Stuff You Should Know - SYSK Selects: How Labor Unions Work

Episode Date: April 18, 2020

Yes, it's true: Unions have a shady mob-related past and were originally championed by anarchists. Born from medieval trade guilds, these organizations also helped grow the American economy, and not only protected but established workers' rights. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye.

Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hey everyone, since it's political season, I thought for this Saturday's select, we'd go back in time to May 22, 2012, and learn a little bit about labor unions. That's bound to be a hot topic in debates,

and as we ramp up to the primary season, or through the primary season, into the dreaded November date. But give it a listen, educate yourselves on how labor unions work, right now. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. Hey and welcome to the podcast.

I'm Josh Clark with me as always is Charles W. Chuck Bryant, which makes this Stuff You Should Know. Heck no, we won't go. That's different. Heck no, we won't record. That's more along the lines of what we're talking about. Better pay for podcasters.

Yeah, as a matter of fact, we could get together with like Adam Curry, and Joe Rogan, and maybe even Ira, and form like some sort of local. He would be our Jimmy Hoffa. Yeah. Ira would be. Is that a threat?

No. Are you threatening Ira Glass? No, he would be our Jimmy Hoffa. He would make things happen. James P. Hoffa? The one that the current Teamsters president? Either one. I'm not saying get rid of him.

Barry, I'm a giant stadium. I'm saying Ira would make it happen. He would break legs. Oh, okay. If need be. Well, he's well known for that kind of thing. There's a leg breaking goon. So for those of you who've already seen the title of this,

you understand the banter, I guess? Sure. If you have no idea what we're talking about, I'll bet you guessed by now that we're talking about labor unions today. Yeah. It's a good one, man. We had this requested last year from Skonys

when the whole Wisconsin-Scott Walker thing. I know, and we're just now getting to it because the Scott Walker thing is like my intro. Well, let's hear it. So you remember last year in Wisconsin? Yes. There was this big hubbub that was going on. A lot of people were wondering if this is going to be

like the beginning of the Arab Spring in the United States. This is going to be the flash point for it because Governor Scott Walker was accused of trying to de-unionize the public sector employees, state employees through a little bit of legislation that he was trying to introduce. That is very true, and it causes quite a stir, like thousands of protesters.

Yeah, there was some serious protests going on. And at the heart of this whole thing was some legislation where he was trying to get the public sector employees' unions to get their union members, e.g., the public, or IE, the public sector employees. Yes. IE means that is, EG is, for example. I realize that.

To basically pay in half of their pensions. Yeah. To give up some other concessions, like if they were going to get a raise, it had to be through public referendum. Yeah, anything over a rate of inflation, I think. Yeah. But probably the biggest one was that they were stripped

of their ability to collectively bargain. Yeah, that was the big one. And it worked, it got pushed through, and now if you are a state employee union member in Wisconsin, you can't collectively bargain anymore, which means you are effectively neutered as a union member in a lot of ways. True.

A lot of the hallmarks of the unions. And depending on where you come from, what you believe, who raised you, whether or not your grandpa was still alive when you were old enough to understand what he was talking about. I think that largely depends on how you feel about unions. A lot of people think they're a good thing.

A lot of people think they're bad. A lot of people think they're necessary. A lot of people think they're evil. A lot of people think they're a necessary evil. And in fact, they're kind of America as it stands, is kind of split down the middle these days. A Pew poll that was taken during this whole hub in Wisconsin showed that 45% of Americans

had a positive view of organized labor. Okay. Which I found surprising. You thought that was high? Yeah, I was surprised because the decline of union has also been attended by a change in perception toward them, like they're kind of bad or that they hamstring business is another big one.

But they also found that 51% still believe unions are needed to improve working people's lives. So necessary evil. I nailed it. You did. And unsurprisingly, a lot of times your feelings on unions are drawn along political lines these days. Yeah.

They're often accused of being like the, an organizing backbone for the Democratic Party. Sure. But that's not always true. Like very frequently unions throw their weight and their support behind Republicans as well. Sure. At any rate, let's get to the bottom of what all this is.

Are unions good? We're probably going to avoid this kind of qualitative descriptor and instead just kind of stick to the facts and let the people decide. Power to the people to decide whether unions are good or not. I think that's a good move, Josh. Thank you. So we got stats.

We'll get to those later. Unions, Josh, Industrial Revolution is kind of where, actually, we could go back further, which we will, with what, medieval times? Yeah, the trade guilds. Trade guilds sort of were the beginning seeds of unions. And they originally sort of came about, though, just to swap techniques and recipes.

And then that sort of evolved a bit into, hey, why don't we get together and also share, aside from our knowledge, get together and maybe share expertise on how to do things better and get better wages maybe. Or fix prices, that's one before they figured out that that was immoral. And this is medieval Europe, a long time ago.

Yeah. And the trade guilds were definitely the origin of unions. It's just a bunch of workers getting together and figuring out, because this is essentially what a union is, that they have more strength than numbers. Exactly. And it's also an indication of workers

understanding their value in the production process, that what they're essentially doing in return for their salary was producing a profit for a business. So you have labor and business, right? And that gives them a certain sense of value, whereas in a lot of situations, workers feel like they're very grateful for their job, and they don't want to make any waves or anything like that.

And they're not fully aware of their value. And I think one of the roles that unions play is to point out to a worker, hey, you're doing something in return. This isn't some sort of welfare situation that you're involved in. You're producing labor, and that has value. And certain rights as well.

Exactly. All right, so flash forward a bit to the Industrial Revolution, 19th century. Things moved away a little bit from agriculture and agricultural jobs. Moved into the factories, as we all know. And kind of right off the bat, factories weren't a good scene for fair wages and safe conditions

and kids working in factories, and women and children not being paid as much as men. Triangle shirt waste fire, that was a big turning point. What was? The Triangle Shirt Waste Company fire, where the working conditions were really, really dangerous. It was a clothing company, clothing manufacturer, I think in Chicago or New York, I can't remember.

And it caught fire. The factory did, because there was all this fabric in the air, and it just ignited, and the whole place went up, and all of these women had to jump to their deaths, and that kind of brought in working conditions into the limelight, and help communion sentiment, I guess. A flash point, if you will. Exactly.

From your favorite, Mr. Gladwell. Any flash point? Tipping point. Oh, tipping point. Good Lord. Get it together, Chuck. OK, I've got it together now. Tipping point.

I had to take a little break. In the 19th century, they would do things called striking, they still do today, but back then, it was a more contentious and violent affair than it is today. People died, bombs went off, guns were shot. And it was on both sides, too. I mean, the workers were striking. The point was the whole, was the same.

We're not working anymore, and you're not going to make any money, because we're not producing the product that you need to go sell. Right. But during these times, the National Guard would show up, or the cops would show up, or maybe the Pinkerton Detective Agency would show up, and just start beating the tar out of the striking workers in order to scare them back

into working. Workers also would defend themselves. There was this one, I can't remember what strike it was, I just read about it, where the workers managed to chase the cops off. Really? Because they were shooting two-pound hinges in these oversized slingshots, like at the cops.

And I can imagine getting hit by a two-pound hinge. So it was a hinge factory? I had to have been. Yeah, sure. But yeah, so the strikes were very violent. People, like you said, would die. And the cops were like, why couldn't the Cotton Ball Factory have been on strike?

But not funny, though, because people did die, not making light of it, like the Haymarket riot for incidents. For incidents? That was a big one. For instance. That was a turning point, a flash plane, if you will. It was.

Early May, 1886, there was a nationwide strike, saying we only want to work eight hours a day. And in Chicago's Haymarket, there was a violent protest. Not a lot of people were there because the weather, thank goodness, because someone threw a bomb into the crowd. It went off, and shots were fired by the cops, maybe by the protesters. And apparently, they were not just striking laborers,

but they were anarchists there, and those anarchists. They're trouble. Well, this is one of the places where, in the public imagination, at least, that anarchists and socialists became married to labor, like pro-labor. And that's always kind of haunted labor unions, is that idea.

But it was born out of this era, if not this riot. Now I'm sure. In the end, eight people were charged and convicted. The labor leaders tried to get them out, saying this is not fair. One of the people committed suicide by placing a stick of dynamite in his mouth in prison. And in the end, a few years later,

the governor of Illinois granted a full pardon to the remaining three convicted, and that ended up leading to an observance of May Day, or Labor Day, in other countries. Right, May 1st, it's supposed to be Labor Day. This whole affair, though, you left out that four of the guys who were convicted were hanged, and then one guy committed suicide, and then three were...

But they were charged with basically agitating violence. This was back when free speech wasn't protected quite as much as it is now. But they were pardoned, and as a result, this whole May Day thing, this Labor Day thing, came up in May 1st. But then within like five years, Grover Cleveland was like,

well, this is kind of a sordid, like scary association with labor. Let's just celebrate labor, and I'm gonna move it to the first Saturday. No, the first... Monday. Monday in September. If it was Saturday, it'd be no good,

because we wouldn't get off work. Exactly. Did he move it to disassociate from that? Oh, interesting. Specifically. So that's why you can't wear white after September... September.

Exactly. That's exactly the origin of that. MUSIC On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slipdresses and choker necklaces.

We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references to the best decade ever.

Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper,

because you'll wanna be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself,

what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS,

because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so, my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one.

Kids, relationships, life in general, can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody, about my new podcast, and make sure to listen, so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you listen to podcasts. All right, so maybe let's talk about some of the basics of a labor union, Josh. There's many different kinds, and like you said, it's all about strengthening numbers to get together to form what's called a bargaining unit with an elected leader to deal with the employer. Right.

Because, I mean, think about it. If you have somebody who's advocating for your success, for your rights, higher wages, better conditions, whatever it might be, you are removing yourself to a certain extent from that negotiation. Yeah. So it's a little less sticky for you. Sure.

Because you're not talking to your employer, you're not saying, I really want some more money. Somebody else is going, these guys are making a bunch of money for you, and you need to share it a little better. Like an agent. Exactly, right. In a way.

And at the same time, you also have that element of that bargaining unit being a collective bargaining unit, meaning there's that strength in numbers. So it's a bunch of people becoming satisfied at the same time. And implied in there is if you don't do this, then you're going to lose a bunch of people all at once, and you're going to have some trouble.

Right, and they do this agreement in the form of the CBA, or collective bargaining agreement. Any fan of any professional sports will understand what a CBA is and how tenuous they can be. Once you have negotiated this agreement, and everyone on the employer side says, we can live with these terms, and everyone on the employee side said, yeah, we can live with this.

We both give a little bit. They sign it, and it is set for a certain period of time, and you cannot break the CBA on either side without there being legal action or grievances filed, which usually means an arbitrator will come in and say, let me get involved. Right. You, I feel, just hit the nail on the head,

though, for an ideal union presence in business. Everyone give a little? Yeah. You can't have too much on one side or the other, but I think that that's kind of the history of the presence of unions in business in America. It's been, if you look over time, it's maybe evened out, but if you look at in any specific decade,

it's more on one side than the other. Of as far as who's in the beneficial position? Right. Or who's asking more, who's extracting more? Yeah. Like Samuel Gompers, who got together the American Federation of Labor, I think. Yeah.

He was asked what the AFL wanted. His answer was more. Yeah. And I mean, yeah, but at the same time, you have to say, well, businesses aren't going to just give it away. Very rarely do they. The whole presence of unions is to extract that.

At least that was the original idea of them. Yeah. Unions, like any organization, costs a little money to run. So you have to pay dues. It's a membership thing. If I was in the Screen Actors Guild, which I'm not, I would pay dues to the Screen Actors Guild every year to keep my membership current.

And then they would go fight for me, and they would have a staff that gets paid out of that money. I love in here that it says dues vary, but many are around $50 a month. What a deal. Yeah. I think it completely varies depending on what union you're in.

Sure. I don't know that you can put an average number, or maybe you can if you average it. Well, if you counted them all up and divided them in numbers. Yeah, but I don't think that's what they did here. No, it was $50 a month. Act now. They're also supposed to be democracies

with elected officials, elected leaders, who take action based on referendums and votes, and basically just using voting to take the pulse of the union members to see what they want to do. Ideally, that's how it works. I get the feeling it doesn't always work that way throughout history. Yeah, especially once the mob got involved.

Yes, which we'll get to. A lot of times you can be a local union member, which is sort of like being a fraternity member of a larger national charter. And if you're a local union, that means that you may be working that same business sector, but you're employed by a different company. But it's like, hey, I'm in the, and I

keep going back to film business stuff, because they were lousy with unions, still are. Like, hey, I work in the art department. I'm a props guy. So I'm a member of the local, I can't remember the number, union here in Atlanta, but it's a national charter probably pushed out of LA, if I'm not mistaken.

Yeah, it's like a chapter of a fraternity or a sorority. Yeah, much is what I said. Yeah. Did you say fraternity or sorority? Yeah, no, you didn't. I said fraternity. Wow, you didn't add sorority? No, no, good point.

Sororities as well. Chuck, what's the point of all this? I think we've kind of touched on a little bit of it, like, especially in the strength and numbers thing, but there's other benefits to being in a union, correct? Yeah. Should we throw out some stats here? I think this is high time for stats.

Your wages for one, your median weekly income, is going to be, as a union member, about $940. It's going to be about $730 if you're non-union. Let me see here. You've got some about health care, correct? Yeah, so 88% of union workers, and this is from the Department of Labor. This isn't like from the AFL-CIO or anything.

Right. 88% of union workers have health coverage. 69% of non-union workers don't do. Yeah. Same with dental plans, the disparities even more. 44% of non-union workers have dental plans where something like 66% have a dental plan if you're a member of a union.

Half of union jobs have vision coverage, and only about a quarter of non-union jobs have it. In reading this also, I was kind of like, man, we have pretty good benefits here at Discovery. Yeah, we do. If you're a minority, if you're a woman, African-American or Latino, you're going to make more money. Women earn about $9,000 more a year

if you're in a union. African-Americans, $8,000 more a year. And Latinos, close to $12,000 more a year if you're a union member. Yeah. So aside from safe working conditions and health insurance and things like that, which are great, wages are really the big deal.

Right, wages benefits pensions are another huge thing as well. Yeah, yeah, pensions, sure. And they're also there to protect workers from being unjustly fired. So we're non-union, and somebody could come in here and say, you know what, I didn't like the way that you looked at your boss. I saw you scowling, you're fired.

You're fired, you're fired, you're fired. And we'd be like, you can't do that. And they'd be like, oh, yes, we can. And that would be that. Yeah. Right? There was a big hub in Florida about some workers that all wore orange, either depending on who you ask,

because they were all going to happy hour together that night, or because they were simulating a prisoner garb to protest the working conditions at this law firm. Which is really what they were doing. And 12 of them were fired. They were just taking into a conference room. And the guy was like, you're all fired. And that's that.

And they're like, you can't fire us for wearing an orange shirt. And actually, yes, very much so, since it's a right to work state, or an at will work state, the employer very much can fire you for wearing something that seemingly arbitrary is wearing orange. If you're a union member, that is not the case. The union protects you from unjust dismissal.

And basically, if you feel like you've been fired for wearing orange, you can go to your union rep, and a big stink comes about. So that's another big one, is protecting them. But I also feel like here is a good point to mention a lot of the criticisms of unions. Because that same protection from unjust dismissal, unions are frequently criticized for that extending

to workers who perform poorly. Sure. It's part of that give, I think, with unions among labor to say, OK, yes, we're going to protect you. But you have to be productive, or you have to be good at your job, or whatever. Right. Don't hide under the shield of the union

just to go phone in your job every day and collect your paycheck. Exactly. And flaunt that protection. That's not what it's there for. Another big criticism is that union, just the presence of unions in any country, harms economic progress on the whole

by hamstringing business and making it less competitive among countries that don't have unions. Right. And so for states that have state employee unions, a big one is that state employee pensions can be a drain on tight state economies. Right. That's another big one, too.

There's criticisms of unions that are very legitimate, too. But again, I think it comes down to where your political affiliation is. Well, yeah. I mean, these days, Republicans are more likely to not be in favor of unions, and they have consistently been called the backbone of the Democratic Party.

That wasn't always the case, though. The 1950s Republican President Dwight Eisenhower said that unions have a secure place in our industrial life. Only a handful of reactionaries harbored the ugly thought of breaking unions and depriving working men and women of the right to join the union of their choice. And also throughout history, unions

have dabbled outside their own labor negotiations and protection to fight for things like Medicare, social security. Civil rights. Civil rights was a big one. I think a Missouri congressman, Richard Boling, said, quote, we would have never passed the Civil Rights Act without labor.

They had the muscle the other civil rights groups did not. So you don't want to see anyone's strong arm, but there is certainly something to be said for strength in numbers, especially when it comes to something like the Civil Rights Act. Yeah, who was it, Eisenhower, who had that quote about union rights? Eisenhower is speaking at a time that

was just after the peak of union membership. In 1945, 35% of all non-agricultural workers, which is like everybody but farmers, belonged to unions. Now it's down to 11.8%. Yeah, and the public sector, 37%, but where they're really getting hurt is the private sector. Less than 7% of the private sector

is unionized these days. And there's a lot of people that say a lot of the problems that we have in Washington and a lot of the financial troubles we've had in this country have been to a certain degree because of the non-unionizing of the rust belt in the private sector. So two sociologists, Bruce Western and Jake Rosenfeld, actually wrote a paper that said that the decline

of organized labor unions from the 1970s on can account for as much as a third of the income inequality in the US, which has been significant. And they can attribute a third of that increase just to the decline of labor. Well, and I think it also coincided with the 1970s. Some say that big business really went hard at Washington, not for the first time,

but in a way that they'd never had before, and that changed the landscape of the distribution of wealth in this country. Yeah, and that's a really interesting point, Chuck. Like we were raised after that period. But so that's just kind of like the secret of my success or American Psycho, all those great movies about the 80s or set in the 80s, that's just the way it was.

Like you just go after money and you spend that money on cocaine and pinstripe suits and Maserati's or whatever. And so we were kind of raised with that sentiment. But there was a time, prior to the 1970s, where it was labor who was running the charge. It was the unions, and they were fully in control. And business figured out how to regroup and reassert itself, and that's the age that we're in now.

So back to Eisenhower, though, when he was talking, he was kind of carrying on a tradition where the US government figured out that, OK, there is a balance of power that has to be struck between labor and business. Because business is part of this economic engine. Labor helps fuel the economic engine, but they really kind of represent

two different sectors of the US, not just the economy, but the population, and we need to keep them happy. We need to strike this balance. So the federal government got involved, starting in 1935, with the National Labor Relations Act. And they basically said, OK, we can't have strikes where you guys are shooting two-pound hinges at cops. And we can't have strikes where cops

are murdering, striking workers. Let's get to the heart of this matter and figure out how to strike a happy balance between what labor wants and what business wants, and progress from there. And it was a really smart thing to do. But they figured out that it was very much like Homer trying to keep Pinchy Lobster alive with the goldfish

in that freshwater tank, adding salt, adding water. And that was kind of the mark of the 20th century in American economic history, was that adding the salt and adding the water over time through legislation. Well, and the NLRA was, like you said, the first one. And prior to that, companies didn't even have to recognize a union or negotiate with a union leader. So this actually required by law that they not necessarily,

they give workers what they want, but they had to at least negotiate in good faith. And sit down at the table with them. Yeah, which effectively said, brought unions out of the dark and legalized them and gave them a legal voice and legal recourse. That's right. And to enforce that, they soon passed the National Labor

Relations Board to oversee what was going on with the NLRA. And the article points out here that accomplished three things. It allowed workers to have elections, like their own union leaders, establish laws, protecting employees from discrimination based on union activity. So like, are you a union? Well, we don't want to hire you, that kind of thing.

Or even worse, like in the case of Ford Motor Company, Ford's security wing led by Harry Bennett, a 2,000 man strong goon squad that used to beat up workers, beat up organizers, beat up union reps, and do it like on camera. They really were kind of above the law in a lot of ways. But that was targeted at guys like that for the goons. And this kind of sneaks by, but an important thing

to note here is NLRA also protected collective bargaining, even if you're not in a union, and the ability to bargain for better conditions for all workers. So the unions was one of the main things, but it protected everybody. But not everybody. There were a bunch of groups that were left out of this, agricultural workers,

domestic service workers, federal, state, and local government employees, which obviously went a different way. Railroad and airline employees, that one kind of became important. Like we talked about in the air traffic control one under Reagan when he fired all the air traffic controllers, who went on strike.

Yeah, and that's important. I guess was that the Taft-Hartley that ensured? Yeah. Taft-Hartley Act came along in 1947, or the Labor Management Relations Act. And one of the important things it did was said, you know what? If there's any strike that's going to put the public health in danger,

then we can issue an 80-day injunction that basically says, you cannot strike. And in the case of the, I guess was, did that put the country in danger necessarily? I put the country's economy in danger, I would say. But at the same time, Reagan didn't have a filing injunction through the Labor Relations Board. He said, get back to work.

No, you're fired. Man, that guy. I know. And what else did that? Oh, at outlawed secondary boycotts, the Taft-Hartley Labor Act, which was a big deal because the example they use here in this article is really good. Like, let's say you're a brewery and you're

striking against your employer, you might have a boycott against the glass company that makes the beer bottles just to put the strong arm on the company from another direction, and you can't do that. It's called the squeeze. You can't do the squeeze. It's not legal. You can't as a union, but consumers frequently

do that kind of thing. It's like trying to get Rush Limbaugh off there. A lot of people boycotted his advertisers until they said, you know what? OK, we'll stop advertising with him. And then all of a sudden, Rush Limbaugh has the double squeeze on him. Same with the, I can't remember.

There was some special interest group, some PAC that was getting funding from McDonald's, Wendy's, a bunch of people because of their alleged unfair and very much pro-business only practices. Like, all of these companies has kind of abandoned them recently. Really? Yeah.

Alec, A-L-E-C. I don't remember what it stands for. Alec Baldwin? No, no. No. No. OK. On the podcast, HeyDude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, HeyDude,

bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use HeyDude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars,

friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist?

So leave a code on your best friend's beeper because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to HeyDude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. OK, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, god. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you.

Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that, Michael, and a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general, can get messy.

You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Uh, the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959,

Josh, what's that all about? Well, this was during a time when the winds had really shifted toward not only the unions having the labor business under their thumb, they also had their union members under their thumb. The mob was involved, the democracy or the democratic basis of unions had eroded. And there was a lot of shady stuff going on.

This, what I thought was cool was rather than the federal government going, oh, well, then we need to reinvigorate the power given to business under these union laws. Instead, they went and invested more power in union members. That's right. Yeah, like you couldn't use union dues anymore to promote one candidate over another in a union for union reps. The elections were really pretty heavily monitored

from that point on. Every single union member has to be notified by mail at least 15 days before the election. Like you can't sneak an election by them, which probably used to happen in the old days. Yeah, to increase transparency in the whole union thing, there was a lot of disclosure and reporting requirements that were added.

And not just for the unions, but for also employers, consultants, they wanted to know where the money was going. And basically, they wanted to see how the mob was involved. It was a big one. Right. Well, and speaking of money, I don't think we pointed out that a lot of times unions will have a strike funds and some of the money that you pay into it

will actually pay you when you go on strike to keep you from going hungry. Yeah, it's like Aflac. You know that Gilbert Godfrey didn't do that anymore, I don't think. I know. And I wonder how ironic would it be if he had Aflac insurance and that it kicked in once Aflac fired him.

Interesting. Why do you think he got fired because he wanted too much money? No, no. He got fired for making Twitter jokes about the Japanese tsunami, like the day of, yeah. Oh, I thought it was a money issue. Yeah, I'm worried about the sense of humor in this country and the direction it's going.

Like there's stand-up comedians have always, almost always, been allowed to, they're exempted from a lot of the standards that average Joe's are held to, you know? Like they're stand-up comedians. That's their job. Sometimes they make tasteless jokes and all that stuff. Yeah, they'll go over the line and they'll just go, people go, ooh, and they'll go, what, too soon?

Right, exactly. And then people will be like, yes, it is. But there seems to be, it seems to be open season on comedians. Well, because of platforms that they've never had before, probably like Twitter. I guess. I guess.

All of a sudden, that's like your official statement instead of a joke you made. Or yeah, and the audience is much, much wider and much more varied and diverse too, so. Yeah, true. I bet, God, read so pissed off. I would imagine so. Because, I mean, you've got, tell me,

there's like not 10,000 people lining up voice actors to go, AFRAC for a huge paycheck. I think you just made a pretty good argument for yourself. That wouldn't as good as GG, but. But I mean, and the problem is, is I realize what's at risk is, you know, cultural sensitivity, even individual sensitivity, toward people who are going to be offended or hurt.

But there also, there has to be a balance between that. And I mean, the other thing that's at risk is like, our national sense of humor, which is really important. It's one of the things you could be like, wow, that's just a stupid joke. No, like our ability to take a joke is a very vital and important thing about keeping us from like all, you know, killing ourselves.

And one of the roles that stand-up comedians provide, or any kind of comedian provides, is to keep that healthy and vital and going. Agreed. There's nothing more of a turn off to me than when you see a humorless celebrity. Oh, man. Like when Ricky Gervais is doing a sing in the Golden Clubs

and you see like the people out there that just are offended by this. I'm like, come on, man. Yeah, I don't know. I think- Laugh it yourself. I can see Ricky Gervais being, let me make him the sacrificial lamb.

Leave Gilbert God for you alone, you know? Man, that was a sidebar. Yes, it was. Are we talking about labor unions? I don't remember. Labor unions today, Josh, you mentioned the AFL-CIO. A lot of people might not know that that is actually a collection.

It's a labor federation made up of 54 member unions, 10 million strong. That's a lot of people. Change to Win is sort of a new one. 2005, it was formed. But it is also a labor federation, encompassing seven unions and six million workers. Big time.

Yeah, the AFL was founded by Samuel Gompers, who I mentioned earlier. That's right. Some cigar makers and some other industrial laborers together to form that. And then that was in the late 19th century. And I can't remember exactly when, but maybe in the 40s or the 50s,

he got together with the CIO to form the AFL-CIO. Because he loves cigars. UAW is a huge one. Auto workers? Yeah, they have something like 1.4 million members. No, I'm sorry, the Teamsters has 1.4 million members. And they're the ones who are probably the most well-known by the average Joe, thanks to one Jimmy Hoffa.

Yeah, do you know his story? A little bit here or there. The whole mob involvement, I think with any union, was they realized that there's a bunch of guys who are sitting on enormous piles of money. And let's see how much of that we can steal or get our hands on or use to build ourselves casinos. Right.

And Jimmy Hoffa was in with these guys and he just went missing, right, in 1975? Yeah, I mean, I don't think it's any secret what happened to him, but they definitely don't know exactly what happened. And exactly when the body was. I thought the whole point was, it was a secret of what happened to him.

Well, he was snuffed out. Oh. I don't think he just had a heart attack while hiking in the wilderness and his body decomposed naturally. Well, he was supposedly going, he was last seen waiting on two mafia associates. Yeah.

It's kind of dead giveaway too. But his son, James P. Hoffa, has really kind of brought the family name back tremendously. Yeah, he's the head of the Teamsters today, right? Yes, he is. He's the president of the Teamsters Union and is doing a lot of work toward re-legitimizing unions again in this country,

which is pretty cool. Well, anyone who's ever been on a film set and has seen a 275 pound man eating a donut, sitting in his truck, you can say, I've met a Teamster and they do great work. And they're basically, there's a, I can't remember the number,

but they're, if you're an industrial worker, you're basically eligible to be a Teamster. Yeah. And in just about any kind of industry. I'm gonna get hate mail for that. Oh, you'll be fine. There's like two guys that you described who listened to this podcast.

So you get two pieces of hate mail. If I was a Teamster, I would do nothing but listen to this podcast cause you're just sitting around all day. That's not true. Teamsters do great work, but on film sets it's sort of the old joke is that like they'll park the truck

and then they sit in it until they leave in the truck. You know, there was another Simpsons reference just came up with the one where that film for Radioactive Man comes to town. Oh yeah. And Homer tries to see who can outlazy the Teamsters. Good stuff. That is just a stereotype, although.

Yeah, but stereotypes are there for a reason, right? It's not funny. It's not funny. What else? I don't have anything else. You got anything else? No, I guess I think we covered pretty much everything. Yeah, it's a nice broad overview of people can,

and like you said early on, man, you hit it on the head, my friend. Thank you. Whether or not you or pro-union or anti-union largely depends on your family's background. Yeah, maybe. It's a very tried and true thing through families, through generations

that people feel very strongly about it that are involved in unions. Or like, actually my parents were in the teachers' union. Oh yeah, yeah. Your union kid, huh? Yeah, but it wasn't like factory stuff, like I never heard them. Besides complaining about not making up money,

which every teacher should complain about. Sure. And if you don't have any kind of passionate feelings about it whatsoever, I would advise you to look into it. Yeah. And if you do have passionate feelings about it, I think a great exercise would be to explore how the other side sees it,

see if it changes your mind one way or the other. Look at you. You can do that by reading this fascinating article that we just based this podcast on. How unions work. You can type that in the search bar at howstuffworks.com. You can also go into WAPO.

There was a pretty cool editorial. That's the Washington Post, by the way. That's right. The Wisconsin union fight isn't about benefits. It's about labor's influence from March 6th, 2011. That's a good article. That was a good article too. And I already said search bar,

which means it's time for Listener Mail. You know, our buddy Joe Garden was, he's a Scani. Oh yeah. He was really upset last year. You can tell. You can see right through his skin. He's so pale. He's translucent.

Vote Joe Garden. Yeah. Big craft work guy. Oh yeah. Did he get tickets? No, he did it, he promoted his own craft work. I believe it was a craft work covers show. Oh cool.

And he got different bands to come and play craft work. And it was a big deal for Joe, it was awesome. He wore his white suit and introduced everyone. That is sweet. When was that? Very recently. Did you see footage of it or were you there? No, he was just, he wouldn't shut up about it on Facebook.

And he even admitted, like guys, I know you're tired of hearing about craft work. That is significant for Joe. Yes. Yeah. There's also, I guess kind of in, with the music sampling episode, there's I think a DJ food or a DJ shadow.

I think DJ food, craft work cover mix. Yeah. There's like maybe three volumes of it. And it's like just mixing together all these people who like sampled craft work for their songs. Yeah, they just did a big thing at the some museum. At MoMA. Yeah, yeah.

Oh my God. You and me and I tried very hard to get those tickets. Did you try? No dude. It was such a cluster. I'm not into craft work and this solidifies it when I saw the reviews of it and said, they did like a 21 minute of Autobahn

and I was just like, somebody put a gun to my head. Yeah. Oh, you're just supposed to zone out and forget where you are for a little bit. I guess so. See where it takes you. I'm not a craft work guy, but I know people are, people love me.

No, I'm not a craft work guy either. Like, but I will say that like, that would have been just a momentous, just a momentous thing to see. MoMA Intus? Pretty much. Okay. Like the Tupac hologram.

I'm sure seeing that at Coachella was just amazing. Yeah, and a bit way more amazing for some people than others even. Sure. All right. So should I read a listener mail? I guess. I'm gonna call this a good cause.

We like to promote these and attach it to our labor union episode, how appropriate. Big, big fan guys. I was just down at South by Southwest where I caught your variety show and shook your surprisingly supple hands. You've never done a lick of work.

I know. I also sat on a panel called Harnessing the Power of the Benevolent Internet, something you guys seem pretty skilled at yourselves. It is why I thought you might be game to help students across the country learn all sorts of stuff they should know. In many cases, it's stuff they need to know.

I worked for a nonprofit website called donorschoose.org where anyone with a dollar can give support to classrooms in need. Teachers from all 50 states post requests for resources. They feel their students need. And kind folks from all over the world help bring those lessons to life. Oh, it's cool.

It sounds almost like a Kiva for teachers. I need 50 tickets to craft work at Walmart. Since our founding in 2000, we've delivered over $110 million of resources directly to public school classrooms, supporting more than six million students. And if you or my fellow listeners would like to help, you or my fellow listeners?

See a listener? Fellow listeners. We have listeners. That listener has fellow listeners. Check out the page I set up. He set up a page with our name, and I was like, that's cool. You can do that.

But we're not like we can't officially sign on because then it has to go through corporate and all that stuff. Oh, I already signed us on officially. Oh, you did? I made t-shirts and everything. That didn't work. So you can go to donorschoose.org slash stuffkidsshouldknow.

And let me know if you have any questions. And this is from Zach. And he said, by the way, we recently hired a system admin a couple of months back, drove me crazy for a few weeks. Then I realized he sounds exactly like Josh. Weird. And he said, I've enjoyed working with you, Josh.

Who is the other voice double for me? There's another person. There was some dude. Well, there's a writer that writes about running. He wrote one thing about running once. It's Josh Clark. It had been asked 500 times if it was me. What's ironic is now I actually run.

You should write your own article. Yeah. I can't remember. There was some other voice person that did like, like videos or something like that. Yeah, I don't remember. Yeah, well, if, okay, who was that? That was Zach.

Thanks, Zach. Donorschoose.org slash kids, stuffkids should know. That's great. Donorschoose.org slash stuffkids should know. Indeed. Nice. If you have a great charitable organization

you want us to let everybody know about, again, we're always happy to do that. And if I sound like somebody, let me know. Cause it's driving me crazy who it is. I've heard from like a bunch of people who you sound just like this or whatever. Yeah. Or I want to hear from people who have actively been

on a worker's strike. Or if you have been a scab, as they call them. Oh yeah. And been a strike buster. Or I want to hear about that too. If you've ever been beaten up by the cops, we want to hear about that too. Yes.

And anarchists, any anarchists out there, we're always interested in hearing from anarchists, I guess. I got shut down by the cops and Athens one night. If you get beat up, there's difference. No, but they like threw me against the wall and like we're kicking my legs out from under me. And yeah, it was weird.

And then they just left. Are you sure there are cops and not just some no, dude, Athens. Paternity boys dressed up as cops? Athens police in a car, me and my three friends, I don't know what they thought we were doing, but they got out of there really quick. I'll say that.

They must have thought you were somebody else. Kevin Smith. Or the reality of their situation hit them and they realized that what they were doing was wrong. Maybe. You can communicate with Chuck and I electronically via Twitter at S-Y-S-K podcast, that's our handle. Facebook.com slash Stuff You Should Know.

Or you can send us an email to stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com. Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you get your podcasts. And make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast,

or wherever you listen to podcasts.