Have you heard of the Corporate Transparency Act? How about the new gig economy guidelines that the Department of Labor just set? Because if you’re a gig worker, freelancer, or small business owner, your career could be in jeopardy. “Dirty Jobs” host and executive producer Mike Rowe joins The Glenn Beck Program to sound the alarm: “You want to set your own schedule? Forget it!” Mike and Glenn discuss how these new rules could affect 70 million Americans. Plus, they also debate whether our college system is beneficial, harmful, or unnecessary.
TranscriptBelow is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: Friend of the program, Mr. Mike Rowe. How are you?
MIKE: First of all, with regard to your sponsors. Excellent choices. I love this foundation.
And at the risk of just shameless pluggery and wanton capitalism, this is an American Giant share.
STU: Oh, wow.
GLENN: Oh, my gosh. They have that shirt. I have that shirt.
MIKE: I think you wore it last time I was here. And I thought, what are the odds/but you know Byerd (phonetic), he's a friend of mine.
GLENN: I love him.
MIKE: And I've had him on my podcast. And he's featured in a new book that you'll love. If you haven't seen it, it's called flannel. And it's all about what it really takes to make this.
GLENN: Shockingly difficult.
MIKE: It is amazing, brother.
I mean, I know you know that. You gave me a shirt, ten, 11 years ago.
When you were doing -- what was it? Seventeen.
GLENN: 1791.
MIKE: I still have it.
It was like a canvas work shirt. Ever since then, man. I have been obsessed with trying to better understand the drama and the trauma of getting textile manufacturing back in this country. It's mind-boggling.
GLENN: If companies like Levi's would do 5 percent of their -- of their manufacturing here in America, America would change. It would change.
MIKE: For sure.
GLENN: No interest in it at all.
MIKE: When you really start to peel back the layers. I don't know if this is on your agenda to talk about.
It is -- I just did a whole thing on the toothpick.
Like the business. We used to be the toothpick Capitol of the world.
GLENN: We're very proud of it.
MIKE: A giant industry up in Maine. White birch.
I mean, there's -- the book on it is amazing.
And when you slowly see the way, that we basically give up on toothpicks.
You start to understand the way we gave up on textiles. And then you start asking questions, like, well, what hope does Detroit really have?
Like, if we can't get the splinter right. If we can't get the shirt right, right?
So there are no small things.
Anyway, what American Giant is doing, I think it matters. Because they're 13 years at it now. Right?
So good for you.
GLENN: I just -- I know. I love them. I love them.
So, Mike, let's just talk about the state of the world.
Because we are being boxed. If you are a small business guy, you have under 20 employees.
You now have a transparency act, where you'll spend two years in jail.
If you don't tell the federal government the Treasury crimes division, everything that they want to know.
I don't know how much that's going to cost the small businessman. And just time alone.
Plus, you have the Pro Act, which has now just been done with the Department of Labor. We don't vote on anything anymore, it's just the new guide lines.
MIKE: Yes, yes. New guidelines.
GLENN: What is that going to do -- when we think gig economy, we think, you know, Uber drivers, et cetera.
No. No. Truckers alone. Will we have groceries at our store?
MIKE: 50,000 in California alone. 50,000. I had a guy on my podcast, called Tom Otem (phonetic), who is one of these truckers. And he's been written about in the press, and I was just so interested in his story.
In fact, I interviewed him, while he was in his truck, driving across the fruited plain.
You know, he pulled over, and we had this amazing conversation. But people, I like to talk about it in terms of unintended consequences.
But I realize now, that I might be giving too much credit.
GLENN: Way too much credit.
MIKE: Right?
But I'm trying to stay in whatever lane is left to me.
But when I first say the --
GLENN: I'll be taking that lane away from you soon.
MIKE: It's getting narrow. It's getting narrow.
GLENN: Yeah. Very narrow.
MIKE: When I first saw this thing rear its ugly head.
To your point, it aimed toward the gig competent, and Silicon Valley, mostly Uber and Lyft.
And then it just grew and grew and grew. Graphic artists. Writers. Cinematographers.
Dancers. So many people.
And I'm like, how many are, actually, going to be impacted.
And then the question was, how many people are, actually, freelancing right now?
And the answer is north of 70 million in the whole country.
And so what the drafters of AB5 asked us to believe, initially, was that huge numbers of workers were being shamelessly victimized by greedy and rapacious capitalists, who should have hired them as employees.
And therefore, opened the door to benefits and so forth.
Now, did that ever happen?
Yeah. I suspect.
It's a big country. And there's exceptions to every rule.
But the number of people who were adversely affected, prior to this, versus the number of people, who have now lost the freedom to work, the way they want, is mind-boggling.
And it happened in California, of course.
And to your point. It's happened. And it's happening right now.
And when people realize what this means, you know, you want to set your own schedule? Forget it. You want to eat what you kill? Forget it.
We don't want to think that way anymore.
Because that person, might fail. And if that person fails. Well, then the narrative goes, we just can't tolerate that.
GLENN: I'm sure you've been to Buckingham Palace, and Windsor castle.
And I've been there for the first time.
And the new king has been in the castle.
And he has his whole wing by himself.
And he lands this giant helicopter, right there in his backyard.
And I've never been. Like, I've been to the American castles.
MIKE: Uh-huh.
GLENN: I have never had a problem with it. Never. I walked through that castle, and it pissed me off the entire time. Because I thought, there is no one in this country, that could ever build this, except the one who has cornered the market, you know.
MIKE: Right.
GLENN: There's no opportunity. None!
To actually become something, because the government has you so pigeonholed, and people just accept it.
And I don't want to be like that. I don't want to live in that kind of country. If there's no risk, there's no reward.
MIKE: Well, there's the four-letter word.
Risk, and maybe debt, the only four letter words, right now, that I think are truly for sale.
You know, we have to have honest questions about both of those things.
The willingness to accept risk, is the fundamental bedrock of freelancing.
STU: Right. And not everybody is willing to take that risk. Some people just want a stable job.
MIKE: And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
GLENN: Nothing wrong with that.
MIKE: It's so similar -- I think the reason why this has become such an issue for me, is because it translates perfectly, into a four-year education, versus a trade school.
This idea, that we have to put our thumb on the scale. This idea, that one has to be elevated at the expense of the other, is precisely what's informing the Pro Act.
We're not saying that it's -- that it's good to be an employee. We're saying, it's so good, that if you don't do that.
Then you're doomed. You're engaging in a level of behavior, that's so risky, you're actually posing some sort of existential threat, not just to yourself, but to your family, to your neighbor, and so forth.
So it's -- it's amazing how we can't simply put all the options on the table. And let the grownups decide, what fits best.
GLENN: I have to tell you, even in today's world, where universities are taking our children. And molding them into the exact opposite.
Woodrow Wilson said, the job of a university, is to make a man, the most unlike, his father as possible.
Okay?
That was his goal. And that's really kind of the goal now, I think, in many places.
And so many people, will say, because I've got two teenagers.
Are they going to go to college?
No. Probably not.
One of them, maybe.
The other one, trade school, maybe.
Don't know. Don't know. It will be up to them.
And what is the value of a big expensive 250 thousands of individuals dollar education, if you're not going to use it.
If you don't have something, if you're just like, well, I think I'm going to do this.
A, the world is changing so fast. We don't know what jobs are going to be there.
MIKE: I worry. Look, I'm the product of a liberal arts education. I got one. Is served me well. I'm glad I got one.
Did it lead directly to my chosen field?
No. It did not, but it comes in handy, every single day. And mine consists of two years of community college, and another two years at university.
When I finished at '84, the whole thing cost $12,200. All of it.
Today, same school, same course loads. Ninety-two grand.
Now, nothing in the history of this country, has increased faster than the cost of a four-year degree.
GLENN: Bitcoin. Bitcoin.
MIKE: Well, Bitcoin. Or, but that's fallen and headed back. Right? But, I mean, really, if you look at health care, you look at real estate, if you look at food, if you look at energy, the big four -- those things have all been eclipsed by the cost of a four-year degree.
Still, we can't help ourselves. Still, we tell this whole generation, if you don't get one, we're descried.
And that's criminal. It's a shame, because my liberal arts education right now is on this thing.
We have all of it. I have access to 98 percent of the known information right now. For free.
Okay?
But still -- still, we charge. During lockdowns.
Columbia raised their rates.
NYU raised their rates.
And we still paid it, right?
Look, it's easy to look at the Ivy League, especially now.
And point to all sorts of embarrassments.
GLENN: Yeah.
MIKE: But it's not even about that. It's just this bigger thing that is happening. Where a whole chunk of our workforce is tied to a whole chunk of our education system, that has become the proximate cause of derision.
GLENN: I said to my son, where did you learn that?
He said, oh.
I got a course on MIT. Online.
Oh, okay.
Yeah. I mean, you have the opportunity, unlike any human has had. And yet, it's a bad thing. I want to talk a little bit about what you're doing with Mike Rowe Works here in just a second.
So your big push for a long time is you can go to college. But you don't need to go to college.
And you've been, you know, it started with dirty jobs.
Now, you are -- I mean, your -- your foundation has raised a ton of money. How many people are you putting through college?
MIKE: So far, we have close to 2,000 who we have helped master a skill that is in demand.
Mike Rowe Works began really just as a PR campaign in 2008. Dirty Jobs was at its absolute height. The whole country seemed to be unemployed. But, you know, everywhere we went, we saw these help wanted signs. So it seemed pretty clear, there was some other narrative going on. And this idea, that you could fix unemployment by simply creating more jobs.
Was, actually, a canard.
You know, today we have close to 10 million open jobs.
We've got win $.7 trillion in student loans.
And we're still sending the same basic message that we always have.
This path is the best. Everything else will lead to some sort of vocational consolidation prize. That PR campaign morphed into a trade resource center.
And now we're a scholarship fund. We've raised about $9 million, giving it out.
GLENN: You're doing another million this year, aren't you?
MIKE: Yeah. Right now, as we speak, yeah, MikeRoweWorks.org. If anybody is listening with a kid or a grandkid or you yourself want to learn a skill that's in demand. We can help, and we have helped.
But it's really a means to an end, Glenn. The scholarship program in and of itself is great.
But what it's done for me, is it's given me a chance to circle back and talk to people, who five, six years ago, got a welding certificate with our help. Or a plumbing.
And when you ask them the question today, how is it going?
You get amazing answers. Like, now, some of them are still plumbing. They're in a strong union.
GLENN: Hang on just a second.
Still plumbing.
You know what plumbers make?
You do. Plumbers make a really good living if you bust their ass. They make a really good living.
MIKE: And if you're back to that freelance model we were talking about, you can work as much as you want. You can set your own schedule.
And you are busy. I know a lot of guys, both electric, plumbing, heating and air-conditioning. You can basically work anywhere in the country right now.
GLENN: I know. And I have to tell you, I had some. I was building a house. I had the plumbers there. I was talking to them.
The guy is like, I can't get anyone to help me. I'm aging out soon. I don't have to do this.
He said, I'm trying to get all the kids in my family. Hello. Good living here.
MIKE: Here's the math. For every trades people who will retire this year, two will replace them.
That's been happening for 15 years. Now you know where this is going. Right?
GLENN: Yeah.
MIKE: In fact, we're here right now. It's happening right now. So what I'm trying to do with my little slice of the internet is to make sure that I can tell the stories of the people that I just described.
Because, I mean, I can tell a decent story. But I'm not persuasive to a 25-year-old or a 20-year-old. They need to see somebody who looks like them, and talks like them. Who is living debt-free. And making 150 grand a year.
And I have a long list of those people. And they are very persuasive.
So, you know, going back to your first question. You know, how do I feel about the country? What do I think needs to happen?
I have a list of things. For me, somewhere near the top, is a persuasive campaign.
And that's not even the right word. But we need persuasive voices, talking in a credible way, about the value of all forms of education.
And the absolute criticality, of not ignoring the part of our workforce, that keeps these lights on.
Because it's only a matter of national security.
GLENN: Security.
MIKE: It really is, man. And here's the good things. And I'm not sure it's good. Sometimes things need to go splat. We talked about this before.
So rather than having a conversation about, okay. This company is trying to hire skilled tradespeople and they can't. And these people over here don't have a skill. We should get them together.
Yeah. Yeah, that's happening.
But now the real conversation is, how long do you, Glenn, want to wait for a plumber?
How long does Stu want to wait for an electrician when the lights aren't coming on?
GLENN: Yeah. There's a Simpsons on this very thing.
MIKE: There's a Simpsons on everything, and a South Park too!
GLENN: There is. There is.
Okay. Where do people go if they want to find out more about the scholarships?
MIKE: MikeRoweWorks.org.
We're always open. We will be taking applications through the middle of April.
We're giving away a million bucks in this trench, and we'll probably do it later this year.
You know, baby steps, man. You have to push the boulder up the hill.
GLENN: Mike Rowe, always pushing the boulder up the hill. Thank you.
MIKE: Any time, Glenn.