0:00

Hello, out there on

0:03

the internet.

0:14

I

0:26

am Matthew Galt and this is Cyber.

0:29

It's the first day of September when we're recording this.

0:31

The heat is still here, but the summer will

0:33

soon be over. We're here

0:35

at the precipice of fall. I wanted to take a moment

0:38

to reflect on one of the big stories that Motherboard covered

0:40

this season,

0:41

labor, strikes, and

0:43

unions. Here to tell us all about it

0:45

is Motherboard Labor Reporter Jules Roscoe. Jules,

0:48

how are you doing today?

0:50

Hello, I am doing well. Thank you for

0:52

having me on. You know, the last time I was here, I

0:54

talked about pink sauce, so I'm very

0:56

excited that I'm not talking about that today.

0:58

Oh my god, I completely... was that

1:00

this year? Was pink sauce this year? No,

1:03

it was last summer. I think it's been like a

1:05

good year. Whatever, did anything...

1:08

do you have any follow up on pink sauce? I tried it. You

1:11

tried it? I got sent a free sample

1:14

of pink sauce. It

1:16

was orange. It tasted like

1:18

ranch that had gone bad. And

1:21

then because I'm not a huge fan of ranch myself,

1:24

I had my roommate, who is a big fan

1:26

of ranch, try it. And his response

1:28

was, ugh. So that's

1:30

the review. Is

1:33

it still being sold? Did anything ever come

1:35

of any of that?

1:36

I think it is still

1:39

on the Dave's Gourmet website. I unsubscribed

1:42

from their emails though.

1:43

That's fair. Let's

1:47

get into some more serious topics. Setting

1:51

pink sauce aside. It's

1:53

funny how quickly a meme

1:55

like that dies. In a month we won't

1:57

remember Gang Gang.

1:59

Okay. Um, so

2:02

you wrote a couple of things recently that struck, uh, struck

2:05

a chord with me. Uh, you know, longtime

2:07

listeners may know that I've been South Carolina, uh, we

2:10

just had a hurricane move through. Uh,

2:12

it was fine. It was actually, it

2:15

hit Florida and hit the coast to coast where

2:17

Charleston is pretty bad. Uh, but where

2:19

I'm at, like it was mostly just rain, uh,

2:22

lost power the first day for a little bit, but it was, but

2:24

it was all right. But, um,

2:27

you wrote some stories about,

2:30

uh, some shenanigans that were

2:32

going on with instant cart, Instacart, sorry.

2:34

Yes. So what, what

2:37

exactly happened here with Instacart and the hurricane?

2:40

Yeah. So for people

2:42

who did not know, who don't know what

2:44

Instacart is much like myself yesterday,

2:46

um, Instacart is like grub

2:49

hub, but for groceries. So you

2:51

can like get groceries delivered to you.

2:53

Um, and the thing that

2:55

I wrote about was that Instacart suggested

2:58

to people in South Carolina who were

3:01

being affected by this hurricane, right? This storm

3:04

that quote, bad weather equals

3:06

good tips. Um, which

3:09

is, you know, an, an interesting

3:11

metric, uh, suggestion

3:13

to put out there when, when people are going through

3:16

a hurricane. Um, but

3:18

it also was followed with a cloud raining

3:21

emoji and a money bag emoji.

3:23

So maybe that's also

3:24

helpful. So they

3:27

were kind of telling everyone that you should go out in

3:29

the hurricane. You can make a lot of money. So there's

3:32

a, yeah. Have you ever lived through local, one of these

3:34

natural disasters like a hurricane or a tornado

3:36

or anything?

3:37

I not a tornado, but

3:39

I have experienced remnants

3:41

of hurricanes. Um, I grew up in Massachusetts,

3:44

which is like right on the water. So we've gotten a lot

3:46

of storms like that before. It's

3:48

definitely not a time you want to be outside.

3:50

And I think a lot of the local guidance

3:52

was suggesting, you know, avoid all non-essential

3:55

travel. Um, but Instacart

3:57

was suggesting that, uh,

3:59

they encourage.

3:59

customers to tip better with inclement

4:02

weather, so when it's raining

4:05

and you know hurricanes tend to cause more than

4:07

rain. There are flash floods, there are

4:09

storm surges, there are sometimes tornadoes,

4:11

lightning storms. Like it is a pretty big

4:13

deal to live through a hurricane. But

4:17

the suggestion was that customers will probably

4:19

tip you more if you go out and deliver their groceries

4:21

during this hurricane. And according

4:24

to a lot of posts on Reddit,

4:25

people didn't tip that well anyway. Yeah,

4:28

in my experience, people don't tend to tip very

4:30

well on those apps at

4:33

all. So

4:36

is there like, it's

4:38

there's panic buying during one of these storms, right? I

4:40

certainly did it was one

4:43

of the first things I did earlier

4:45

this week is I went to the grocery store, my

4:48

wife was sick. So

4:49

I went to the store and just loaded

4:51

up on stuff so we could eat for a couple days,

4:54

things that you could cook on a hot plate, like

4:57

on a gas hot plate, if things went bad. So

5:00

I imagine that there was a lot of Instacart panic

5:02

buying being done. Did

5:05

Instacart respond to you or say anything

5:07

to like when you reached out to them?

5:09

They did. Yeah. So as

5:11

it turns out, Instacart did shut

5:13

down or they told me they shut down their operations in

5:15

Florida and Georgia, which were obviously

5:18

very heavily affected by the hurricane. But South

5:20

Carolina, which as you said, also got

5:22

like a decent chunk of it, didn't

5:24

have any sort of shutdown. So there was some

5:26

sort of safety metric. But one

5:29

of the shoppers that I talked to said

5:31

that

5:32

it's kind

5:34

of insensitive to suggest

5:37

to people that they should go out and deliver groceries through

5:39

a natural disaster. Yeah,

5:41

no, it's terrible. But they weren't the only ones

5:43

that forced people under the hurricane, right? Amazon

5:45

also got on this.

5:48

Yes. In

5:50

both hurricanes that we've experienced

5:52

in the US this year, this month, actually,

5:54

the one in California, which kind

5:57

of downgrade a little bit and the one in Florida. So

5:59

Amazon

6:02

suggested to delivery

6:05

drivers that, or not suggested,

6:07

required delivery drivers to come in, specifically

6:09

in California, during the hurricane,

6:12

which California is not built for

6:15

heavy rain because it's not something they get very often.

6:18

They get earthquakes, so their infrastructure is earthquake

6:21

resistant, earthquake designed

6:23

to survive earthquakes. But

6:25

it's not designed for major flooding and

6:27

a lot of rain. So what you ended up with was

6:29

roads being flooded completely

6:31

and crumbling mudslides everywhere,

6:34

sewage water in the streets. It

6:37

was really, really bad for California. But

6:40

through this, Amazon had delivery

6:43

drivers out and delivering packages, of

6:46

course with a more

6:49

lenience on their completion rate so that they wouldn't

6:51

get penalized if they didn't complete deliveries

6:53

in a literal hurricane. Well,

6:55

that's nice of them. At least they

6:57

gave them that. Exactly. Specifically,

7:00

one of the drivers that I talked to was working out of Palmdale,

7:03

where they actually did

7:05

receive flooding and record rainfall

7:07

for that area. So it's

7:09

not like it was something that was just some

7:11

drizzling rain. It was a serious issue. But

7:15

Amazon had delivery drivers out, and

7:17

they were told that they had to call,

7:20

text, call a customer before

7:22

they could call off a delivery. And you don't want to be

7:24

out sitting in those conditions waiting for someone

7:27

to pick up the phone.

7:28

I also can't imagine, like

7:31

you're in the middle of inclement weather like that, and

7:34

your phone rings and there's a van outside,

7:36

and

7:37

it's the Amazon guy. Like,

7:39

you know, can I not do this? You

7:42

know, that's just so terrible

7:45

to kind of put it on them.

7:48

But being an Amazon driver

7:51

sucks, as you've written about

7:53

extensively.

7:54

So one of the stories that you hit is

7:57

the, are the cameras that are

7:59

inside the van.

7:59

We've been reporting on that for a long time, but there's

8:02

kind of a recent update that's

8:04

kind of a, we told you so, what's going on there?

8:07

So being an Amazon

8:09

delivery driver has many perks.

8:12

And one of those perks is an

8:14

in-van camera that records

8:17

constantly, both forward

8:20

out onto the road and also inward

8:22

facing the driver. So the driver is constantly

8:24

being recorded by this camera, which is called

8:27

Netradine Driver Eye. And

8:30

the really fun thing about this is

8:32

that it's powered by AI. And

8:34

the AI is tracking the driver's

8:36

movements

8:37

to monitor if

8:39

they are running stop signs, for example,

8:41

or making incorrect turns or having

8:45

issues with distracted driving. Now, what is distracted

8:47

driving? You may ask, well, drinking water,

8:50

checking your route where you're supposed

8:52

to be when you're parked on your phone. Any

8:55

sort of unspecified

8:58

movement that's not like moving the wheel of

9:00

the truck of the van can

9:03

count as distracted driving. And

9:05

that's what this AI is monitoring all the time, which

9:07

is great. When

9:10

Amazon first started implementing these cameras

9:12

to improve safety, their

9:14

guarantee,

9:15

so to speak, was

9:18

that

9:19

these videos would not be shared anywhere,

9:22

that they would just be used for safety purposes. And

9:24

that if the AI

9:26

picks up on some kind of quote unquote infraction,

9:29

it would be sent to the driver's

9:32

manager, their DSP manager, Delivery

9:34

Service Partner Manager, which is how Amazon

9:36

delivers its packages. And then

9:38

that DSP manager would review the footage

9:40

to determine if there is some sort of infraction

9:43

and then act accordingly.

9:45

But what we've

9:47

seen, and at the time that I wrote this story,

9:50

which I think was late July, is that

9:52

those videos, which Amazon guaranteed

9:55

would be private, were getting leaked on Reddit,

9:57

which is the least private place.

9:59

you can imagine for videos to be getting

10:02

leaked. Just

10:05

both videos of the

10:08

road in front of the driver with just innocuous

10:10

commentary like, oh,

10:12

look at this lady, she

10:14

drove into a ditch. That's really dumb.

10:17

But it is still a violation

10:19

of privacy because those videos are not supposed

10:21

to be public. There was another one

10:24

of what the AI labeled as a stop sign

10:26

infection, which I'm not a wonderful

10:29

driver, but I'm decent and I don't think there was a stop

10:31

sign infection there. And there was

10:33

actually one of a front-facing camera facing

10:36

a driver who was pleasantly

10:38

surprised when a little French bulldog jumped

10:40

into her van, which was

10:42

a very cute video. It was very

10:44

cute. But at the same time, it

10:46

wasn't just like a screen recording. It

10:49

was some recording on their phone, their

10:51

screen at work. And what you can see there is

10:53

that they're looking at this video that was probably

10:55

sent to them by the Netradine

10:58

driver eye camera on

11:00

their monitor in a desk on a desk in a warehouse.

11:03

And they and maybe four other

11:05

people around them are talking about

11:07

the video and watching it, which

11:09

is, you know, it's cute to share a dog. There's

11:11

nothing wrong with that. But at the same time, it's

11:14

very strange and

11:16

dystopian

11:16

and uncomfortable that there are four or five people

11:19

watching this person who was getting

11:21

recorded by an AI camera. And

11:23

then that got posted on Reddit.

11:27

I know I've talked about it on the show multiple times before.

11:30

Have you and I ever talked about what

11:32

one of the jobs was I did before I started doing this? I

11:35

don't think so. I was

11:37

a loss prevention manager for a,

11:42

I wouldn't say high end, but like the beginning

11:44

of high end clothing chain in

11:47

Dallas, Fort Worth. I would not have guessed

11:49

that in a million years. Yeah, I know. It

11:53

was awful. It was probably the worst, most depressing

11:55

job I've had, but there

11:57

was a lot of camera watching.

11:59

And it's kind of its own little world

12:02

and like you end up interacting with the people that

12:04

do that job like all across the mall

12:07

or all across the shopping center that

12:09

you're at and

12:11

every single one of these people

12:13

has their own private collection of Shit

12:16

that they have recorded

12:18

off of the cameras that watch you while you

12:20

shop And there's a lot there

12:22

are cameras all over all of these stores And

12:26

there's weirdos watching everybody

12:28

and if something strange happens someone

12:30

probably noticed it And

12:32

maybe cropped clipped it and took

12:34

it home and they share it with other people

12:37

There's like practice

12:39

like people falling down people that look strange

12:43

Big big

12:44

like thefts that they've seen like

12:46

it's it does not shock me

12:49

that the minute these cameras went into these

12:52

these these Vans

12:54

that the footage in instantly started going out Not

12:58

surprised working in that job. Like how

13:00

did you feel about watching people

13:02

all the time? There's I didn't

13:04

last I didn't last

13:07

a year the turnover in the job is pretty high There

13:11

was like a specific

13:14

Case cases

13:16

may be a strong word

13:18

where I Felt

13:20

very bad about how it turned out and

13:22

I was like I can't do this job anymore

13:26

And decided to quit and

13:28

I quit like without I quit then

13:30

without having

13:32

like in the next job lined up. It was that

13:35

Disturbing but

13:36

it's really weird because there's most

13:40

people only last like six months to a year and

13:42

then there's people that do it basically their whole lives

13:45

and those people are

13:47

like intense In

13:49

weird and can't turn it off There's

13:52

a great character that we worked with all

13:54

the time

13:55

I'll call him a J And

13:59

J had been was

13:59

former military police.

14:01

Oh, God. And like

14:03

where this is going. Yeah. And we would, I was

14:06

still smoking cigarettes then. And we

14:09

would sit outside and we would have a smoke break.

14:11

It was great to work with Jake as they always knew you were

14:14

always going to see something wild. And

14:17

we would sit outside and he would see someone just

14:19

walk into the mall while we were smoking.

14:21

And he'd be like, all right, smoke breaks over.

14:24

And he would just see something in this person and

14:26

we would follow them maybe an hour or two. And

14:28

always inevitably they would steal something

14:30

from somewhere.

14:31

It was just like he had a sixth sense for

14:34

it. And it may

14:36

take a while, but he would like, he would always,

14:38

he was, he would get people like left and

14:40

right. Like flagrant,

14:43

not like flagrant, weird, wild

14:46

stuff too. Not like just somebody pocketing, you know,

14:49

sun tan lotion walking out the door, like somebody that

14:51

had come in and was going to steal a lot of stuff. He

14:54

always, he had a, he just knew he had

14:56

like been doing it so long. And so you

14:58

had like, it was guys

15:00

like that. And then guys that were only going to be there six

15:03

months and then wash out. So

15:04

yeah, it

15:06

was a strange, it was a strange

15:08

job. And it was very, it was

15:11

very depressing because you do spend a lot

15:13

of time like watching these cameras, just watching

15:16

people that don't know you're looking at them. And

15:18

it's also the

15:20

large part of the job.

15:23

And they don't talk about this. Like

15:25

I think people talk about loss prevention. And it's

15:28

mostly about people, especially now it's about like people

15:30

coming in and robbing the location. What

15:32

they don't talk about is that most of the job

15:35

is watching the employees

15:37

and like catching the employees

15:39

when they're stealing or trying to figure

15:41

out like it's, or like catching them for minor

15:44

infractions for things going through their

15:46

like work lockers. It sucked. It

15:48

was awful.

15:50

It reminds me actually of something

15:52

that I believe happened like last fall, where

15:56

Amazon hired a new loss

15:58

prevention manager.

15:59

promoted, I suppose. And

16:02

she just so happened to be

16:04

a private prison manager at

16:07

CoreCivic, which I think is one of the largest

16:09

private prison systems in the US. So

16:12

I mean, that, based on what you're saying, that

16:15

tracks, you know what I mean? Yeah,

16:17

there's a lot of,

16:19

there's a lot of people that wanted

16:21

to be police officers,

16:23

or wanted to be in law enforcement,

16:26

and then for whatever reason couldn't. And so

16:28

now they're making sure people don't steal from Walmart.

16:31

There was, and you imagine like

16:33

people with that kind of attitude, it's

16:36

bad. It's not good.

16:41

So sorry, we kind of got sidetracked

16:43

there. Yes, my bad. No, no, it's, I

16:46

think it's, it's, I think it's interesting to talk

16:48

about, especially because like the

16:50

loss prevention stuff is so in the news right now, because

16:52

you're constantly seeing these viral videos of people stealing

16:55

like whole shelves of things. And like, I kind

16:57

of want to talk about that, but that's like a whole tangent

17:00

we won't get into right now.

17:02

Speaking, so back

17:05

to Amazon, which you were trying

17:07

to wrinkle us back to, thank you.

17:10

In another way, one of

17:12

these, this, this van driving job is really terrible.

17:15

So what happened in Ohio?

17:16

Yeah, so in Ohio

17:19

earlier this summer, an Amazon

17:21

driver was shot by

17:24

a guy he was delivering a package

17:26

to. The package was

17:28

delivered at like a little bit before

17:31

5am. This driver was

17:33

dropping off the package and the guy

17:35

in it was this, it was in like Southwest Columbus. I

17:38

don't know Ohio, but maybe that's relevant for

17:40

anyone out there who knows Ohio. But in

17:42

Southwest Columbus, and this guy came out of his house with

17:45

a shotgun and shot

17:47

at the driver with bird shot, which is a kind

17:50

of shotgun shell that's case

17:52

in point like designed for shooting birds,

17:55

hence the name. But the way that it works

17:57

is that instead of having like one large pellet,

18:00

it's like a bunch of small pellets in the cartridge

18:03

that will scatter out when the

18:06

cartridge gets shot for a better chance of hitting

18:08

the bird and also a better chance of not

18:10

destroying it so that if you're hunting you

18:13

can use it afterwards,

18:15

eat it, whatever people do with birds that

18:17

they hunt. I don't do that. So

18:21

it's not a shot that's typically

18:23

lethal to humans, but that does depend on the distance.

18:26

But it was shot from a decent distance.

18:28

As far as I know, at the point that I

18:30

was reporting on this, the Amazon driver is okay.

18:34

They went home, they were recovering, and

18:36

there was also damage to their vehicle,

18:39

which is

18:42

again, this is a major

18:45

safety issue.

18:46

Obviously it's not something that happens every day.

18:49

Thankfully, you don't want to be

18:51

worried about getting shot while on the job, but also it is

18:54

something that does happen and that's something you have to consider

18:56

when you're thinking about working

18:58

as a delivery driver.

19:00

You are going onto people's property

19:02

to put stuff at their door. If

19:04

that person is perhaps not expecting a package at

19:07

5am or something like that, or you catch them off guard,

19:09

they could very well perceive that as a threat.

19:12

That just opens up a whole realm of possibilities

19:14

of safety issues when it

19:16

comes to Amazon drivers.

19:18

People will harass

19:21

them if they get on the property or if they don't

19:23

leave the package in the specified location.

19:26

Young drivers get attacked by dogs all the time

19:29

that are just loose in somebody's yard and will come

19:31

over and jump on them and bite them. There

19:33

is a really big safety issue when it comes to

19:36

drivers actually having to get out of their

19:38

vans to deliver those packages. That's not something

19:40

that's,

19:41

to my knowledge, again, really

19:43

been addressed in Amazon's policies.

19:45

The, UPS

19:47

does this all the time. The Postal Service has been dealing

19:49

with a lot of these issues for its entire

19:51

run, but

19:52

the difference is that the

19:54

United States Postal Service employees

19:57

are employees. does

20:00

not technically consider their driver's

20:02

employees, right? They do

20:05

not. They have been very clear

20:07

about this point to me specifically. I

20:11

can talk about this tangent now if you want.

20:13

Yeah, please. Because I think it's like

20:15

we talk about these safety issues and I just

20:18

want to make this distinction clear. I think it's important.

20:19

Yeah. So Amazon,

20:22

the way that Amazon delivers packages, it

20:24

has a network

20:27

of delivery service partners or DSPs,

20:29

which are smaller third-party companies

20:32

that it contracts to deliver packages

20:35

out of its warehouse or out of its delivery station.

20:38

Those DSPs

20:40

employ their drivers. But

20:42

Amazon does not employ those drivers. They're contracted

20:45

through a third party.

20:47

So they're not employees, but they wear

20:50

Amazon uniforms and deliver Amazon packages

20:52

in largely Amazon branded vehicles.

20:56

But they're not employees. And Amazon

20:59

has been very clear about this to me. They asked me

21:01

one time after

21:03

I was writing a story about a group of Amazon delivery

21:05

drivers who had unionized in California,

21:08

which I'm sure we'll get into in a minute, Amazon

21:11

wanted me to clarify that they're not Amazon delivery

21:13

drivers. They're drivers delivering for Amazon,

21:17

which is obviously a very important

21:20

semantic difference. Right. If you want to

21:22

distance yourself from claiming responsibility

21:24

for people who are unionizing

21:27

or are getting injured in your workforce.

21:29

Yeah. Let's focus on this because

21:32

I think there's, there's kind of two stories here

21:34

to kind of close out our time with Amazon.

21:37

They're

21:40

busting union. So

21:42

what are the drivers doing here? They're

21:44

trying to get organized. They're trying to, they're trying to get some

21:46

unions going. So are the warehouse workers,

21:48

obviously, um,

21:51

Amazon is busting those unions

21:53

and also the national labor relations board is

21:55

going after them. Kind of what I know that's a lot

21:57

of threads, but what's going on here.

22:00

So, we can talk about

22:03

the, let's set

22:05

up the union busing first because Amazon

22:07

is getting critiqued from a lot of different

22:09

angles because of that.

22:12

The main thing that I think

22:14

is relevant to bring up here, the drivers, there's

22:16

a group of drivers in California that

22:19

unionized with the Teamsters

22:21

back in April, which was a really

22:24

big deal because the Teamsters have been trying to organize

22:26

Amazon for a very long time. They have an Amazon division

22:28

and it was really the first group

22:31

of drivers in Amazon's network

22:34

of delivery service partners who successfully unionized.

22:37

Those drivers' employer, the DSP,

22:39

recognized their union voluntarily

22:42

and they bargained a contract and everything was great. But

22:45

Amazon said, well, actually, because we don't employ

22:47

these drivers, we don't have to bargain with them,

22:50

which

22:52

is why it's so interesting that they

22:54

spent over a million dollars trying

22:57

to bust driver unions

22:59

in 2022.

23:01

Right. If it's not actually a problem, if these aren't our employees,

23:03

then why spend the money? Why invest the money to make

23:05

sure that you don't have to talk to them?

23:07

It's very strange. I

23:10

did some digging through filings. So

23:13

whenever a company wants to hire

23:15

union busting consultants, who are usually

23:18

called

23:20

just regular consultants and their

23:22

job is to persuade employees

23:24

to exercise or not exercise

23:27

their right to unionize, usually in the favor of

23:29

not because unions make

23:31

things difficult for employers who want to

23:33

exploit their workers. Employers

23:36

and those consultants are required to disclose their

23:38

activities to the National Labor Relations Board

23:41

in some forms that are publicly available. And

23:43

I dug through some of those forms and I found

23:46

at least two groups of consultants

23:49

were hired by Amazon, specifically to target

23:51

drivers

23:52

and specifically drivers who were unionizing

23:55

with the Teamsters in 2022. It's

23:58

worth mentioning that those those drivers who

24:00

unionized in California

24:03

over in Pondale actually were,

24:06

as soon as they announced their unionization publicly,

24:08

they started seeing new faces around the warehouse,

24:10

which is usually an interesting tale

24:12

of someone trying to interfere. But

24:15

I looked at the numbers that they had on those that

24:17

they filed on those NLRB documents and

24:20

Amazon spent over a million dollars trying

24:22

specifically

24:24

to persuade drivers

24:26

to not unionize with the Teamsters. Another

24:29

interesting number I should bring up here is that that $1 million

24:32

is part of a total of over $14.2 million that

24:34

they spent on union

24:37

investing in 2022.

24:38

Pocket change for them really. Pocket

24:42

change, some little coins. It's not a big

24:44

deal at all. God forbid they spend that

24:47

money meeting

24:48

some of the demands of the people that

24:50

very obviously work for them.

24:52

Yeah. And

24:55

there's also been pickets

24:57

at some of the warehouses. There

25:00

have specifically by those Amazon

25:03

Teamsters, I'll just call them shorthand, who

25:06

unionized back in April, they have been holding

25:08

picket lines because they claim that Amazon,

25:10

because it's refused to bargain with them, is

25:13

committing an unfair labor practice. And

25:16

that is something that they have the right to strike

25:18

against. So for a very long time,

25:20

while they were still delivering

25:23

packages for Amazon, they went on strike and they said, we're not

25:25

delivering anything until you come to the table and bargain with

25:27

us. Amazon also conveniently

25:30

announced, and this is at

25:34

a very convenient point, indeed, because they said

25:37

the same day that the unionization was announced, I

25:39

reached out to Amazon and I asked, you

25:42

know, do you have any statement on this

25:44

unionization? And they said, yes, these

25:47

drivers don't work for us. Their contract

25:49

was terminated because of poor performance.

25:52

10 days before unionization was announced,

25:54

so really,

25:55

the argument was in essence that they

25:57

don't work for us. And also we fired them before they.

25:59

could unionize so we have no obligation

26:02

to be bargaining with these people. I

26:05

talked to the DSP owner and he said that

26:08

actually they had had wonderful performance and

26:10

he didn't know why the contract had been terminated. But

26:13

again it's very interesting timing, his personal

26:15

opinion. But

26:18

after their contract was up they

26:20

had 60 days to continue because

26:22

of the California Worn Act which requires that you

26:25

have to give a certain amount of time like

26:27

notice before someone loses their job. And

26:30

so during those 60 days they were holding picket

26:32

lines and refusing to work. After

26:34

their contract ended they have extended

26:36

those picket lines quite literally

26:38

across the country. There have

26:40

been pickets and strikes all over California

26:43

that they've held, Atlanta,

26:45

New Jersey, Michigan,

26:48

Massachusetts, Connecticut. There have

26:50

been tons and tons of places where

26:53

they've gathered solidarity from, you know, they've

26:55

flown out across the country. They've

26:57

had local union members, especially

26:59

from the teamsters, come in and support them from UPS

27:02

to come and support them. And

27:04

they're really trying to bring attention to the fact that Amazon has

27:06

refused to bargain with them and how

27:08

they say that Amazon has unjustly

27:11

fired their, like, unrenewed

27:14

their contract, gotten rid of their contract specifically

27:17

because of unionization. That's their argument.

27:19

All right, there's cyber listeners. We're going to pause there

27:21

for a break. We'll be right back after this.

27:23

All right. Hey,

27:26

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28:50

Hey there cyber listeners, Matthew here.

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30:57

Cyber listeners, welcome back. Got

31:00

a question from chat here that I think is pretty good.

31:02

The answer may be no, but it would be funny if it's

31:04

yes. Are

31:07

the Pinkertons involved with Amazon in

31:09

any way? Is that one of the union

31:11

busting? I know that they've been doing union

31:13

busting other places. Pinkerton, Pinkerton.

31:15

I don't know that name. So

31:18

the Pinkertons are

31:21

a detective agency

31:24

that is usually portrayed as villainous

31:27

in stories about the Old West. They're still

31:29

around. They did union busting

31:31

then. They do union busting now. The

31:33

Pinkertons. It just clicked.

31:35

I have, unfortunately,

31:38

I think the answer is no. Sorry, chat. That

31:41

would be great. But to

31:43

my knowledge, I don't think they are involved. We'll

31:46

update you if that changes.

31:47

Somebody should do, I

31:50

don't know if anyone's done like a big piece

31:52

on like what the Pinkertons are doing now, but they're

31:54

still involved other places. And they're

31:57

still around, still doing union busting.

31:59

they did some union busting against like,

32:02

oh no, the, there

32:04

was a, like a magic the gathering

32:08

leak. And

32:10

the pink in the, the company that you know what

32:12

magic the gathering is, it's a card game. I do. Yes.

32:15

The company that owns magic the gathering

32:17

was up to the coast hired the Pinkerton's to

32:20

recover their the property. They

32:23

went to this poor youtubers house

32:26

to like get him to hand over the cards

32:28

that he had a month earlier than a month

32:31

earlier than he was supposed to. Yeah. Oh my God. That

32:33

was maybe the end of last year. I think that happened

32:35

or maybe the beginning of this year. So that's

32:37

so funny. I feel so bad, but that's

32:39

also so funny. It's just, well, just

32:41

because like Pinkerton's in my mind, I think of like

32:44

villains from video

32:46

games and movies, but

32:48

they're still around still doing nasty

32:51

business. Um, all

32:53

right. So there's another

32:54

half to this story. Um,

32:58

we're kind of in this unprecedented moment right

33:00

now for labor. Uh, at

33:03

least in my lifetime, um,

33:06

where there is all this organization,

33:09

people are more aware of unions, I think, than they've

33:11

been in a long time. Um,

33:13

and people are

33:16

fighting back against the kind of the way

33:18

we've done business in this country, maybe the past 20,

33:20

30 years.

33:22

Uh,

33:23

so I want to talk about one of the

33:25

big wins recently,

33:28

which, you know, we've talked about the teamsters, but the teamsters

33:30

and UPS had a big win,

33:32

right? There was almost a strike and they ended up negotiating

33:34

something. Can you kind of

33:37

walk me through that story?

33:38

Sure. So, uh, the teamsters,

33:41

UPS is like one of the giants in the logistics

33:43

industry. So what they do with

33:45

the teamsters really affects

33:47

pretty much everyone who wants to deliver packages

33:50

in the United States and, you

33:52

know, across around the world. Um, and

33:55

they had a really, really big

33:58

strike threat this summer because

34:00

The union contract

34:02

between the UPS and the Teamsters was set to expire

34:05

on August 1st. And

34:08

the Teamsters have a new president, Sean O'Brien, who

34:11

was in charge of those negotiations. And

34:13

he took a much more aggressive stance to try

34:16

and improve conditions

34:18

for those UPS workers. Specifically,

34:20

there were two major points that I want

34:22

to touch on. The first one is heat protections,

34:25

which we saw there was a massive heat wave

34:27

last summer. There was a lot of heat this

34:29

summer. And

34:30

I think now in both summers

34:32

there have been UPS drivers who have

34:34

died on the job because of heat.

34:37

Because of heat stroke and being exposed to those

34:39

extreme conditions. You know, the back

34:41

of UPS trucks can get over to over 120

34:44

degrees Fahrenheit. And

34:46

it's just a metal box. You're

34:48

baking back there.

34:50

And so obviously people wanted protections

34:52

for that. And one of the initial

34:55

big wins that we saw during these negotiations,

34:57

during this back and forth, was that the

34:59

Teamsters were able to win air

35:01

conditioning in UPS trucks.

35:04

Which, shockingly, was not a thing

35:07

before this summer. That's so awful.

35:09

Isn't that crazy? It's a nightmare, yeah. The

35:13

fact that you want to have workers

35:15

out in the

35:17

heat and the elements all day, with

35:19

just a fan that's maybe this big,

35:23

blowing sort of at their left elbow,

35:26

is what I've heard from some drivers. And

35:29

to be doing hard manual labor, like these packages

35:32

are heavy. And if you're lifting and

35:34

moving and running around, you're doing an eight

35:37

hour, ten hour long workout in the heat. And

35:39

there was no air conditioning. That was a really

35:41

big win, the fact that they're now going to start implementing

35:43

air conditioning in new trucks and also get heat

35:46

exhaust shields. Or

35:48

exhaust heat shields, I think it's the other way around. The

35:51

other big point was the

35:53

elimination of a position that's known

35:55

as the 22-4, which refers to

35:58

the article in section number one. that it was

36:00

defined in the previous union contract

36:03

that was set for five years. That

36:05

position in essence was workers

36:08

who would work full-time hours for part-time

36:10

pay, which is obviously not

36:12

a great solution. A lot of people wanted to get rid

36:14

of that. They did manage to get rid of that in

36:17

tentative agreements. This is all back in June,

36:19

May and June when negotiations

36:21

were in the thick of it. This

36:26

came to a standstill over the issue

36:28

of part-time wages. UPS

36:31

is largely made up of part-timers and

36:33

they were not getting their fair share

36:35

of the contract and their fair share of what

36:38

they deserve for their work. What happened

36:41

was both UPS and the Teamsters

36:43

accused each other of walking out of

36:46

the bargaining room and

36:48

then nothing happened for a month.

36:50

That was when people were really starting

36:52

to believe that there was going to be a strike because there were no

36:55

negotiations happening and the deadline was

36:57

just growing closer and closer and they had authorized

36:59

a strike. The Teamsters had authorized a strike with

37:01

I think 97 percent approval nationwide,

37:03

which is pretty good.

37:06

Finally, about a week before the

37:08

contract

37:10

was set to expire, they came back

37:12

to the bargaining table. They were

37:14

able to come to some kind of agreement and those

37:16

were some really tense days to watch things

37:20

really go down to the wire. They

37:22

were able to form a tentative agreement that

37:24

guarantees higher part-time wages a better

37:27

increase over

37:29

a five-year period of what people will

37:31

be getting paid, better pathways

37:33

to become a full-time driver

37:36

of a full-time worker from being a part-timer,

37:38

which is something that workers have wanted for a

37:40

long time. People

37:43

were pretty happy about this. They

37:46

had to authorize that agreement, so

37:48

they had a vote nationwide, which

37:51

I think

37:52

had around 50 percent turnout

37:55

of people who voted on it, people who were eligible to vote

37:57

on it, and got I think around 86 percent

37:59

approval.

37:59

So that passed, we're not going to

38:02

have a UPS strike this year, to my knowledge.

38:04

Um, but that was a really big win because they

38:06

were able to get those three major points, air conditioning,

38:09

no 22 for no like weird part-time wages

38:12

and improvements for part-timers in general, which

38:14

is something that they'd been fighting for for a long time. And

38:17

I feel like that really sets. That's

38:19

one of the big wins that we've seen for labor this summer, uh,

38:21

this year as well. And I think that sets

38:24

kind of a precedent for what kind of negotiations

38:26

we may be seeing in the future. Cause I feel like people are taking

38:29

a much more aggressive stance this year.

38:31

The other big story, uh, the

38:33

other big one, I think everyone's kind of aware of have been

38:35

following obviously is the writers and actors

38:37

strike. Yes. Uh, is

38:40

there any, I know we've kind of been stalled

38:42

out there for a long time. Is there any kind of update on

38:44

that? Is anything interesting going on there?

38:46

They did actually have, um,

38:49

a new proposal that came in, I

38:52

think mid August. So for people

38:54

who will somehow are not aware of

38:56

this, um, writers and actors are,

38:58

I've been on strike for over a hundred days now, I

39:00

think, um, because they want better

39:03

residuals from streaming, which is how

39:05

most people in the entertainment industry earn their money. Um,

39:08

and streaming is really kind of messed that up. So they want better,

39:11

a better deal for that and better

39:13

protections and regulations about how AI

39:16

is going to get used in the entertainment industry. Um,

39:19

and for a long time, studios were like, now we're not doing

39:21

that. Um,

39:22

you can just be on strike

39:24

until you, you starve and lose your house. I

39:26

think there was one studio executive who said

39:28

something like that. Yes. Crazy.

39:30

Um, but there was an update

39:33

in those negotiations, which was

39:35

that studios provided a new proposal with,

39:37

I think better, better residuals. I don't

39:40

know the numbers off the top of my head, but, um,

39:42

meetings as well to determine, you

39:45

know, viewership on

39:47

streaming platforms to help calculate those residuals

39:49

better so people can earn money off of streaming their

39:51

shows instead of just them just being on cable. And

39:54

also that any content

39:57

generated by AI, this is specifically for

39:59

the writers. would not be considered

40:01

literary material, which means that

40:04

it would not be covered by any sort of

40:07

bargaining agreement that the writers have, and

40:09

so it would

40:10

affect them less, and that

40:12

way they would be able to kind of distance themselves

40:14

from being lumped in with AI, which

40:17

is an improvement because that's something that writers have been

40:19

working towards, getting better protections

40:21

for how AI is used in

40:24

conjunction with their own writing

40:27

and their own work, and that is an improvement that they've been

40:29

asking for. I don't know

40:31

how the details of that works because I don't think the contract,

40:34

the actual deal has been released,

40:36

but the other thing that the writers have been asking

40:38

for that studios haven't budged on yet is

40:41

that their writing

40:43

can't be used to train AI

40:45

or that somehow it should be regulated

40:48

how it's used to train AI, and

40:50

studios haven't budged on that at all, and I think that's

40:52

the next big issue that they're going to have to address

40:54

Yeah, it's going to be, we're going to see a series of precedents

40:57

set in the next five years around these large language

40:59

models and how they're used, right? So

41:03

many different court

41:05

cases kind of winding through and fights

41:08

happening like this one right now, and it's

41:12

going to be very interesting to see how it all shakes out. I

41:14

think that,

41:15

I wouldn't say that AI is as hyped

41:17

as like crypto was, but I

41:20

think it is being oversold quite a bit. And

41:22

I mean, it's permeating through all

41:25

kinds of industries, like even just in what

41:27

we've talked about now, it's in entertainment,

41:29

it's in the writers, it's in the active strike. It's

41:31

also in Amazon, you know,

41:34

monitoring and improving,

41:36

improving, you know, monitoring on drivers,

41:38

they're going to start implementing better robotics

41:41

in the logistics industry

41:44

to kind of probably speed up the

41:46

process, probably it's not going to work very well, but

41:49

people are investing in AI in all sorts

41:52

of

41:53

fields and just seeing how this precedent

41:55

is set, I feel like is going to set us

41:59

depending on how it works. works on a different course

42:01

for how AI can be used in the workplace.

42:04

I agree. Uh, so why do you think all

42:06

of this stuff is happening right

42:09

now? Why

42:11

do you think labor is in the air? Why

42:14

so many strikes and talks

42:16

of strikes and so much organization? Why

42:18

is this happening?

42:20

I feel like it really goes back

42:22

to at the very least

42:24

last year was, um, was, um, one

42:27

of the highest surges that we saw in,

42:29

um,

42:30

filings to

42:32

have a union election in a very long time.

42:34

I think those petitions to hold

42:37

a union election were up 53% year over year,

42:39

which was a really, really

42:41

big jump from, you know, the kind of stagnant

42:45

low numbers we've seen there before. Um, and

42:48

I had asked around about this a couple,

42:50

a couple of months ago. I think there are

42:52

three main points as to why

42:55

we're getting such a surge in labor right now. The first

42:57

one,

42:58

everyone's favorite COVID hear me

43:01

out because COVID really,

43:03

I feel like made a lot of people realize that the

43:05

conditions that they were under, whether they were considered

43:08

essential workers and they were having to go in and that

43:10

causes a lot of safety concerns or whether

43:13

they got laid off all of a sudden and realized that

43:15

their jobs weren't as protected as they thought they would be. That

43:17

really set everything on a whole

43:20

new path. And I feel like that kind of was

43:22

the spark for people to realize that there is

43:24

some way of getting their employers to treat them better.

43:27

The other two things that are helping with this process

43:30

is that for a very

43:31

long time, and I think still right now we have a fairly

43:33

tight labor market, which means that workers can

43:35

demand more from their employers because

43:37

employers generally speaking can't

43:40

afford to lose them. And the third

43:42

thing is that

43:44

Biden is in the white house.

43:45

I have mixed feelings about Biden,

43:48

but I'm not going to get into on this podcast, but

43:51

his national labor relations board has

43:54

been very, very pro worker. They

43:57

just passed new, new,

43:58

um,

44:00

A new system for what it means for

44:02

a union to be recognized that requires

44:05

that if an employer does

44:07

any sort of unfair persuasion

44:10

during a union election, that election

44:13

doesn't have to be redone or anything and the employer

44:15

is just

44:16

required to recognize the union.

44:19

That's not something that we've seen since maybe the 1940s,

44:21

that kind of worker power, and that came directly

44:23

from the NLRB. They've also been going after

44:26

specific companies. There was

44:28

the unionization at Amazon that happened

44:30

last

44:31

April.

44:33

April 2022, I believe, was

44:36

the JFK8 unionization. That's

44:38

the Amazon Labor Union. Since

44:40

then, that unit has been trying to get Amazon

44:42

to bargain with them for now over a year, even

44:44

though they received certification, even though a federal

44:47

judge told Amazon to stop firing people

44:49

who had unionized. That says enough

44:52

in itself. The

44:54

NLRB issued a complaint against Amazon

44:56

for refusing to bargain with that union. The

44:59

fact that they're taking such a direct approach, I feel,

45:01

is really exemplary of the kind of stance that

45:04

they're taking, the pro-worker stance that they're taking,

45:06

because that generally does depend on who is in the White

45:08

House. In Republican administrations,

45:10

it tends to be more pro-company. In Democratic

45:13

administrations, generally speaking, it

45:15

tends to be more pro-worker. The fact that

45:18

this is the political climate that we were in that

45:21

set up the NLRB has really pushed those

45:23

successful unionizations forward.

45:26

Jules Roscoe, thank you for coming on

45:28

to Cyber and walking us through this. Thank

45:30

you for having me. All

45:34

right, Cyber listeners, thank you for joining

45:36

us. If you like the show, please,

45:38

and you're listening to the podcast, please consider watching us.

45:40

We tape these live on twitch.tv forward

45:43

slash Vice. We

45:45

are on most Fridays at 11

45:47

a.m. This Friday,

45:50

we are taking a break as we are moving

45:52

house a little bit, but we will be back.

45:54

September is going to be absolutely packed. Cory

45:57

Doctorow is coming back to talk about his new book.

45:59

We're going to get really deep into inshittification.

46:03

Taylor Lorenz is going to be coming on. She's

46:05

going to be talking to us about what it's like to

46:07

live online. And Brian Merchant

46:10

is going to come on and talk about the origins of

46:13

the tech rebellion and

46:15

Luddites and why we think of the Luddites

46:17

perhaps incorrectly. Those three shows

46:20

are all happening in September. They're going to be absolutely incredible.

46:22

And they're going to be live streamed here at twitch.tv

46:25

forward slash vice and available as a podcast

46:28

later. Jules, where can people

46:29

find your work or follow you online?

46:33

I am on Twitter at Jules A.

46:35

Roscoe. You can find my stuff on

46:37

vice.com, Motherboard.

46:39

Just Google me. I'm around. Happy

46:42

Labor Day, because that's happening this Monday. So

46:45

perfect timing.

46:46

Absolutely.