional committee said, reprehensible. And so, I'm going to say, as a result, all of this should be exposed to public view. And the thinking here was that these disclosures should prompt workers to wrestle with some important questions, right?

54:40Do the anti-union messages I'm receiving from my supervisors reflect their organic views? Or do they instead reflect a script that has been carefully honed over decades to so as much fear and doubt as possible with the help of industrial psychologists. You know, another question it raises. If I should oppose a union because it's a third party that will destroy the familiar relations, familiar relations of the workplace, why is my employer brought in a third party to tell me this? I guess my employer isn't opposed to the involvement of third parties so much as, you know, in principle, so much as they're opposed to an organized workforce. Right. And why is that it? If my employer doesn't have the money to pay us more as, you know, as they've been maybe saying it also begs the question, why are they spending $5,000 per worker and consultants? Why not give me a 10% raise instead?

55:40I think, you know, the most important question is it just kind of crystallizes this puzzle. What is my employer investing in exactly? Why is it burning so much money on this? What is the return on the investment from my employer? And the answer, of course, as we all know, is that workers who you who can use their collective bargaining power tend to improve their wages, benefits and working conditions, because they gain some power over their employer. They end the unfettered like authoritarian rule of their employers over their working lives. Employers generally don't like that. And that's why they're investing so heavily in these hired guns and incurring all these additional costs. You know, speaking to the power of the questions that these disclosures raise, in actual anti-union consultant, I wrote down this quote, has said that in their opinion, if this disclosure law function does intended, the entire union avoidance industry would have trouble surviving.

56:54And so in their memoir, quote, had it not been for a couple well placed loopholes, those disclosure provisions could have snuffed out the entire consulting industry in its infancy. These loopholes are shameful, enormous gaping errors in the law that have left room for a sleazy billion dollar industry to plot through. So, you know, as referenced, like the loopholes and poor enforcement, due to that, workers were supposed to learn about consultants that their employers hired and how much their employer is spending on them basically never never learn this information basically ever. And our calculators designed to correct for that information deficit and it goes a step further actually because what what people don't realize is that there are a range of other potentially huge costs and employers choose to bear when they conduct an anti-union campaign in addition to expenditures on consultants and attorneys. And our calculator estimates those costs, you know, including paid time loss of the campaign productivity losses.

58:01The fact is like research shows the, you know, the campaign leaders that are in house, like the HR manager, they're often spending their entire time on the anti-union campaign during the campaign period. That's a lot of paid time, you know, they could have been spent on their actual jobs. Frontline supervisors, they spend around one to two hours every day as the foot soldiers mobilized often against their will to conduct these campaigns. So the calculator factors in all those costs and I can give like a couple of examples and show you how it works if you want. Yes, absolutely. And you know, while you're giving those examples, remind people how big that, you know, this, you put out a report a few weeks ago, or maybe it was a couple of months ago now, you know, time is sort of flying together for me.

59:01But last year, you all estimated that a minimum, you know, and you're going to get to all these other sort of costs that get added to a union bus and campaign, but at minimum employers spent $1.7 billion, busting unions last year. How did you come to that number and what are, you know, what are some of the examples of like really huge spending that stick out in your mind? Yeah, so I invite people to read the report if they want to sort of understand how we got to that number, but, you know, part of it was looking at the market share of the largest union avoidance law firms and then figuring out what percentage of their attorneys are in their labor practice. And then using that data to calculate the value of the total market, as well as extrapolating from, um, the annual disclosures filed by consultancies, basically, you know, those are the two building blocks, but the report was done with the EPI and yeah, it's shocking and I encourage people to read it and assess it.

1:00:18Oh, and you you're interested in a couple campaigns, I think I can do that by just showing you how the tool works and I'll just show you some campaigns right there are really expensive. Okay, should I get to it and let's share the screen. Okay, I'm going to send a request for sharing. Sorry, I thought that that was already enabled our board ob should be able to. I got it now, I think great. Okay. Um, so for folks listening, you know, if you want to get the full effect of this, you're going to want to go online, but obviously we're going to be cognizant of the fact that we're on the radio and so there are some people who are listening on the radio or on podcasts who are only going to hear this in audio format. So I'm going to talk you through it as we go. But, you know, if you want to get the full effect, you should come on, come on Facebook, watch the YouTube video stuff like that.

1:01:18Yeah, so here's a notable campaign. We had, it was at pie Barker and safety, you can see that me highlighting that there. I'm just thinking sure. So that's a campaign. So, you know, we'll go over to our calculator and just for the board, I should just go to him for this. You should just have him in the not me. Okay, great. Yeah, I think I'm. So you can see my screen now. Yeah, there you go. Okay, so, you know, you go to the NLRB filing and there's some information there. This is a campaign at pie Barker fire and safety. So, let's go into our calculator. You enter the number of workers we can see in the NLRB petition. It was eight. We enter like average pay rate. You can find average pay rates for particular jobs, salary.com, zip recruiter, etc. It was a 26, I think, according to zip recruiter for the particular.

1:02:26Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but obviously if you are, if you're in one of these workplaces and you only have eight co workers, right? You probably have an even better idea of what the average pay is than glass door does. Yes, definitely. Okay, so then you start. You enter the, the campaign. You can see here on the NLRB case stock it. You can see where the. You know, when it was filed. And so it was a maybe 20 seconds. So we have that here. You can see the attorneys. Right. So you enter the attorneys in. We've got Brendan Fitzgerald, a little or Mendelssohn. Our default assumptions would hold that he's charging around $600 an hour. And then you enter the weekly hours under our default assumptions because there are three attorneys here. That would be 7.5 hours each.

1:03:26So we have two more attorneys, 7.5, 7.5. You know, it's $600 for partners, $300 or $250 for associates. These are where all partners as I understand it. Then we're at the consultant box. So in addition to these three attorneys for a unit of eight, they also hired an anti-union consultant. His name was Marcus Jordan. And we can see. His filing. You can search all MS for these filings. And here's the filing for this case. And you can see Marcus Jordan down here. And then because this case was like last year and the employer did file a report, we can actually enter the exact amount of money that the employer reported. So in that form, we see the money that they paid for this particular engagement in total.

1:04:27It was $80,164. So then we have the information for the consultant in house campaign leaders. So this is where we will lean on default assumptions, unless we have direct knowledge of the campaign, which workers will have. So we, with a unit of eight, we assume only one in house, like supervisor is running the campaign. You know, some manager, $67 an hour is the average wage for an HR manager. So that's like our default. Normally, there are like other supervisors and managers, you know, frontline that we would add in there. But we're assuming there weren't any of this campaign up here. We assume four hours for the campaign leader a day. We don't have any supervisors workers. We assume an hour per week is lost to like anti-union meetings. And that's 10 minutes a day.

1:05:3312 minutes a day, which is 0.2 hours. So we enter 0.2 hours there. Productivity loss studies have shown it's like between two and like 15%. We conservatively set it at 5%. Fees and materials. And then here we are with our estimate. And we're going to have almost $20,000 per worker, 158,000 in total. And I mean, for a unit of high people, right, just just to remind folks, a bargaining unit of eight people. Right. So that's the equivalent of a 42% raise around that for this for across the unit. Yeah. And so that's one campaign. But something I want to highlight to just show that our, you know, assumptions are reasonable. You know, we had the exact amount for the consultant here. Normally you don't. And so you enter.

1:06:35Based on. Maybe an LM 20 they filed, which is like, you know, supposed to be filed shortly after the engagement, which just is an hourly rate. But so yeah, you use an hourly, hourly rate, you know, it's a full time job eight hours a day. You set set the start date, you know, when they're recited or the petition date, the end date is the election. If we used our assumptions here, we actually would have assumed estimated that $68,000 was paid for this guy's services, not 82,000. Right. And then another campaign, I'll just jump over to you a sugar, so you a sugar Savannah refinery. So, you know, it was, it was just two attorneys that were on the NLRB case, stock it with ogle tree. And we, you know, assumed 12 hours for each attorney per week, and that ended up to 30,000 over the campaign. And there is an LM 10 disclosure that showed that they'd actually spent close to $500,000, not 30,000, $500,000 on attorneys.

1:07:39And it wasn't just ogle tree, there were two other law firms that were involved. And so that just shows that, you know, this is often understeeding the cost. What we would have estimated with the consultants also was lower than what was reported ended up being reported. So, this is a large unit and it shows it could still be a lot per worker. We haven't inputed everything here. Our calculator estimated 2500. The actual cost as reported through LM 10s was $5,000 per worker and more. And I could show you one more campaign if you want or, but just real quick, if that's all right. Yeah, yeah, go ahead. So, you know, those were sort of not giant. Well, I don't know if you wish sugar or Savannah or whatever is a huge employer, but we do know auto zone is a big employer.

1:08:44It's like more than 100,000 employees. Right now, there's a union election that's about to take place on September 24th, the 25th. It's the first store election at an auto zone. Big deal. Could catch on. It's only 11 workers. They're paid. And the inputs here are based on interviews with multiple workers and organizers who have taken notes on the campaign. So this is pretty precise information. It's 11 workers. $18 pay rate. Actually heard average was 30 hours per week. So, you know, if you have the petition, you know, filing date. The campaign is ongoing. So this is an example of where you can sort of calculate it in real time, right? The cost. Not all the money has been spent yet. We've got the two attorneys here. That have been involved. And that's just like a relatively small cost compared to the internal costs. So what auto zone is done and what these like gigantic employers can do is.

1:09:46They often don't use consultants. They just have full time anti union specialists that they deploy. Like a swat team. Sometimes they're like called swat teams. Like, you know colloquially. And. Here, we, we know that based on like because they were wearing name tags, auto zone deployed 17. So you know, which is the main thing that happens in the program. Like those agencies, regional or national managers to union buses, unit of 11. On top of store manager and assistant manager. And these people are paid pretty well. And so, you know, again, we used salary.com, etcetera, etcetera. One of them sold 4.5 million dollars of stock. A day or two after he gave a captive audience speech, which is interesting. But so we had to precise dates of like when they were around or like. if we didn't know like exact departure date, that kind of thing. Anyway, we filled it out all their names.

1:10:47And then we come to, we also didn't assume a product to be lost because it wasn't quite clear whether there was any kind of loss. Anyway, you can see here, our SM is $18,000 per worker, which they are not very well paid. So that's around a 65% raise across the unit. So yeah. That's insane. It is insane. I mean, I'm hopeful that these workers see this and are able to see this tool before they vote on the end. And that's exactly why this tool is so important to make sure that people get this information before they vote so that they can have all the information in their hand. You know, I mean, unions have to disclose this kind of information. If you see a union organizer working on your campaign, you can go right now and look up their name and see how much money

1:11:49they are making from the union. But it's much more difficult to get that for these kinds of consultants. So, you know, people should, you know, people should know how much the bosses are paying. And if I knew that my boss said instead of giving Jacob a 65% raise, heck, I'd even take, I'd even take a 50% raise. You know, instead of doing that, I'm going to pay some attorneys a huge amount of money to bust this union. I would be upset about that. Yeah. Also, did you want to see the union bus research tool real quick? Yes. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. So, yeah, search.laborlab.us. You can type in any employer, consultancy, attorney, et cetera. So, just as an example, there's a consultancy called road warrior productions. They do a lot of work for Amazon. You can go to the profile page, see their highest disclosed rate.

1:12:53That's 3,800 a day. That's kind of what they're charging. All this other data, you know, how much they've reported in total income, like over over the years. They're latest filings, you know, the companies that have hired them most recently. You can see the unions that they target the most often. Most often, the employers that they've worked for most often, the actual performers of the services that they contract this business to, you know, these are the individuals. And then you can go down and see more detail on all the results. And we actually automatically match these forms to NLRB representation cases. So, you can see, you know, what union election was sort of being disrupted through these engagements and eventually calculate maybe the cost per worker. You can also see here that they're all, you know, these have all been filed late.

1:13:55I mean, it's good that they've been filed because usually nothing is filed, but they're also filed late. And often that's, you know, that comes after the election. You know, it's, I think we calculate is 82% of these are filed late. And most of them are not filed at all, right? I mean, what a joke. What an insult to the rule of law. And, you know, you can go in on the individuals. So, this guy, Michael Rosado, same kind of information. I'll show you like for law firms, little or Mendelssohn has the most market share. You can actually see their win rate. And, you know, the win rate can include withdrawn petitions. We just asked people to sign up for an account and they're prompted to make a donation. They don't have to, but, you know, this cost money. So, and, you know, you can file based on representation cases. ULP cases.

1:14:57And here are all the cases that they've worked on recently. And you'll also see if there's a match to an LM-24, like, you know, if there was a consultant who appeared to work on the case, we'll indicate that. I'm not seeing any right here. Again, you can go, you can go to a particular individuals. Local unions, you know, they've gone up against carpenters, local 152, a bunch of times. Let's see. Oh, well, this is only one representation case. So, there have been a lot of ULP where they've dealt with this local. So, yeah, and then I'll just like type in an employer as an example. Amazon, we, you know, we see what it's reported spending is kind of annually. It automatically tallies it. This is reported spending. It's nothing near like the actual true cost of all the union busing is done.

1:16:0161 million is the total reported on these consultants. You know, the law firms that it's hired, the locals, it's win rate. You know, it's pretty unfortunate. It's a behemoth that's quite difficult to unionize. And all the cases affecting it, including all these ULP, ULP is charged. We also have like links to the like original sources, you know, like with the consultants, we have the agreements that they might submit, like right here, see attached agreement. Right. And, you know, here is the actual agreement that the consultant entered into with the employer. So, yeah. And we also, you know, are encouraging people to share information that they might have.

1:17:01And you can click a button to share any information you have about a particular consultant. Because, you know, like we're, you know, different pockets of the labor movement are constantly facing the same people. And like we should be able, we should be able to communicate everything that has been learned through all of these different campaigns about a particular consultant. And that's what this project can begin to facilitate. Tick, this is an incredible tool. Y'all over at Labor Lab have clearly done a lot of work on this. And I'm so excited for y'all to be releasing this tool. I know you've been working on it for a very long time. Thank you so much for walking us through this and for all the work that you've put into this tool. Is there anything else that you want to leave us with before we let you go? Yeah. Um, you know, uh, we, we operate based on a donation only model.

1:18:03And there's more and more kind of demand for our research assistance. There are all of these other like research projects and tools that we, uh, we know would be helpful to the labor movement. But we do have very limited capacity. And so it would be really helpful if people who use this tool also choose to donate on a monthly basis. And, uh, and, and also, you know, please like share with us what you learn about these consultants, about these attorneys, how likely is an attorney to settle a UOP case? Um, you know, what, what, what is the sort of, sort of, schtick of like, you know, a particular union buster? Share that with us so we can share it with, you know, workers who face them in the future. And, and if people want to like help us with some of these research projects, there's, there's a lot that could be done. And, um, there's a lot of, uh, great research that, um, you know,

1:19:09movement participants can, can help us with. Teak Wiggins is a strategic coordinator at labor lab. Teak, thank you so much for your time. Thank you. We're going to take a break folks. We'll be right back. If you want a good paying union job in construction or nuclear plant maintenance in North Alabama, then you need to talk to the laborers, international union of North America, Lyuna, local 366. They're recruiting for jobs right now. So if you're interested, please apply online at Lyuna local 366.com or call their hiring hall at 256-383-2466. That's 256-383-2466. No experiences needed and we offer free training, but you must be able to pass a background check and a drug test. Local hiring that grows our community with good paying jobs and benefits is our mission.

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1:23:15you'll keep your members informed and engaged 24-7. Get union active today, visit unionactive.com to learn more. Union active, the ultimate website and communication system for unions. I'm on you poor workers, good news to you my town, how the good old union has come in here due to hell. Labor creates all wealth, all wealth should go to labor and you're listening to the valley labor report. My name is Jacob Morrison. My co-host is Adam Keller. If you're tuning in online, go ahead and like this stream, subscribe to the channel, give us five stars if you're listening to us as a podcast. We're coming up on the end of the first half of the program, but find us online at the valley labor report on YouTube or Facebook to continue watching or listening. We got a great second half of the program lined up for you. We're going to be talking to Eigen Smalley. She is the president of IFBTE local 777 in Chicago about some of those new rules that the OPM is promulgating for

1:24:17federal employee performance evaluations. The lines are open. Give us a call for 844 899 TVLR, the design 44899 88857. You can also send a text to that number or send us a written note at tvlar.fm-slash-contact. We'll take calls as soon as we get into the second half of the program. Adam, if you got some plugs for us. Just two September 22nd and Huntsville District 3 is the runoff municipal election for City Council. Don't forget, make sure you have your plans to vote and remind folks in your network to vote. It's very important. It's a low turnout election. Go to labornotes.org slash events. They've got some great trainings coming up over the next few weeks. Definitely worth checking out. Absolutely. Appreciate everybody watching us online. Pinker Bell on YouTube said this is a great tool. Union Gus said, someone is forwarding this clip to the AutoZone organizers. I think labor lab is already in touch with them, but if not, I'm sure they will be.

1:25:20We need intelligence. We have to have tools of intelligence and networks of intelligence on our opponents. They're doing that. I think that's really important. The work that labor lab is doing. Go to laborlab.us. Check them out. Book market. Share it with friends. Share it with organizers. It is a really great resource for the movement. Let's see. I think we'll probably, we can wait to do boss watch in the second half of the program. Again, 844-899-TVLR is the phone number if anybody wants to call in. Any final thoughts that you had, Adam, we got two or three minutes left about the symposium that you did in Auburn. Anything else that you would want to add for folks? Yeah. One of the things that we talked a lot about was oral history and how important that is. I know we kind of mentioned it a little bit, but that's

1:26:23something I think we could do a lot more of, not just in Alabama, but across the labor movement. Shout out to the Southern labor archives at Georgia State University. They had a couple folks in attendance and that's the largest archive in the south of labor materials. The IAM host their archive there. I was not aware. That was a little fun fact I learned yesterday. Make sense being a Southern Union that they would be in the south. I found it in Georgia. And the AFLCIO was involved in getting that archive off the ground at Georgia State years ago because they recognized like, you know what? We should probably do this. The other side is doing this. Like, you know, the state does this, industry does this. Why wouldn't we preserve our history? And like I said earlier, you know, knowing that history is really relevant to today and to the future. Both to give us the encouragement,

1:27:25the lessons learned, and just, you know, the recognition that like folks have done this before, often in much tougher circumstances than we're enduring today. And so knowing that and something else that was really interesting was about the union busting that came up in multiple panels and conversations. As I mentioned, a lot of the records are actually coming from industry. And so there are records in various archives that we talked to yesterday of union busting going back decades, decades. In some cases, like even before the industry kind of really formalized in the 50s, preachers also being used very, very, you know, prominently in union busting like in the textile mills in particular in the south. And so that's part of why, you know, faith and labor work is really important, I think, in building relationships between faith leaders and congregations and the labor

1:28:28movement because folks will try to divide us. And it's really important that we have power on our side and people power. So, you know, this past Sunday was labor Sunday, all month of September, there's a great time to do a labor in the pulpit presentation, go speak to a local congregation, really, I think that's an important initiative that AFL CIO runs. And so yeah, I think we need to do more oral history. And I love getting good labor history stories. So definitely hit us up with those. All right, folks, that's going to be it for the first half of the program. If you are listening to us on the radio, you can find us online for the second half. That's Facebook and YouTube at the Valley Labor Reports. We're going to be talking to Igin Smalley about the new federal employee performance evaluation criteria. It's really bad. We'll also be talking about some other federal worker stuff. Igin is the president of IAPTE local 777 looking forward to talking to

1:29:35them about this. And yeah, so if you don't do that though, we appreciate your time. We'll see you next week.