NO ONE EVER LISTENS TO CHILIE

HEY GUYS WE HAVE THE OPORTUNITY TO SIT DOWN AND GET IN DEEP WITH RICK JOHNSON FORMER APPR COORDINATOR FOR 27 AND FORMEER PRESIDENT AND VICE PRESIDENT AS WELL. RICK IS A WEATLH OF KNOWLEDGE TO HISTORY AND INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT WHERE WE AREE HOW WE GOT HERE AND IF WE DON;T START MAKING THE CHANGES NECESSARY NOW WHERE WE WILL BE. 

THIS IS AN INVITATION TO EVERYONE GET INVOLVED AND LETS ALL GET ORGANIZED. 

GO CHECK OUT THE CREDIT UNION THEY TRULY ARE AMAZING. 

LET US KNOW WHAT YALL WANT TO HEAR MORE OF. AND LET US KNOW IF YOU WOILD LIKE TO COME ON AND SHARE YOUR STORY WITH US.  

STAY SAFE WORK HARD AND LIVE WELL. 

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Rick Johnson 0:00

welcome back to the Iron Worker Podcast. Today we're sitting down with Rick Johnson local's apprenticeship coordinator and president. He's gonna down and tell us a little bit about early life and maybe going on in his family. So it should be a good today. So why don't you just go ahead and start, Rick. All right, thanks. Appreciate you guys having me on. The work you guys are doing is great. I think getting our voices out union voices, iron workers by what we do, concerns everything that we're working with, I think great thing. That was basically a boomer from the time I was born. I passed this all around you guys. I brought my dad a short he got, his book is stamped June 14th, 1967 at the time my dad was working at powerhouse out outside of Milwaukee, and then he went to work on some freeways busting rods. My uncle was hooked up, a was his name. Oh, lemme start. Rick Johnson. Book number 2, 2, 9, 2 number. I got 93. I started in about October. An, let's see. My dad's book number is 77 Old, right? Yeah. That's why I'm retired. So I got on the road, my dad on when was a year and went to Johnstown, pa, my uncles working for a company called Kellogg. They did stacks, smoke stacks, and that's what my dad did the first several years of his career. So it traveled and followed this company in Johnstown, pa went the hole. He was working nights. They were working nights. My uncle was in the, my uncle, I was in the man basket. My dad was on top of the man basket coming down this particular evening. He said, normally when you come down, there was a 50 foot opening towards the bottom of the stack, and he said, normally it'd be dark. And you hit that opening, it'd be light light dark again. But this particular evening, I figure the operator might have fallen asleep running the man. So it's dark, light dark, and demanding. Again, this is 1968. OSHA is 72, so the conditions were a little different than when they're, today. He's on top of the he made the decision right when they got close to the operator ended up catching and so Feet. My uncle showed up to the hospital the next day, the fifth whiskey feet, to get my dad outta the hospital. He was going, he was job within a, in his cast. He finished out the job. Basically all busted up. That was one of the first jobs he was on. Then he went to Moundsville, West Virginia. Or no, we were living in Moundsville. He was working there. I think if I if my notes are correct. And we went to Stratton, Ohio. We went to Toronto, Ohio. Again, we're doing stacks. Then we went to Sudbury, Ontario and needed 1,250 foot stack, the super stack, if you ever talk to anybody from that part of town or that part of the world and all about the super stack. And it's crazy. When I was back as an instructor back in Michigan with all the guys we sit with, we used to get their bright and early with red and Mike and everybody. We'd have our breakfast and this old timer and his wife came down, sat down with us. Hey, you mind if we sit here? No, not at all. Like a accent. Most of the time I'll ask somebody, Hey, where you from? Oh, I'm from Sudbury. I said, oh, no kidding. Said my dad worked there. He did. I said, not. I said, no kidding. I said, yeah. I said, his name's Pete Johnson. Do you know him? And he kinda looked at me, funny me, Johnson, he said, them Johnson Brothers. They were crazy And it was just such a small world. This whole timer sits down at my table while we're at while I'm in a training 25, 30, 40 years later, whatever it was, I worked with my dad on this stack. So he did that stack. And then we went to Shin West Virginia, did a couple thousand footers Oswego, New York. He did some more of them. We went to Port Go. He did one of the last stacks and work was booming out in Phoenix. So we went home to Wisconsin for a minute and then we went out to Phoenix and we lived there. I did kindergarten in first grade in Phoenix. That had to be quite change though, when the temperature was from Wisconsin to Phoenix. Yeah, he was working all up in the Northeast right there. Ohio and New York and Canada and stuff. And it heard it was booming and so off we went. And so for me, I was a little years I scars from the didn't sunscreen, right? So we went to Phoenix and we were there a couple of years. We tried he was laid off one time. He tried selling cars cause always wanted to my dad, he, if that, which was cars and stuff. And then one of the superintendents, his name's Neil Calendar, I was working at Kenco out here. That was just getting, when they were getting ready to do the stack. So we came out here in, I think it was 73. I think I started second grade here. 73. So that's what brought me to Utah and my family. And then they kinda liked it. And so we pretty much stayed in 76. He did a couple 700 footers in Paducah outside of Paducah, Kentucky for the TV Valley Authority. Our project, I talked to some guys from back there and they've done maintenance on those stacks and stuff since. So I spent a summer, spent about six months in Kentucky and we came back, that was in third grade for me. So then by sixth grade, the middle of sixth grade, Leo, again, calendar the superintendent was in I think it's Byron, Illinois. There's a nuclear power plant. And they were having trouble maning the job, something. So he called my dad. And my dad, we went out there to do he did two cooling towers for the new plant. So I spent sixth, the rest of sixth, seventh, and eighth grade there. It's quite an experience to be from kinda growing up in Utah, to heading to Rockford, Illinois. And the culture was a lot different. Private Catholic school, to put me in public schools at the time. So anyway, why were they afraid to put you in public schools? Yeah. Was waiting for someone to ask that question. I think at one time I heard that Rockford was about the highest percentage of African American city in Okay. Illinois. Oh. And so then you take a living in Utah, sheltered white kid and throw him. A mix like that, they were just nervous. It's just a different world, right? It's a different culture. It's a different, it's a different place. Even the Catholic school I went to was as racially diverse as any school I've ever been to. It was a great experience cuz there was, in Rockford, there was Italian part of town and part of town, a Mexican part of town, and then there were blacks, parts of town plus. So we had all of that in this Catholic school and that's where I learned how to, I already knew, but that's, as kids, you just play with your friends that you go to school with. Yeah. So that's where I, the sports that I played, I was, there was a, we played in the football, we played in the city league. And there was one team that was entirely black except for one kid, Freddy Hernandez that I went to school with. He was the only Mexican. Rest of 'em were black. And that's just the culture that was existed there at the time that we dealt with. But we were just, I dunno, I'd look at anyway, so it was a good learning experience. And like with the way shit's going on now in the country, like if people could really realize that it doesn't matter the color of your skin really, like what you said, you're just playing with friends. And I feel like we don't talk about politics or any of that jazz on here because, everybody's got their opinions and, but I feel if there's anything we could take from what you just said the fact that it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter what color you are. You're playing with friends, your family, they doesn't matter. They were your teammates. Yeah. They were your school kids, we wanted to beat Southwest. That's the team I'm telling you that was. All one. We wanted to beat them cuz they were the best. Yeah. We didn't wanna beat them because they were black. They were better than us and we wanted to beat them. That was the whole goal behind it. Did you ever beat them? No. We lost. We lost. So our star running back, this is back in like seventh, eighth grade. This is stuck with you your whole life. Oh yeah. So you gotta think about this. I was living in Illinois in the late seventies. The best running back in my opinion, ever to run in the NFL was Walter Payton. That's my opinion. Agreed. He was playing for Chicago. They didn't have a line, they just pitched in the ball and off he went. And so for us, football is a lot, right? And so at the time, that was it. And we had this kid, Kevin Anderson, best kid I've ever played with. He's the fastest. He was just like Walter Payton. When we needed 10 yards, we pitching the ball and the way he went. He was just killer. But he played for Southwest when we were, so there were two age groups and we were in the higher of the two age groups. The two years I played with him, he came over that year. So the first year we didn't have a coach, coaches or a bunch of young college kids and they didn't know nothing. And we just sucked. Then the next year we got this coach and he was on it and we played Southwest and we lost 2317 and there was a man zone and they jumped on it. Yeah. I remember like it was yesterday. It was something that meant a lot to us. It was so cool. But we lost Southwest. We took third in the city championship. We played a team from down south somewhere. Had this big tall, he was about a six foot kid. Anyway, it was a of fun, it was justn of fun. Sports were a big part of my life when I was a so rock one my A cool towers come back. And my dad had made the decision that he wasn't gonna travel while my brother and I were in high school, so we could go to the same school and do what we needed to do. And they liked Utah because he got the seasons right. They were from Reiner, Wisconsin up north winter. Yeah, we went back a couple years ago, my wife and the weather was perfect. She said, oh, I could move here. I said, you've got the only two weeks ever this year, nice. There were no bug. There were, was just beautiful. But yeah, it was cold. My dad, the stories, my dad told them when he was a kid and the heat and it was just, it was hard. But they liked the seasons here, so that's why they stayed. And so we stayed here. He kept working. He worked out in I P, he was carpooling McDonalds. And where were you guys living? Where'd you go to school? So I went to school. We just down from the hall, there's a We started at the there's a parking complex right off of about 31st and I 15 or two 15 right there. That's where we moved. And then there's a trailer court off of 56 in Van WinCo. And my mother still lives there today. So that's where I was raised. That's where we kept coming back every time and that's where we stayed. So my dad stayed here and kept working. I got married in 87 needed a job. No work. That was the Reagan years and work really bad in late eighties. That's when our local had an industrial, they went from regular, just a single rate to an industrial, had a commercial rate. I think it was like 1275 an hour for the commercial rate. My dad was on the eboard and he said, he told me this years later. He said, I made that decision on the eboard to. To make that commercial rate. And he was driving to Logan every day for 1275 an hour or whatever, and I think it was about 15 bucks an hour outta the industrial rate. Is he still booming at this time or he transferred in? Yeah, so I can't remember when he transferred in. He needed so many years and I'd have to, I don't remember that, but I think he transferred in after we'd been here. He had been a member of the local he had transferred in almost as soon as he can, I think, because he got a home local, yeah. Yeah. And I'm sure that was in the seventies probably, I would guess is when he transferred in. He got his hours or whatever. It's been so long since I've read the Constitution to find out what it takes to transfer into a local. It might be in bylaw, so many. Whatever. Its, so yeah. He's member of. Work was bad. Maybe seven. I got married and I did few other jobs, and then 90 two-ish, 93 I guess it was. I needed a job. Go down the hall. Talk to Mike. Hold on. What were the other jobs that you did before you got it? Cause say you grow up, your dad's an iron worker your whole life, a stripper. I'm onm the collar of, he's a rod in your whole life. So he wasn't a rod, so he was a journeyman iron worker right at that time. And the story he used to tell me is he said this is how he said it, he said, back when I was breaking in you didn't turn your hard hat around until you figured you were a journeyman. And for him it was, I thought he said 10 or 15 years after he'd done everything that he figured he needed to do. So he started in rods and then once we landed here, he went out to national out there. What is it called? Is that still called now out there by the sponge plant. Oh, I dunno. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's national ed. It is That what that Oh, okay. You know what you talked about. That's the up west of the lake. But he started doing structural work and then he did some cheating and then he did a bunch of other things and he figured, Hey, look, I know enough now I can figure I'm aurn, I can turn my hat around. There was a couple things he said. He also said, back in the day, you could tell a union iron worker versus an unrepresented iron by the stickers on their union never had hat. Interesting. Told me. And that's why until the day I retired, I had an American flag online because that's what he had. That's the sticker I always had. I carried that tradition. But now it's everybody wants a sticker and yeah, my heart hat is, Full of them. And if you read the O regulations, they're illegal. Yeah, they're illegal. Yeah. So anyway, so what was the question? That's yeah. So you finish high school. Finish high school. And what were your other, what were your first few jobs? Did your dad try to persuade you into iron work right off the bat? Or what did you do? No. No. So I I outta high school, I went up to the u I was on swim team I is funny Funny Wow. I'm think, is that funny Really? Yeah. That wouldn't that's for different story. We'll talk, I'll tell you that whole thing one day after we turn the mics off. Okay. I didn't wanna be there, didn't wanna be in school. I wanted to do other stupid stuff. I get married, I was working at. Ended up working at a car dealership in parts department. Detailed some cars for a while and I went to work at a clock shop at a shop for a couple years. Selling clocks, battery changes of different things. So now in 93, my dad said, I'll go see Mike. And the thing with me is Mike McDonald's. I've known Mike since I was seven years old. Him and my dad were pretty tight. I used to play at his house back when I was in elementary school. We had football pencils and get out the machines and they're all, and so you collect them and trade em, just like trading cards. And I remember doing that with some of Mike's kids at his house. We were little, so I knew Mike since I was go see Mike and Mike first. I went to work for Lakeside Rebar. On the bottom of Temple. Frank Satara one day out there. And then Tom Anthony and Ray Perry were working at the Ballman, putting Rods in the next day. I didn't have a, I didn't know anything. I started an iron worker. I didn't know anything about it. I don't think either of my parents wanted me in iron. I kinda had a head, I, a very, didn't make good decisions all the time, but I kinda got some intelligence, so I think wanted me to do something else, but I needed a job. So went to, didn't know to didn't know what iron work was. I've been on the stack in pad. We went up to thought 700 footers when I was, I think I was about nine then, just to see the job. But as a nine year old, you dunno what they're doing. You dunno the work they're doing. So I, hold on, let's pause there. Do you remember, you remember what your football game, do you remember that experience as a nine year old at the top of that? 700 feet in the air as a nine year old, that's a pretty good, do you have any memories of that? What I can remember a little bit about the ride up in man basket, but what I really have a good memory of is standing in the middle, not wanting to get too close to the edge. And I don't remember any handrails or any guardrails or anything. This was 1976 is when I don't remember handrails, so I didn't get as close to the edge. I didn't walk right to the edge. And that's about my, and you can see, oh yeah, miles, 700 feet. It was pretty cool. I remember that. That's about all I remember. I was more in football, all the sports. I, but it was a cool experience that I, a memory. That's cool. So when I got in iron work, I didn't know anything about it. I didn't know what iron work or I really didn't. I just knew my dad worked hard. He was tired home after he came home, I called him Shine, right? One day I showed up after I'd working for a few busting rods and I showed up and I just had that dirt over when my mom said, oh, that's what a real iron worker looks like, huh? Yeah, they called him Char. He didn't get dirty for nothing. So I started Rods. I lasted two days for Frank and laid me off. So then the next job I went to work at Geneva, they were rebuilding, I think the blast one, the preheat furnaces down there for think it was So I worked for, can't remember. I worked for Maller yeah. yeah. Mall. He was my boss. We were working nights. I was Al Blackburn's Ladder, was Job apprentice. I, me gone all that months later, Mike said, I should've never drugged you up. Cause they were paying me full scale and I was working all that time. He dragged me up for a four 40 hour a week job as an apprentice at apprentice's wage at time was 11, 12 bucks an hour, probably think was maybe 16 or 17 when I got, excuse me. So I go to work on the Ball Diamond and Stan was running raising gang Scotty Weeks. And and Steve Abernathy were connecting. My dad always told me, oh, if you. Keun was hooking on with Pace. I think he was hooking on that same job. That's a group of people that are working on that bad. They Scotty weeks, about 10 years later and I said remembering on ball Back said, yeah, tell all these guys. I used to and you Scotty now? Yeah, he's but I bug staff all the time. Connect all the time. Come on. I was a welding so I was running leads, hanging floats. I dunno that we do that anymore. But I was hangings lot of times by myself. I was years or whatever doing it, doing that. And then they put me on the decking crew. Wayne Clark was his name, who's my partner. I dunno if you guys would've known him. And BT got in, Brian Thomas got in about the same time they came from the side and. They came in, we deck yeah. So I got connect one day, it was national finals, it was about this time of year, national finals. So Abernathy headed down to the national finals, was probably already there, was leaving at noon. So I a day connected with Steve Abernathy and then Rick Whitehead was there at the same time. So the second half of me and Rick come to my, and that was my experience on that job. And then they put on the deck crew. Those guys are those guys. Probably some of the better, like getting hands connectors. I within the group of good help. Oh yeah, Rick. Big names back then for sure. And Rick White said this is the only reason I'm doing it so I can do this. And that's what he loved. And he was in his forties probably. Then. I was gonna say he, I think he finally said to health connecting when he was probably close to retirement even. Yeah he loved it. Yeah. That's why he did it. So I got that early experience with him. So I get on the deck crew December day, snowing. And if you've ever been to the ball diamond you'll realize on the roof that along down the lines, it's a little bit steeper than it is where you get to the press boxes around this by home plate and we're throwing that a little bit less. Pitch decking, we were picking up sheets walking out ahead of us, dropping 'em off. And on that particular job we were using HILs and shooting them in. We weren't, there were about four sheets left. We picked up more of 'em just as I stood on 'em. The three sheets that were underneath me and Lane went down the hill. Snowboard. I remember. Hitting the joist, grabbing at the jo. I think I did a flip. I landed on the deck below me. I'm lucky it wasn't, I landed right next to some conduit that was sticking up and the three sheets came crashing down right next to me. So I went hole, my first job basically, right? I worked two days busting rods. I worked a week Geneva, then this is my first job, went hole. Cut right back up. As fortunate as it gets right, you right. I kinda did that Friday thing. Friday, right? Yeah. Yeah. I'm Okay. So I get back up there, right? We're gonna shoot these sheets down as we do 'em, we start shooting them down. As we start throwing 'em, after about three or four sheets, one of them slid out and I said I'm gonna go home for the rest of the day. You got one? Yeah. So the second one kind of slipped and that's, that was And that job ended. And again, I, like I told you at McDonald's knew my family and later he would tell me. So after that, then he there was a rod and I took a rod job for the Holtz preferred builders. And I started busting rods. And I kept bugging him to get outta of the pads and he said, I'm gonna tell your mother he off another building. Oh, yeah. And so for most of my apprenticeship, I did rods. I started running work months into it. I of took it maybe was my blood, my dad, it, whatever. But I busted robs most of my apprenticeship. Finally, at the end, I worked at that blue Cross Blue Shield building up there by an old, no Abernathy was connected. Bog and Harry Paulson was running Bolt, had a lot of fun. And that's when I turned out. And then it was on from there. That's the thing about Mike and see was always low key watching out. Rest, cause Mike's a good man. But I feel like he was always kind in a little bit, looking out for a bit, everybody making sure you weren't doing something that you weren't qualified to do. I, he would always, I think he was always right there to make sure you were safe and from the office point, as much as he could. I think he was, he wouldn't be afraid to tell you, Hey, no, not gonna happen. Oh yeah. Yeah. So from there it was working here and there. I worked for a bunch of different contractors. I was laid off. Right before the freeway started John Miranda called me on a third. Hey, got a company I you go for screw unemployment. Gets out there. Miranda. Went to work for RPM Steel. I worked on freeways for months shot of 40 years. I did worked on that project. I probably touched as many bridges as anybody on that whole thing. Spent 18 months building bang caps right down here off the south. Its a lot of fun. Good time. It was Oxy Rebar, so it was clean. We had a lot of fun. We had cranes. You didn't have to mess around. We didn't pick up a lot stuff. We, it was a good time after that. I went to work for side worked for them for a long time. They kind got slow. I was running work for back in. Take a layoff, go to California. I said, I'll take a layoff. That was in about 2010. A few years prior to that, my kids had grown up. I was home taking care of them, doing all the things I needed to do, and I started getting involved in the union, getting back involved in what I needed to given back. So I started showing up to union meetings more. They invited me to start teaching about the same time I drug up from Frank. So I started with Haw and OSHA and and the rest of my career. I worked structural and then I got involved in the apprenticeship with teaching and politics, end of it with the e board. And I'm vice president for a while, recording secretary for a while. Truly learn how. Rounds and what it does. And then Bobby North retired and ones the apprenticeship coordinator for about a year and a half. Came into work one day right here where we're sitting, I was teaching a class with on Monday in February. I was the 26th, February started some chest pains. It's kinda of weird. Didn't know what was going on. I thought with my coffee I made that comment. I, it must be Starbucks. Walked down, sat down at my desk and then got weird text thread, Hey, come in here a minute. What'd you in? What's going on? And he at me and I see him, his face, what was going on. Called an ambulance and took me over to a hospital a few miles away, laid me on the table. I woke up, found out I'd had what they call widowmaker heart attack. Your l a d, the biggest. Artery that supplies blood to your vein or blood to your heart at a hundred percent blockage. Oh shit. I called the widow maker cause I don't know what percentage is, but the majority of people dying. After I talked to my doctor, I said I, while I was on the table, while I was working on me, I had a flat line. They had to put the paddles to me twice. The second time I sat right up the kid that took me upstairs, the nurse that was there, he said, do you remember waking up? I said, He said, oh, you sat right up. I remember my doctor telling me, I can remember hearing the doctor say, sir, you need to say laying down, sir. Please lay down. So once he put the juice to me the second time, I sat right up and and I also heard my wife, she broke into the operating room. That's my husband, ma'am. You can't be in there. Can't be in. Had a heart attack in February. And by the end of March I retired from Ireland. I made some hard decisions and I, prior to coming into teaching the apprenticeship, I worked as a safety manager for a couple different companies. Has, or pipe fitting company. We're working one refineries here. I worked for them for a few months and then I got hired out with Heart Mechanical at Chevron there doing a flare. So I worked there for almost a year, I think it was give or take before I took over the apprenticeship. After my heart attack, I had I replaced myself with another local 27 iron worker, Matt Larson. He was getting into safety at the time. He was working out in the Bay Area. I told the guys from Harvard, Hey, give this guy call. He'll be able to do a good job. So Matt took over my job here. I took over the apprenticeship. So after my heart attack, I he reached out to me, said, Hey, what you doing? I said, I dunno, just had a heart attack. I dunno what I'm gonna do. Said, oh, we're looking for safety. Safety. So put in my application. They were happy with the work I did first time. They hired me back and still working for him today. I'm doing, and I'm also from apprenticeship, so I'm the, or the QC manager as well. It's like fab shop just down the street from where we're at now. I'm there now. That's kinda my history of work as it goes. What a fuck story to listen to. Crazy, huh? It's It was, as I look back to so many things, I, terrible decisions in life's about a couple of themed. So I tell the people story. And the funny thing about that, I was up at I was up in just outside of Seattle s there's a resort. We were doing a organizing thing up there for the, for our we had just been taken over by Pacific Northwest. They had restructured all the district councils. And we were up there at one of these, and the district council president and a couple other guys were sitting there having a drink and they said, here, you want a beer? And I said, no, you don't wanna meet Whiskey Rick So that was in about May. by July. I've been risky. Rick has shown himself By July. I was in Ulai, taking a picture on a Sunday afternoon after I've golfed in the morning, started myself the rest of, and That's what happens, right? Yeah, no, it's it's been, I didn't realize I was an iron worker until I became one, and I was always one. I think, I was raised by strong union man. He did everything he could for unions. It's pretty weird. My grandfather was born in 1889, my father's father. So in some respects, I think that those generations that were lost, he got that old school training from his dad that was given to me. Where I just, and he was. And when my dad got in the late sixties and through the seventies and where he worked, the stories he would tell about he went into went to, we were just at, we were in, excuse me, we were in Aron, Ohio doing a stack and he said, I showed up, pay my dues and cleared through the hall. And the business agent sat him down and he said, Hey, the last guy that was sitting in his chair is carving up, I don't want any problems. My dad said, I'm just here to do the, I won't give you any problems. Those were the times that if you've ever seen that movie don't kill the Irishman. That's about all the bombings. Over several hundred bombings around the Cleveland, all those areas over what was going on in the early seventies. And that was the time. In our country when all that stuff was happen. My dad lives through all that. Out in all those different places. Seventies was, I wanna say I'm, correct me if I'm wrong, that's like during Vietnam stuff, right? Yeah. Vietnam ended towards a lot of things going on in civically, politically, the late sixties, early seventies wood stock. Yeah. Yeah. You had the hippies, right? Asbury. I was born in the Summer of Love. That's when those guys asbury it was, that's they called it down there in San Francisco, in Asbury. They all showed up and wanted to drop asses free love. But at the same time, we had the Black Panthers were just starting. you had Jim Jones starting his craziness. But that's a side note. But you have a lot of things going on all at once in this country. Vietnam, everybody was protesting Vietnam for the war that it was and everything that it was. And so my dad traveled around the country and he was a boomer in all of these different places. And as you guys know, a lot of times some locals aren't as receptive as others to Yeah. Outside brother iron workers coming in because taking a job, taking their job. And that's one of the hampers we've had possibly in our existence as the fact that it's been called the country club, right? Not your sons and brothers and uncles to have work. So they didn't want anybody outside of that Yeah. To come in. The other story he told us we were in when we were in Illinois, that was Rockford, Illinois, we got a letter a few years after that he was gonna lose his annuity. I believe he needed another 15 hours to get his money for the time he had spent in Rockford. And he had 15 hours. That's it. It was nothing. It's stupid. And so he needed the, these hours and called buddy, his said, Hey man, I need to get these hours. And Shabus was the, at the time this guy called Shabu. He said, if Pete needs these hours, can we get him work, 'em work? And he may have called, but he called his buddy and the BA said, okay, I'll, he said Pete was here. He was there for two and a half years and treat him local. So my dad gets ahold of the business agent. He said, I need you to show up here. My dad says I need to come to the get a clearance. He said, no, just go to the job. I think he said he flew in and worked two or three days, is what he needed. He said they didn't talk to him. What's this guy doing here? I don't know. But the BA said he's working here. You did his three days to give the hours you needed and you was gone. It's sad in a lot of respects. Cause we're so afraid of outsiders coming in to take our work or do our jobs, that we're gonna lose our job. That is a thing that's hampered our growth and who we are in some respects. True. Oh, definitely. Interesting thing about it too is that, there's a lot of preaching about brother, so I can understand the tribalism behind going to a different and taking somebody's work, but at the same time, like you should be of that guy being there. And obviously there other circumstances, right? Where the hall might not be empty, there's guy sitting on the bench can go work or whatever the case is. But if we're a brotherhood and never made sense to me that you would have an issue with another showing up if he treated you with respect, and I think that things have started to change though too. Like from where we're at. We have a completely different culture as far as that goes, but like we're in my mind was he got in 72 and it was like that, there was a lot of the country club mentality was there and look, you're coming here to take a job from my boy or my, it's, so I think we're fortunate enough to be able to say, okay, I could travel to California, Nevada, wherever and in a way be received with open arms. But I back then you gotta think like all that shit that's going on with like politics and all, I. That was a pretty rough time. So everybody's trying to fight for their job and keep their job and then you got, like you said, what Reagan and 86 time or whatever. Yeah. Reagan's 80 to 88. Yeah. So I you got those years right there that it's just those are tough times. So I I could see it of in a way right now. Yeah, I should walk that back a little bit. Right now, I don't understand it. Cause it works with up, everybody needs help right now, but back then it made sense, cause it's just like you said, you want your boy, you want your grandson, whoever. Its to be involved in this and have work to be able to provide for their family. So it made sense in that regard. But now, right now, just like you said, culture that we've got even just some of the stories that I've very guy booming out, like it, it breaks my heart that you would have a mentality like that. In this day and age to be like, fuck this guy. He's from 75. He doesn't know what he is doing. Yeah. I Went through the same four years that you. That's everywhere you go though. I feel like every time I ever boomed out, they always thought you were a Joe or didn't know what you was doing until you started doing your work. Yeah. You know what I mean? You tell 'em you're from Utah and that they think you're Mormon, that you know all these things and that you guys don't have fucking hundred story skyscrapers. You must not know what you're doing. And you guys start working and a day into it now. Now they're like, oh, hey, here you are, Joe. All of a sudden you're buddies, You know what? Yeah, you're Joe. Yeah. That reminded me of a story. A kid I went through apprenticeship school with Anthony Valez. I got, I became friends with him because of my dad in a way. We were both apprentices. I was busting rods and my dad was running the for Leonard down Atco and Valez showed up. And you ever talked to Anthony? You tell the story how my dad did it, my. If you knew my dad would drag your face and tell you what it was and he walked up, what the fuck do you know? His pointless hand was just don't fucking bullshit me. Tell me what you know, But that was my dad's mentality, right? He wanted to figure out what somebody knew and he didn't want any bullshit. And it was a good thing. And my dad was accepting that way, I think because he traveled around enough to know that you needed to pay attention to everybody. And and the safety factor that goes along with that though, I cuz a lot of times I think kids show up and they're like, oh yeah, I know what I'm doing. And you turn 'em loose and it's like you come back a few minutes later and they've got like a single spend piece of deck or something, for lack of a better example, but with a quarter inch bearing on each side, you're like, oh yeah, you know what you're doing the hell outta your kid. So in a way, I guess that's a safety thing. You ask him straight up Hey, what do you know? Don't lie to me. So you bring up a good, you bring up a good point though. He was well traveled enough to know that there are, for the most part, you're gonna go to different places and see different ways of doing stuff. You know what I mean? He knew, seems like he would know that if somebody was coming in booming into his local, that like right from the jump, you don't wanna figure out what they know by what the, by the work that they're doing. You gotta know what they're doing immediately. Especially in that time, cause like safety was considerably looser than it's today. So it makes sense that like you're basically accepting a liability if you don't know what this guy knows. You know what I mean? Yeah. Apprenticeships were different back then. Yeah. It was just a different world. it was it's crazy to think like how much people from your generation. Experienced, historically, if you look back, like through the history of everything and where the unions started and how it's come and where it's, where it came from to where it is now. All that learning curve that we had as a union, cuz we really went through several huge things. 1896 when it was founded until now. There's a lot of years there where we learned so much about, so much happened in our lives and I especially through your time growing. We saw some shit and now we're repeating ourselves, I guess in a way. History always does. Yeah. If you look at the numbers right now, our numbers as far as union members in this country are the same as they were a hundred years ago. 10%, 9%, whatever. It's 13% if you count of federal workers, whatever, it's, that's what it was a hundred years ago. And we grew and we gained, and then we got that mentality of, wait a minute, let's do this. Yeah. And then also, I always look at it, to me it's only two things. You've got capital and you've got capital always tries to control labor. Unorganized never control because capital is always organized. That's the way I see it. And so we got organized a hundred years ago and they really got organized and we were doing it and everybody was buying into it, and we were promoting it, and everybody was on board. And then capital realized, wait a minute, if we change the laws top part, we act, divide in certain things, make it harder for us. Now, capital's got that edge. We weren't paying attention. Now we're lagging. Behind the sixties and seventies, everybody's thinking everything's golden because everybody's working. It's tons of work all over. Everything was no good. Regan comes in the eighties, like my dad said. As soon as Reagan hit, that's when everything changed. When I was growing up, my dad was buying and cars every other year. My mother didn't work. We were living decent. I was playing any sport I wanted, doing anything I wanted. Reagan comes in. My dad stopped buying new cars every other year. I get in the trade at the end of once Reagan and Bush are done, and I couldn't do the same thing for my family, but my father did. Taking control of you. And they've also put out the message of, Hey, you don't need unions. What do you need that for? Why do you want to, why would you have anybody? You don't need anything for you. You can do it yourself. They separate us, right? That's that old saying from Gladiator, whatever comes out those doors, we're better. If we stick, we'll have a better chance of survival if we stick together. I was, I want, don't wanna interrupt you, but I was watching that movie the other day and I told my wife, that's about the most thing I've ever heard, isn't that She just rolled her eyes was like, shut up. But I was like, that's badass. It's the truth. It's the truth. You're better if you stick together. And if you look at what in the past two years this pandemic did to us and what our phones do to us, they isolate us even more. they found out, in my opinion, what I see is people realize that you can isolate everybody through a pandemic, through phone, through everything. Think about how union. You didn't have, you don't have that collectiveness. A hundred years ago, the guys were the first guys that were international officers were working every day and building. They didn't have a full time job in an office in DC right now, we've got an organization, but were still not organized in a lot of respects because we're isolated. If you look at a percentage of people that show up to unions, what is it in our local 10%, 30 people outta 300. That's on a good, I heard somewhere that somewhere 10% of the population reads and the other 90% rely on that 10% to inform them. So if you take that mentality and go down to the 10%, and then you've only got 10% of our guys in the union meeting, that's 1% of the people. That are actually informing themselves on what is actually going on. Trying to get it out to everybody in our country, in our locals and everything. I think that's one of the weaknesses we have as unions in general. I've talked to a number of guys around the country when I was in my position and going back and meeting all those guys from around the country i'd, what's your union turn out? We get about how big local it's always to be. About 10% of people actually are engaged and actually figure that they need to do something because the majority of people, I think, I don't know, just think that's gonna keep rolling, right? And I've got a job, I just show up, do my job, I'm gonna go home. But they don't realize that a hundred years ago they were fighting for every day they worked. And we don't have to do that. It's, I think that's one of the causes of where we sit today. Yeah. And they've been separated by everything. There's a ton of things that you could Oh yeah. You could, you could look at all of the propaganda that goes towards in the non-union sector or the unrepresented sector they hear stuff that's completely not even true, but they don't hear the opposite of Sure. The, I guess the counter to the opposition, right? There's very few textbooks in school that talk about unions. There are very, very few, what's the word I'm trying to think of? Very, there's not a lot of information that goes out about what unions do for people, but there's a ton of information that goes out that says, Hey, unions are screwed, kinda thing in a way. And I feel you're spot on. There's things that need to change in our own. Rank and file members, but there's also things that, we can do as individuals as well. So it's just like you're saying, what are we taught in school? We're taught about car union and Rockefeller and these single individuals that made it. That's the American dream. Look, you can be the guy that does this, and then it becomes our sports hero. Say, look, you can be the next this guy or that guy, but nobody's taught that. That's one in how many, one in the world versus the rest of us doing our daily jobs. And how do we become better? Or how do we get more, how do we have better living conditions? How do we do that? Oh, we try to be that guy. Most of us aren't gonna be that guy. It's just I think it's lost in the constitution. We operate by a constitution, right? This is what, and you don't hear that in union message. You hear, we've got better wages, we've got. Everything that the union provides in that respect that you don't ever hear. Hey, look, the Constitution is what governs us and how our union operates. We've got bylaws that each local runs by, but we're all under this same constitution. This dictates how we do our business. And it's a thing that I think we don't study this. How many guys, you guys been through this? No. Do you understand it? I don't think I can tell you much anything that's in there. I can, I've marked this up and studied it, and I think there's still language in here I believe from Heartly me put in there for that reason. And in my opinion, we should be focusing on how do we get rid of that language to change it. It's better for us in our own constitution so we can operate a little bit better. Maybe it can't be done, I don't know. I'm not an attorney, but I still think that we could still change some of it. Just like the. What does it take to be an iron worker? What do you have to be? It says, no person shall be admitted to membership in this international association or any local union, therefore, who is a member of or associated with organization, body of Communist Nazis, fascist terrorists, or any organization who advocates for the principles of communism, blah, blah, blah. I guarantee that came because when the Tapped Heart React was written, that was the Cold War. That was the McCarthy hearings. They put that in there. We should be not telling people what they can't be. We should be saying, Hey, this is what you need to be an iron. That's a, I don't know. There's so many things. I don't know. I just, I guess in my 50 plus years of life, I've seen so many things and then. The biggest thing is education and knowledge. That's one of the things we give to our apprentices, to our journeymen have is that is the education and knowledge of their job better trade their craft. But sometimes we forget to say, Hey, wait a minute. Just not only do you have that, you also have a responsibility as a union member to also know what it is to be that union member and help promote that in all that you do. touching on what you said about the knowledge and how, I we've all heard that quote, knowledge is power, but I was doing some research back when I first became the organizer here, and I came across, I can't remember where I read it, but in a way talked about slavery and not to take anything from. From that or anything. But it talked about how the slave owners would keep wouldn't allow the slaves to, to read or wouldn't allow them to learn or go to school or any of this. But and I, I turned that around in the thought of it as as the organizing way, like what I was saying earlier is the amount of information that's told bad about the union. If the non-union members or the unrepresented worker would pick up a textbook or pick up something pro-union and read it and ask questions and try to learn for themselves rather than following, like that example that you said, you know that 1% telling you, okay, your boss is telling you something's wrong. Figure it out for yourself. Don't sit back and take his word for it cause. Why would he wanna pay you more? Why would he wanna, give you benefits or this or that, or all the things that come from being a part of a union. And I realized that I took it down to our apprenticeship coordinator, Levi, and I was like, what do you think of this? I can't remember what he said at the time, but basically it was, it resonated with him as well. It's like looking back at where the country was during that time of slavery when they, they kept those people from learning because it was easier to control em and kept them from, progressing in life really. And because they could say, Hey, you don't deserve this. You don't deserve the common decency of life that just because of the color of your skin. And that's, to me, that's completely absurd. But also it's still going on today. It's exactly what's happening today. I picked up a book several years ago. Necessary illusion by no Chomsky, if you guys have ever heard of him, he's this bar, left Vietnam era. He wrote a bunch of different books on the necessary illusion. In the one sentence I remember, I read about a hundred pages out 300. I had to look up more words and I could read it is but the one sentence I remember from that is he talked about how at the time when the book was written in the seventies, there were three broadcasting companies and they're basically state is how he was saying it, right? The government's speaking information to him, what they want to understand. And the sentence was, is you have to control the stupid masses. And so his point was, is what I took from it, was he's going that they're gonna keep us as illiterate as they can. In order to control us. And then now you look at Twitter, you have 200 characters. Everybody's getting their news or their feed from a blit. They're not actually investigating. They're not actually reading to see what's going on. So then we're limiting what we truly know, what other people truly know. They're limited to it because that's all they see. Oh, so and so said this. It may bs because even our presidents and politicians are telling us false, right? So it's easy to control if they don't know what the truth is, if they don't have educations, if they don't believe that stuff, that's the saddest part of realities of our lives is as long as you can keep people with just a little bit of knowledge, they're easy to be controlled.

Track 1 52:11

Hey guys. You ever went into the bank to apply for an auto loan or to refinance or house or something? They tell you to go pound sand. Well, let me tell you about the Iron Workers USA Credit Union. I became a member just over a year ago and no hassle at all with those guys. Man, they just straight up answer any questions that you have. They're there, they're helpful, they're friendly, um, they're great to work with. Um, and most importantly, They don't look at you as a credit score. They look at you as a, as an iron worker and, and a fellow brother or sister of the, of that brotherhood and sisterhood that we've talked about in the podcast. You know, they started out, back in 1960, a dozen of 'em took two cigar boxes full of money to help their brother iron workers boom out and have some extra money and to get their finances in order. And that's how they became a judgment free zone. And that's, It's so easy to go in there and try to get, uh, an auto loan. It's easy to get your house free, refinance. They're there to help you and they understand their lifestyle. You know, they understand that it's hard to be an iron worker and you're booming out and you're in town. You're out of town. And it makes it tough when you go into these banks to get loans. But these guys make it easy. Yeah. They're, they understand that iron workers are dependable and, and trustworthy for the most. So check 'em out. Sign up today for free online@ironworkerscu.org slash podcast.

Rick Johnson 53:45

so as a kid, bouncing back to your childhood and booming around and jumping around the country your family what was the what was that like for you? I obviously as a kid you probably didn't notice it as much, but as you started getting a little older you probably started seeing a little more about what was actually going on and was it, did you enjoy moving out that much and being to see different parts of the country in different states and different experiences? Or was it like, I wanna stay in Utah, I have friends in Utah, I want to, or how's that? I would say the thing that I remember that would probably affected me the most was it was the challenges were as I was always the new kid coming in and. So I was always the outsider wherever I went, and so I had to make friends or fight, and that's how it was for me. I was fortunate. I was athletic enough that once we got on any type of field I could hang with just about anybody. So that kind of helped me a along. But it was always the outsider. You're the new kid. When I went to Illinois, told me San was the guy's name, he wanted to fight me. First month. Finally we started wrestling. You can't beat me. I can't beat when it was over. I was never a I don't, never understood not that I haven't done in time or two, but to me it doesn't make sense. I just assume to your buddy, check out the other sex. You know what I mean? That's where my interests are. Yeah. So for me as a kid, I was, I didn't really, I was young enough still like I said, when I was third grade in Kentucky, they were, it wasn't, it was just a different world. And again, I had to either fight or get along. And so then after a couple days on the playground, they realized he's not a bad kid. And for me, I was, I had enough I learned enough BS from my father that I could talk my way around a lot of things rather than actually getting in scrums and my butt kicked. And so I didn't have that too much. And it was the same thing in Illinois was right here. Like I said, Tony, I wanted to, then I, then he, after he wrestled with me, Hey man, I got a baseball team. You wanna come play? So I played on his baseball team and it was a time of fun, but it was, you always found those guys that. And now that I've gotten older and as tall as I am and really wants to knock down anyway, cause I'm the big guy. I always pick on the big guy. Yeah, I get that too all the time. Not tall, but fat. Just one. When you're a kid, you don't really pay attention to what is going on. Yeah. It's, you're more focused on the things a child rather than as an adult. It was a ton of fun. Had a great life. I've had a great life. My old man, he I was lucky that he was an iron. He did all he did. He gave me those pearls and wisdom when I got in. He gave me those few things that I called him the pearls of wisdom. He said to me, whenever you're walking, walk fast, you may be standing when you get to where you're working. And I'll never forget, I went to work for. Down at City Creek. I've been in the Rod patch. I came out, so I was used to just a different pace. Rods a little bit different pace, noble pace. It's just a different it's always, we're always and so when the boss would tell us to do something off, I'd go, I leave the other guy behind. I'm tall, my lakes, I can walk fast. And I'm used to that was working with Rick Biles, Roger Farley. Who else was on there? Somebody else. I, so this one time and foot was our boss. She, what's his name? Sheldon. I have no idea. I don't know if you couldn't g. And I've been working there a few weeks and just as I start, Roger puts his hand in front of me and stops and he said, Hey kid, slow down. This is bonding time And so often he gave me that when he also said, if the boss comes break you down, take the time to, to, he is not there all day. Don't keep working. Act like you're doing some stop and talk to the boss. He also said to me after I first got in, I don't think I went in the hole by then. He said and he got right in my face like my dad did, said, Hey kid, don't come to me if you get all fucked up from this shit. Who is this? My dad. Oh, okay. Don't come to me if you get all fucked up from this shit. Cause this is a serious thing. What he was told is pay attention and be careful when something happens, it's not on me. Yeah. You know what I mean? Cause I I think that's one of the reasons he didn't want me to do it. Cause he knew it was a dangerous profession. And he didn't want me to lose an arm hole. That time I fell ball, those sheets could cut me in half. I could snapped my neck. You think about it, I bounced different things, conduit tons of things. The other thing, the one thing that always stuck with me, take care of the old timers kid. Cause one day you'll be old. And it's so true. And so when I was running work, I'd get somebody to come old. It was old. I'd say, Hey, what do you wanna do? And they'd look at me kinda funny. I said, this is what we're doing. What do you want? Do They'd, I'm letting you choose whatever you want. Do tell me what you want do. So that was my mentality cuz I always remembered what my dad had told me. Sooner or later we're gonna be. And it was back to he told the story. He was down a water tank or something in Phoenix and we were living and whole where, so he was old and. Climbings up a wall. And I know you guys don't know anything about Bustings, but it's day bar, pretty heavy. Three guys on it. All of you go up. This old man was early sixties and the time again is early seventies and don't if particular job, and you talked about having beaners or speed by the waters and the whole thing of the whole and all that stuff taking, there were, that were a of different things and I can't say this is this particular job. He said the guy that was from California, that running job, he prick my dad's got wholer on his crew, right? And he says to this old man, he says, here, you just go stand over here. We got this. So the old guy, he takes care of the old guy, right? The old guy, you're doing it, that kinda sees what's going on. He says, wait, what are you doing? He's old. Just let him, he's right. We got this. They ended up running my dad off for that because he was taking care of that old guy. And it's one of those things that, we don't, a lot of times we don't have that. You see somebody come out here, go do this, you just need to take care of them guys cause they've done it. They're trying to get to the end to make it to where they can finally relax and not have to kill themselves because this is hard on your body. I'm broke down, I dunno about you guys, but I've got I feel it years a lot worse than I did 10 years ago. Yeah I've always thought that, we bring these apprentices out in first period apprentices and we bring them out and we stick them on a fire watch. And I've always thought that's like the most backwards things that we do. I feel like those kids should be in the gang and the ones that are on their way out, the old timers or whatever should be fire watching realize. Cause one, because the kid's, not the old timer's, definitely not gonna be on his phone. He's not gonna be dicking around playing on the games or doing this or that, or he's gonna be doing what he is supposed to be doing because he's had hump team years of the trade. But also it gives him a minute to sit back and relax. And by the time you get to the retirement age, or 55, or think 65 now after doing this for 35, 40 years you're beat up. Your body's beat up and these young kids get in and they think that's what it's gonna be like, oh, I'll just, I can sit here all day. I can stand around for 10 hours on my head, and I put fires out. But you never catch 'em. They're always on their phones. They're always doing this. They're never where they're at. I think we should change that mentality. Put those kids in the gang with other journeymen. And bring those guys that are on their way out as fire, as a fire watch. Sure, yeah. You're paying him more. I get that. But regardless, you're gonna be paying him anyway. You're gonna get more work outta that kid. It's cheaper. I shouldn't say that. I'll edit that out. But he's the labor's. Yeah. He's not learning, but you're gonna, he's gonna learn a lot faster, which is in turn gonna build your crew faster. So I think that's one thing that we've done that I've seen over the years. It's just been completely backwards. But I think that's, that'd be a good way to read people out too, because people get in and, you've heard the story of Fells turned out on Fire Watch and that Cree, they just found their little loophole and they stayed in it their whole time and then now it stuck with them where if you throw 'em to the woods, throw 'em in a rod patch for six months if they make it. That's stick 'em in with the decker. See if they make, stick 'em up in up in the air something. Yeah. Scare 'em. See if they're fucking that enough to do it. Yeah. That's an unfortunate thing about our local and not having rods anymore. It's a perfect place to breaking kids and find out who they're and what they're, they show up every day and do that job. They'll become iron workers. Buck and I was actually just talking about that week ago or so, how we wish when we was a coming up in the apprenticeship that we had a strong rod patch, cuz. We always wanted to do it. It always looked fun. You're racing. It's a blast. Yeah. Because days like today, when it's 40 degrees outside the huh? When it's 30 degrees outside, the, when it's hundred degrees outside, you won't, you're hot no matter what. Yeah. That's why I hanging iron, you're just going, you're working hard, you're working fast. There's millions of things to do. You're using your muscles and your tools, it's fun. Yeah. No, definitely. And that's why I like decking out. Same reason. You're moving, you're staying warm. You're busy all day. Bolting up or some of the other aspects of the shrink. It's like I feel like the day would just drag on. Oh, I was like, some leaders up. I always thought it was fun. Especially a big hard point. You gotta try to figure out, right? What if I need to make one move and get all these right. That's what I, that was my whole mindset behind mental game. Yeah. I'm not gonna just slam a pin and stuff and then slam another one and what if I, but I'd always try to challenge myself. So got a six hole beam and you've got five pins in it. I've That one. Yeah. to make one and or one at a time. Trying to figure out where you're Put that six pin the bolt at same. Yeah. Sometimes somebody do that, somebody's bolting up a while back, fucking pulled out the bolts that were in it and they just pins it or something. I heard song, but I can't remember Song I down, they had you'd get four bulls toggled up in the bottom, fla be in there trying to rack over and then they couldn't get 'em out. They had to cut 'em all out with the torch and leave like half inch slugs. The flan. I was, why would. That's something you learned like first table? No, never put your pin in the top like that. Never go it back. Yeah. they're trying to like get six come along, six come alongs, pull the whole over to get their tools back. I'm like, bro, just, yeah. That's crazy. Yeah, crazy. That's iron work. This gets hard sometimes. Richie Pierce told me that one time we was all bitching about shit, and fuck it Rich. He didn't complain about a fucking thing ever. Wouldn't say shit if he had a before. No, it was good dude. We was all bitching about something and he'd come up and that was his, I think that was his way of telling us, shut the fuck up, basically. He says, oh, it just gets hard sometimes. Sorry Lord. fucking shit has stuck with me my whole life time. I'm doing anything. And I'm like, this fucking sucks. This is miserable. I fucking hate it. Yep. Just gets hard Sometimes you just gotta fucking do it. That feeling you get when you've just been fucking your guts out all day. Well is was old man then. I wish he was still alive. I've, I wish I would've learned more from him while I had the opportunity. Young Bobcats kid, you don't wanna listen to anybody. Yeah. That's one thing I feel fortunate in my career. I had some good guys, my father McDonald, different guys in my life, some good bosses, but I was able to learn from when I was on the freeway as a guys named Joe Shaone, they called semi, he was 60 at the time. He could tie fast as everybody, he said. Yeah. He used to tie faster. When I could see he was nines. He was just one of those guys. He'd come back, he didn'ts his would be bloody, he knew he'd been working somewhere by himself. I was around those guys. Darren Rice, I did some curtain wall on that. Federal courts building, Darren Rice. He was another one that taught me things. I had these mentors, whatever you wanna call 'em, bosses that I was able to learn from because they would just spend that little extra time. And if you listen to what they say, and I think that's some problem with what we have. Kids, people don't listen to what people are saying. Darren Rice, I'll never forget it. I never done curtain wall. I've done everything in this trade, except for I never cheated. So I've done everything else, and I got a chance to hang a bunch of curtain wall and do some, it was a cool job, great learning experience. One of the first days I was asking, I needed an answer for something, and I walked in the shack and those prints were, 700 pages and I had no idea what they were. I said, Hey Darren, I need this. What's this? He said, here, let me teach you how to fish. He's not gonna just say, here's your answer. He said, here, this is what you're looking for and this is what you do. And then you go here, and then you go here you go. It was like, don't bother me again. And so I had guys like that my whole career, and they're still out there. And those guys are teaching, hopefully got kids are listening to what they're teaching them. Hey, this is, and if you just pay enough attention to these guys, I'll guide you through and do what you need to do. It's cool. I had a fun time. I've had a great career. Now I'm just enjoying my semiretirement as an iron worker. Still passionate about it. I look at this, I read through this constitution. I look at ways that I can help. If there's any ways I can help, I've got ideas. I think we should start all sorts of different things. I don't know, maybe one day, we'll, everybody can sit down and talk about it. One of the things that always concerns me, though, where we're at today. If you look at, it happened in our local for a long time, but it's happened in our international. We've had a president in our international that's been appointed for almost as long as I've been in. Because I think part of it too is goes back to if you only get 10% of your membership coming out to a union meeting, everybody's comfortable. My dad used to always say that Nobody's hungry anymore. why do you think that whole country from the south of us is coming up here? They're hungry. We're not, are we? No. He's are just me. so you guys know what I mean, aren't hung. That's, and I think that's one of the reasons why people work unrepresented is because they're making it right? They're getting by. They maybe could have it better if they were all working together, but they're getting by, they're making their bills, they're still getting their. Six pack of beer at night. There's cigarettes, but they're making it so there's no incentive for anybody to stick their neck out to do any more than they have to. That on a job when people show up to work, right? Good friend of mines the coordinator out of 43 61 New York. He ended up being my corn hole partner back in Michigan every year. He asked me one time if I could play, and I said, sure, I can throw. We're fast friends. He's a good dude. He always says that all we offer, this is what we offer. Productive, safe employees and the productive part. He stresses it almost every time I talk to them. That's what we need to instill in everybody, and I don't think that mentality is. In everybody. Everybody's showing up for a job and they're gonna take the extra 20 minutes to wander down. use the bathroom. They're gonna look at their watch it or their phone at twenty five, thirty minutes before time to roll up and they're gonna kick dirt around until, and I'm not saying I didn't do that. Oh, on occasion, all of us are guilty of that. But it's, but we're not hungry. we're not, we don't need to be. If you look at golden Gate Bridge and you hear the stories of Golden Gate Bridge, those guys were busting it day in and day out. And why were they, because there were 50 guys standing outside the gate waiting to take their job if they slowed down, just like the Empire State Building when it was being built, same thing, right? People were standing outside the gate. Waiting for somebody to fall and die to take their job. It's insane. I That's, that was a different culture, but today we're to a point where we're not in that same boat, but we're It's the other end of it. Yeah. Nobody's standing there waiting. Everybody thinks I've got a job, so I'm gonna show up today and I'm gonna have my job, and if I don't get everything done, whatever, it'll be there tomorrow. I noticed that you get in a refinery with all the you've got so many rules and regulations and you have to permits and you have to do all this different stuff. And if you don't have a goal to get something done, the mindset is, oh, we'll just get it tomorrow. Oh, we'll just get it tomorrow. What's that saying that they say in the industrial, you show up, hide. Hide for eight or something like that. I was gonna say I know one the winter inside and two grand week. Was who you for? Yeah, still at was I remember I say Jeff for a long time since I worked before he was in Prince. Him and I were, he was on that ball diamond and he had long hair. Him and Axel, you guys Dunno who was Axel? Troy Kidman. Yeah. Axel Rose. Troy's an interesting dude. He's cool dude. He's a quiet dude. He's one of those dudes, when you get to know him, you're like, really? Yeah, he's got, oh yeah. He's a thinker. Yeah. Isn't he? Is that how you kinda describe him? He ponders that stuff. I was able to work with him at the courthouse doing those light boxes for Southwest Architectural Metals, and he's so he ran, he runs his own he used to do houses. Yeah. He used to do those multimillion dollar houses, and he was telling me they'd leave the air hoses out, and I like, okay, so we'll just leave our extension out. I said, they'll walk away. He's no. He's Nope, we'll be fine. I was like, I'm telling you, you're gonna walk away, Troy. And he like broke it down to me. He's this is why, like you save this much amount of money. He's an Air house costs 10 bucks. Says if you pay a guy an hour to clean up all, he's You just cost more money than what it would cost to get brand new air hoses. And then plus you're brand new air hoses. Okay. So I understood it. So we left them out, came back to work the next day. Sure. Up They all gone. I was like, son of a bitch. He's we'll go get some more. I was like, we don't have anymore Troy. I was like, man, on that court building that Darren Rice, that was so that was Bens and Glass is who I was looking for. They were in town. They did the American stores. What is Mount Wells Fargo? man. He got run off that job. He was for Bens and he was performing on there on the column and electrician turned in. But anyway, that's just a side note. Piss and Pete remember him. So Bening Glass, that was in mid nineties. I was the, they come back. 14. So that was 20 years later. So they did, they've done two jobs, curtain wall jobs in this local in my time, Darren Rice. I get to working with him. He said, do you know what the object this is here? Said, I don't know. Get this building up, make sure it's good. He said, no. We said to make them money so that they will bid more work so that they will come back here. And I think that's lost in people because they think if they're working for a big outfit, or whoever it is, they've got all the money and it doesn't matter. But like I was telling you about my buddy Brian Brady from New York, productive safe records, you have to produce, you have to do it and make their budgets and work as hard as you can. That was another one of the pros, wisdom my dad gave me. Whatever you're doing as fast as you can and go ask your boss what's next. Simple and easy, right? If you know what's next, do what's next. But if you don't know, hey, I got this budget and what's next, but do it as fast as you can. And I think that gets lost in whatever we do. Sometimes people don't have that mentality again cause they're comfortable in what they have, making their car payments getting by. That's the sad part of it. Kevin and I talked about that when we were apprentices driving around, just the, like I remember specifically one time we were apprentices, we were driving home from a job in southern Utah County and we passed a, an unrepresented job. And I mean it's snowing like a son of a bitch. And we're we all rolled up, we got all our shit and we're heading home and we passed this job and Kevin looks at me and I look at, I'm looking out the window. He's isn't it horse shit? We're rolling out and those guys are staying, and I'm like, didn't really think anything of it. He's like, yeah, I get it. And he's it's bullshit. Because we take advantage for of what we get so often, and then we look in as we're driving down the freeway, going home to be in our warm homes and our, our conditions that we have and we pass this job. It's underrepresented iron workers and they're out there in the snowstorm doing the exact same damn thing we do for less money, no conditions, maybe benefits if they're lucky. And they're still there busting their ass making it. And it's from when we drove, I was like, yeah I never thought of it like that. Like we take this, our. Our forefathers of the union busts, they're asked to create. We take it for advantage. Take advantage of it so much. It's scary. Big time. On that court building, I was talking that I worked on, there was, we used to get trucks coming in, but it was a bonded system, so you'd get, you didn't have to build a stick frame and put the windows in and just pick them up, sat and pick them up. So raining, getting ready to go home. But we knew we had trucks coming in and there was a gentleman out of our local we were standing up towards the top, he was running the welders and he says to me, we need to go home. People fought for these conditions. And I turned to him and I said, you know what, Benson Glass has been in this local two times in my career. If they need me to stay in the rain to unload trucks, I'm staying in the rain to unload trucks. And it goes to your point. There are times we need to always step up. And that's lost. Step up and do that extra. Yeah. You're not getting paid. You give them five minutes here or there. You should. Yeah. We've all done it. Most of the time people are taking that five to 10 minutes, right? if you give everything you have all the time, that's how we get better. Yeah, it sounds better example for everybody too. I think it's a lot easier to follow people around you. They're watching you give that extra time and show up early and do all this shit before the gang even shows up. And now in the back of their head they're like, fuck, I gotta work a little harder cause you just fucking shaped me into it basically. And it just trickles down from it. You know what I mean? When you're around all these people that work hard and are doing extra and putting themselves out there and doing more and more that they're making just as much as that guy and he isn't doing as much. I think that you lead by example. I it. Helps everybody out throughout the process. I think, and I think that's why I've always and you as well been that the rod patch has of been appealing to me is because you don't see someone standing around in a rod patch ever mean you could, and correct me if I'm wrong, but there's not a single soul on rock patch that Stan has the time to stand around. There's always something to do. And I think that's why it's been so appealing to me and wish with the wishing I had that opportunity to do that. But just to be able to, like you said, the bosses right there and the trenches with you and that's how it should be. And Kevin did that really well on 95 when he was running the gang. After he got in charge of it be a snowstorm and I'd come and be like, Hey, you going home? He'd be like, no, we're staying. I'm like, okay, I'll come. I'll come say hi or something, whatever. And. Setting that example, I think that's where a lot of our, these kids that are coming up into the positions they're getting into, they need to realize, okay I'm the one that's setting the example. If I'm gonna stand around on my phone all day and I can't expect my guys to do the work, so I don't know. There's some changes that need to happen for sure. It's, I think it's a cultural thing too. Five minutes, you think about five minutes. You got a crew of 10, there's an hour. An hour. It's one man hour. You start doing math on that. I've seen it, like we were talking in the refineries, the one refinery, it was a 10 minute trip up to the brake shack or to the lunch trailer and a 10 minute trip back. And those guys. They were taking 45, 50 minutes for a 10, 15 minute break. And so you lose those half hours and you got a crew of 20 or 30, what is your production? and I don't think that's not taught in apprenticeship school. We don't teach kids, we teach them how to do the job that nobody ever says, Hey, look, for every five minutes you do whatever you're doing that isn't productive. It's costing. If you take a half an hour and you do that once a week and you're working right, that's two and a half hours. You just, that they've paid you for that, you didn't produce anything. And those things get lost on the majority of people. People don't look at it that way, do they? They look at, Hey man, I'm here for eight and it's three o'clock and we're getting off at three 30. I'm not gonna do a thing. I'm gonna kick this hose around and act like I'm busy, but they're not producing. They're not hungry. You know what I mean? It's the whole mindset. We stop teaching kids, I think we should be teaching. I'm not, when we get people into our trade, we're getting adults that already have preconceived notions of whatever. Some of 'em are union guys, some of 'em came from non-union, some of them are whatever. They've already got stuff in their head, oh, the union, I gotta pay this, I gotta do this. Whatever. It's, and so they're always gonna try to take as much as they can. If we were teaching children the benefits of working together as a collective, by the time they were adults, they would have an idea of, Hey, we're better off if we stick together. And I think that gets lost. That's one of the things I was telling you. We need to start trying to focus on kids. Teaching kids the benefits of working together. In our jobs, wherever they are. You see all these movements going around the country. We're still not organized as a group, as a country for labor, back to capital labor. I think that a hundred years ago you guys heard of Lo, the international Workers of the world. Their motto was one big union. Everybody needs to be moving. My daughter works for a company. She does some online something and it's a computer and they just unionized all the people that are doing her job. She's getting jammed up and they're cutting the unions out and she's gonna end up probably losing her job cuz they unionized. And I told her it'll never work until we all, and so I think the leys international workers in the world had it right back then. Hey, if we're all together, if everybody's union, it doesn't matter what job you're doing, if. Computer programmer, or if you're, whatever you are, if there's a union structure and everybody's part of it, then you can go from one trade to another. And you still have all the same things that you would've at the last job. At the last job. At the last job. That's how I look at it. I know it's, but I think they had it right and then it got squashed and there's, I dunno, it's hard. I've got a there's a, have you guys ever seen that movie? Harland County usa? No, you should check that out. It's about a do you know much about the coal miners? Not lot of strikes and all the different stuff. They've been through some stuff in Western West Virginia, Southern West Virginia, and Kentucky. That area. Harland County usa. There's an old boy and he was working in the thirties. This was in 72. And they did a documentary in 72 about this strike. And they on strike for, I wanna say 18, 20 months, this old timer that was there in the thirties when they were having another strike. He said, you know what I realized? He said, the church is in on it. The company's in on it, and the union's in on it. And I thought, really? Because they're all posturing to get exactly what they need, right? The church wants this, the company wants this, the union wants this, and they're all doing it to the workers. And that was what I got outta what he said. And some of that makes sense in ways you have to do certain things as a union and you have to do what you have to do. But I think that in the end result, the workers are the ones that take anything that goes on. They're the ones that take it. I agree. It's an interesting thought, good or bad. And we can talk offline about that if you like. Cause it's just, I dunno. It's tough. It's tough in the world we live in. Like I said, they separated us two years ago. They found an easy way to get us so that we're not together. I think a hundred years ago in LA they used to have an ordinance that if two guys were talking on the street, they could bring them up cause they were collaborating or, I can't remember what the law was cause they were anti-union in You guys familiar with the LA Times bombing Know our history, right? Not very well. Not very well of that one. The LA Times bombing Otis, general Otis and that whole thing. But they had an ordinance because they were trying to all, again, capital was trying to keep people from unionized. San Francisco was big organized, they were Union City. LA they were trying to keep it out. So they passed this ordinance where I, it was either two or three guys. If they're standing on the street talking, they could go to jail for whatever the law was. They figured they were conspiring to be together, to unionize, to get together as a human. Realistically, they're just shooting the shit. It's the one time. But those are laws in your past and that's what hampers us as unions. The National Labor Board and all the laws that go along with that. We have to have elections and all the different things. We have to get everybody together to do what we have to do. Makes it hard because then you get 48% vote Yes. 52 to vote no. Now it goes away and whatever, right? And and humans don't like hard, they like shit easy. Sure. And so when you present non-represented worker with that opportunity or that, okay, this is what it's gonna take, it's not gonna be easy. It's gonna be tough. It's gonna be, it's gonna be. An outright fight to get something for your company. But it's worth it. And it takes time to do that. It's not something that just happens overnight. A lot of people walk away from it like, oh, it's not worth it. But realistically you've seen that personally. Cause you offer guys pretty regularly life changing offers, yeah. I can stand here and tell you that it changed my life for the better when I talk to you. You know what I mean? They just are so comfortable in that, that they're and I would ask you, up until that point, you were comfortable in what you were doing, weren't you? Yeah, but I was always pushed for more as well, and I think that was what but you were still going to work every day, making your stuff, doing all your stuff. If you had no idea, if you'd have never come around, you may still be doing that, trying to get that extra 50 cents or a dollar or whatever. Yes sir. You'd still be doing the same thing because that's what you know. And so that's the mentality of a lot of people. Hey, and it's comfortable because, you get up today or tomorrow on a Monday morning and you know where you're going and you know they're gonna take care of you. Cause you're a hard worker and you're gonna have that job. You're not facing any uncertainty. So you're comfortable. And it's hard. Change is hard for people. It's hard to do what you're doing and say, Hey, I'm gonna try my new gig that I'm doing, right? it's no. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it just, it blows me away that you can offer the part that always bothered me the most about it. It's like you, you can offer, it's almost like you, you can walk up, you either offer somebody a bag of gold, and be like, this is gonna pay for the rest of your life, the rest of your life. You have none of this right now. And they'll still tell you no. I, I never understood that. And it goes, I think it goes back to the not being thing we talk about being comfortable, whatever else, but I think that a lot of the guys that, at least on the non-union side, that into this trade have come from they may have either gotten out of prison or may have been involved in some kind lifestyle where they didn't have a lot. So making 17 to 20 bucks an hour is life changing already. You know what I mean? And so it's just I never understood it really. Cause it was the same day decision when we talked, it was like right then that choice. Yeah. But there's a couple things. It's what they know. And we always have to remember, and I've said this in different places, and it doesn't always go well, we're neck down people for the most part. it's a manual labor job. We're hired from neck down to do a physical job. And so then as you talked. Who do we have doing our work? Who are those guys that we're bringing in? They're not the ones that are, they're the guys that found it somehow, whether it was their dad or whoever. And so a lot of times, I've always taken that into consideration when I talk to people or think about this, is the fact that who does our job is who does our job. I say that. Explain that a little more though. What do you mean by that? By who does our job? Does our job, like he said, will take just about anybody. Majority of people that I, when I was the apprenticeship coordinator, I'd go to those job fairs or I'd go talk to counselors and I would almost scream at 'em. I would try to make the point as best I can. I would say, look, there are people. That you are a counselor, that you are counselors for that will never go to college. Those are the guys who wanna point my direction. Those are the people that we need because there is no sense selling them before your college to degree, because they're barely coming to school. Now they may be in trouble whatever the circumstances, they'd like to work with their hands, whatever. It's, I'm not trying to pigeonhole, I'm just saying there are people that are gonna just be workers and then there are people that aren't and we need workers. Does that, no, that makes sense. Clarifying a little bit, and to be honest, let's talk, let's be real, like a lot of those kids that are going to college really don't wanna go to college either. It's outside. That's what he's saying. It's not meant for him. I didn't, I was up to you on team. I didn't wanna be there. That's the hard part about talking to em people though, is you're almost fighting an ideology and there's no way around that. Exactly. Over the past hundred years, it's been driven to a certain point that, hey, you're gonna be the next, whoever you're gonna, everybody's now it's a YouTube star or whatever. It's Right. You're gonna, we're selling, I think we're selling this. This country's the lottery country. We're selling the lottery. Yeah. You're gonna make it big. So do whatever you need to do. Don't just get up every day and be happy that you've got a job and food, and go to work and do all you can. Be product and give back when you can. Charitable, you haven't talked about charity. There's another thing that always would go as well. Be charitable to others. Trying to do what you can for the others. McDonald used to tell me that, you know what they negotiate, what, who are they negotiating for? You guys know they're not negotiating. For guys like us that run work and have been in positions, they're negotiating for the least of us because that's the guy we need to carry, right? So we're trying to carry everybody the strong help, the weak, and that's the whole part of working together. And I think that gets lost in all the stuff that because it's, Hey, you're gonna make it. And so then you got kids that are 18 saying, Hey, I'm gonna do YouTube star now. I'm gonna make TikTok, I'm gonna make millions. And I will never have to work hard in my life. I'm start a podcast and are you gonna find out? Most of those people are miserable doing it. And if they tried something like this, and I find it's the most gratifying thing I've ever done. Certainly there's nothing better than the, I've felt the best when I've worked the artist after a heart. Definitely, right? You get home and you're hurting, but you think, gosh, man, that was a good day. Some of my funnest. On those freeways we had to get up at midnight. They closed down the freeway to unload the truck. Snow was sideways and it was coming in and that was so much fun cause all I could see was the no lights. And I could see them working up on the train and then it'd be a bright spotlight when the I'D to catch. And it was so much fun and I just went home the next day and I thought that was cool with that just because it was, I was out in the middle of nowhere doing something that was fun. There's something to be said about doing shit that people can't do too. Oh yeah. I think, yeah. That's one of the things that was always really gratifying for me is you come home from work after a long day and you just think about all the shit you did and you're like, there's just a certain amount of pride knowing there's only a certain type of people. Or you go to the store and you're looking around and you're like, none of you fucking people could do what I do. I don't know what you'd call your ego speaking or not, but it's there. Everybody's proud of what they do and there's a lot of pride in knowing that. There's not just anybody walking around that can do what you do. That's what we do. Yeah. And it's always funny when you tell people you're an iron worker, skyscrapers. What's the other thing here? Oh, I'm afraid of heights. Yeah. And you know what I always tell people, you know the work's at the end of your hands. It's not 300 feet down or 30 feet or 60. It's right there. You're working right here where your hands are. So if you focus on your hands, you don't have to worry about that. But like you're saying, a lot of people wouldn't even have a sack to climb the ladder or the column. Yeah, that's right. How many people are just whistling unaware that's going on? Like you could probably talk to people downtown too this day that have no idea what was high rises even went on. Sure. Cause they're just one lane all the way down. I think that talks back to what Rick was saying about the isolation with our phones and stuff. People are you look back 50, 60 years ago and there was none of this was this. But looking around and seeing, what's going on around you and seeing who people are and meeting people now, it's staring at your phone. And there's not one thing that drives me more buggy than watching people sit in the restaurant and look at their phones when they have, or their girlfriend, whatever, they're phones. And I'm talk to each other for hell sakes. Enjoy the time that you have with people around you because you, like you said, you could have gone in the hole that day and had been done right there. You could have landed on those condo, or, all of us have, I'm sure all of us had that brush with death where it's in our trade, let's be real. We we flirt with it every day. Yeah, there's, you can, yeah there's things that have come, OSHA's been good as far as, helping us like prevent it. But it's also been, kind of pain in the ass as well. But We technically, we flirt with death on a daily basis. And I think that's another reason that, it of gets your blood pumping as like you said, not everybody can do that. Not everybody's gonna get up every morning. You go possibly die, and I sounds pretty, I think you what's interesting to me about it is I think you find mostly one type of guy out on those jobs too. You get the others and girls and girls, yeah. But you get the others that are like there for a paycheck or whatever else. But for the most part, you get red blooded mills that run on high octane fuel all the time that get off on being under. 80,000 pounds of iron. That's what he was saying about talking to the counselors. I want these people. I want these guys. I don't want the guys that wanna sit at their desk and read their books and learn about all of this stuff. I want the guys that's staring out the window throwing fucking spitballs at people. And I want those people. Yeah. Not when I get front of the kids, I say, Hey, if you don't wanna be out in cold when it's freezing and hot in the summer, this isn't for you. yeah. In our trade, it isn't for you. Yeah. But I think we, it was a disconnect. Everybody needs to go to college, keep your hands dirty for a living that's not honorable. That was pushed on the American public. And it's been pushed. Everybody needs a four year degree. Look where it's got us billions of dollars in student loan debts. It's crazy. It's just crazy. And we got another country from the south who's hungry and just wanna work and earn a living that's been lost there. Get up every day and earn a living. Yeah. It's, I think to your point about, basically not not sugarcoating it in a way our couple episodes go minimize that that example as well, when she talks to people. It's not all flowers and, candies and stuff like that. It's, look, your hands are gonna be cold. Your feet are gonna be cold. They're gonna warm up when you go to break, but then they're gonna be cold again. It's not for the week apart or the faint. Like it's, this is real work. This is shit that needs to be done. But and like you said, to just add on to everything that's been said, like really there's one type of person that does this job and it's, And I shouldn't say this job, but all of the trades except the carpenters, but no, I'm just kidding. But there's one type of person that does trade work and that's people that are, willing to get their hands dirty and willing to earn a living rather than wait for it to come to 'em. And like you said, that country from the south is willing to earn a living. A hundred percent. Can't argue that they're hungry. Another one, my dad told me is, listen to everybody. There might be a two green apprentice. You something you dunno, right? And you gotta pay attention to who talking what they're, doesn't mean they're right or doesn't mean should to. Everybody's working on those freeways. Carpent foreman, screaming Freeman, Mike Freeman was the guy's name. First deck, bridge deck over 2,700 South. That was the first ones they poured. And the false decking was set at a certain level. I had all the bar tied in and we were going over it. He's standing there at the edge and he's shaking head, Mike, what's wrong? I had only known him a few weeks, month, whatever we built, worked on this one structure. He says, they come over here and the camera in the beam and where the fault deck needed to be and my engineers are telling me that I need to drop it because it's gotta be this thick. They said, I've been doing this for five years. They don't wanna listen to me. Nobody listens to chill. He turned around and he left. And I thought, that's a lot of the times too. Those guys that think they know everything, they'll come to you. They'll tell you something because it says it in the book, read it in the manual. Manual, right? But they have no idea of real world experience. And if you listen to the guy that's been doing it his whole career and he says, Hey, wait a minute, that's not gonna let me just explain it to you. A lot of times that gets lost on this as well. I dunno. Lot of good points. What fun episode? So we wrap it up usually with, we've given a ton of advice and stuff, but we usually wrap it up with the guest offering some advice for those up and coming or those guys that are on the fence about getting in or or forming a union in their own workplace. What would be your own pearls? Yeah. Your own pearls of knowledge for them. I haven't dropped enough. Can't skip this part. No. I took everything and I've tried to pass it along to everybody I've had. I guess the bottom line is that when you wake up every day, you have to be able to get up and do your job and feel what you're doing right? You have to be able to. Look at yourself in the mirror and say, this is what I need. It doesn't, or This is who I am and I'm gonna do all I can for that check. I got, I've had people tell me that I've never backed up for a paycheck. They've always shown up for work and been paid, and that's what we need. Productive people doing our jobs in this country, not squabbling about every little thing and what they're not getting. It's being thankful for what we've got and continuing to do is all we can all the time, right? To earn our living and sticking together. If we don't come together, we'll definitely be destroyed. That's about it. What was that? Yeah, the question you asked me. Love it. One last thing. What was that? The coordinator from 40 productive, skilled employees. Yeah. That's what they train, right? That's what we need. We just need kids that show up every day. That wanna work, that do their job and do as safety as they can. You know that complainant about safety? We haven't talked about safety once, have we? No. Safety's a huge thing. I hear complaints right? About everything. It's there. Now I've got a picture I didn't, I could probably pull it out. My dad and my uncle on a thousand foot stack out on the catwalk with no planks. A guy in a man basket you can barely see that was in think picture says when I was an apprentice on the diamond throwing that deck, we weren't tied off. I climbed out. If you've ever been to that, those that go out on goes out means aji. If you guys dunno who that is. I'll tell you later. I can't even think of his name. Steve jolly. Yeah. Steve Jolly That was his nickname. I said that to his kid, Aaron. And took offense and said, Hey, wait a minute. That's all I know in matters, so don't even get mad at me. Uhhuh, we climbed out all the way to the end with no decking on there to set the elevation on those we weren't tied off. We didn't tie off. So we've come to that point, tie off in all safety. You just have to follow it. Yeah, you have to do the job safely. You can't cut corners. Cause when you cut a corner, that's when you get him trouble. I hit a cop up on 33rd one time cause I cut a corner, hit him right in center of his car. It was early in the I dropped my brother off and the corner was funny cuz it, the yellow line went to the left, it widened out right there at the intersection. And I looked, he wasn't there. I looked the other way. I gun did. I was driving a Jeep at the time and he was ripping around. There was nest turn right there. By Ocean Tanner's house. He was ripping around and I slammed, I hit him my corner of my jeep, my bumper hit him right in the center ba when he gets out his knees. Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to do that. I was going too fast. I ended up getting my insurance, ended up paying for it, but I cut the corner. My point is I was not on the right side of the yellow line. I cut the corner, we cut corners in our job. That's when things happen. Either ourselves or something else. Yeah. Oh, Rick, I appreciate you coming on. We all do. It's been a great visit with you and listening to your stories and your stuff, and I got one more thing. Drugs and fuck you up. Definitely. And I'm serious as a heart attack, that shit's bad. If you know anybody, if you're on that shit, get some help. Try to do all you can. I've made terrible mistakes when I've been loaded. I know. Everybody does. It is one of those things. It's a epidemic pandemic in this country, right? We all wanna escape and that's a terrible thing and it's probably affected all of us one way or another. We've gotta do all we can to stay away from that stuff. Work sober, work safe, guys. Love it. Mic drop. add on. Thanks Rick. Thanks Rick. Thanks guys.

1:43:30

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