Behind The Façade: Why We Unionized At The Young Turks
As one of several full-time video editors, I was classified in a way so as to receive zero benefits — no health insurance, no PTO, no holiday pay, no bonus. It was unethical & unjust so we unionized.
Eighty-Four minutes of “Tell The Truth, Cenk,” the documentary I’m making about The Young Turks union situation are currently available. Please watch.
To spare you the chore, here’s the film’s thesis:
The false narrative Cenk Uygur and The Young Turks spread about the origins of TYT Union — that it was a ploy by Nancy Pelosi and her minions to disrupt Cenk’s 2019-2020 campaign for Congress — as part of TYT’s union-busting campaign was not a mistake. It was a lie intended to prevent scrutiny into Cenk’s employment practices, to avoid being asked:
Why did your workers want a union?
Classification #1 — “Independent Contractor”
Classification #2 — “Part-Time Temporary”
Classification #3 — “Part-Time Permanent/Regular”
While this is a front-and-center look at a critical period in TYT Union’s formation from someone who was there, it’s not the entire story. That’s not mine to tell.
INTRO
Examines the environment in which the union-busting occurred and why a boss who treats his workers poorly would see opportunity in lying.
~PART 1~
Details the independent contractor agreement required to get hired, what Cenk considers barbaric, gives a look at my assigned duties and behind-the-scenes experiences, if I were really an employee, and my first attempt to protect TYT.
~~PART 2~~
Changed to to a second classification without benefits & my plot to unionize, the campaign film that never was & the bubble Cenk must live in, highlights of editing work I performed, the third classification & another opportunity to bury the skeleton, the timing of the drive & why Wharton should be embarrassed.
~~~PART 3~~~
Cenk worries he’ll be outed ‘as a boss who treats his employees poorly,’ the concept of leverage & how cowards gain it, the disrespect I faced & the moment my life changed, the industrial horror of the health insurance industry, how unionizing was my only hope and who, exactly, Cenk Uygur lied to.
This article and the documentary are the reasons I didn’t sign the NDA.
I didn’t move across the country to work for The Young Turks in 2013 to be silent about injustice.
Tell the truth, Cenk.
INTRO
Are You A Bad Boss?
Why did your workers want a union? is a question most bosses would prefer not to answer.
In Cenk Uygur’s case, as a politician running for national office on a progressive platform with a large following garnered by decades hosting a talk show telling a camera about other terrible bosses, it’s not only a question he has so far avoided answering, it’s one he has successfully prevented being asked altogether.
After coming forward via card check on February 12, 2020, TYT Union was victorious again in its second election on April 9, 2020. All it cost for a group of video editors, graphics and studio workers at the Home of Progressives to exercise their fundamental human right to collectively organize was to endure two months of the intentional infliction of material and psychological harm from their boss, Cenk Uygur, whose union-busting campaign was described as ‘surprisingly brutal’ by Alex Thompson in Politico.
Feb 24, 2020 — The Young Turks' Progressive Founder Urged His Staff Not To Unionize | Huffington Post by Dave Jamieson
Mar 5, 2020 — The Young Turks Union Fight Gets Nastier With Charges of Retaliatory Firing, Withholding Raises | In These Times by Hamilton Nolan
Mar 5, 2020 — The Myth of the Progressive Boss | The New Republic by Kim Kelly
Apr 10, 2020 — Inside the union campaign that roiled left-wing network The Young Turks | Politico by Alex Thompson
Interviews with me: The Letterhack (Mar 2, 2024) & The Vanguard (Mar 29, 2024)
A year-and-a-half later on October 7, 2021, announcing ratification of the contract, Cenk characterized his own union-busting as a “bumpy start” and then lies that the events had nothing to do with how they treat employees.
“Our relationship got off to a bumpy start in the beginning but that was due to a lot of different reasons having nothing to do with, uh, how we treat employees here.”
-Young Turks host, Cenk Uygur, on Oct 7, 2021
~
Excuse me, what?
NOTHING to do with how employees were treated?
It had ONLY to do with how they treated employees.
To suggest otherwise breathes life to the lie.
Now, you might be tempted to chalk the Pelosi conspiracy narrative up to a mistake considering the tumultuous high-profile political campaign from which it was birthed. As I go out of my way to illustrate in the film, Cenk’s campaign was subject to many of the same forces the Democratic establishment marshals against non-approved progressive outsiders. Implausible as the notion of a Pelosi-masterminded evil-3D-chess strategic surprise union may be — I mean: the ploy only works if its target blunders into the trap by rejecting the union; just say yes, duh — it’s fair to make space for the possibility and likelihood that Team Cenk was primed to be suspicious. IATSE, the umbrella organization encompassing Hollywood’s production and post-production workforce, had endorsed Cenk’s opponent, Christy Smith. High-profile media outlets such as The New York Times smeared Cenk, along with CNN and LA Times writing weighted pieces and Cenk’s campaign, buoyed by support from allies Ro Khanna, Nina Turner, the fire-tongued comrades of the Ethical Dark Web and others, endured the very public endorsement and immediate un-endorsement of then Presidential contender Bernie Sanders due to reams of Cenk’s past sexist remarks surfacing like skeletons in a sandstorm.
— 4 minute, 17 second clip from “Tell The Truth, Cenk” about the Sanders endorsement:
While it’s true that the motives of the person posting the clips were likely political, whether a directed op or just part of the immune system kicking in, it’s equally true that Cenk’s sexism offered a bevy of fertile pickings. TYT’s catalog of pop cultural coverage is soaked through with it, deeper than many of us long-time TYT watchers might care to let ourselves remember. It was more than just trying to be Howard Stern. There is so much.
In the full version of the film, I intend to [briefly] examine this topic through the lenses of embarrassment and capitalism. 1) I can’t say I forgot how bad it was; I have to say I didn’t think it was bad, and that’s embarrassing. I’m embarrassed I was a fan of a show that so flagrantly treated women as something for the boss to assign his appetite to, to consume. 2) Capitalists, characterized by infinite appetites, view humans as a resource to consume, as evidenced that many have a whole department dedicated to resourcing humans for consumption.
That aside: Cenk’s Past gave his foes A LOT to choose from and as I state in the film, out-of-context or not, there’s simply no way such high caliber ammo would have stayed on the shelf, if available, which Cenk anticipated. They were gonna hate him, haha.
It was an intense environment, not perfectly scrutable and one can be forgiven for assumptions made under stress.
But none of that excuses or justifies abandonment of basic journalistic ethics, particularly on a story impugning the character and integrity of people with whom one works and has for years. Simple fact-checking would have revealed the truth. A 30-second conversation. Original sources were in the same room as Cenk and Ana, feet away, or in my case a DM or email. (I was laid-off in early January of 2020.)
They didn’t check the story. They didn’t confirm the truth.
Granting that their starting conditions were justifiably paranoid and decisions were being made in a novel and unique circumstance, had it been a genuine misunderstanding, an honest mistake, a whoops-we-went-too-far, they would have eventually fact-checked it and would have made amends by retracting the Pelosi narrative, apologizing and healing the bruise with the transparency and openness TYT’s audience thinks it pays for.
Time would have washed the blemish away.
But that’s not what happened.
TYT hired union-busting law firms and conducted an aggressive union-busting campaign using classic playbook tactics, including withholding raises/bonuses and the firing of a worker from the bargaining unit the morning after the boss’s election loss, calling into question whether the legal and ethical standard Cenk assigned to himself to detach his political operation from his business operation was actually met. And besides the ratification announcement video in October 2021, hosted by the guy who did the union-busting, there’s been zero coverage on any TYT outlet of Cenk’s union-busting, his NLRB cases or any of the employment conditions that drove his workers to unionize. They covered it up.
It was just a bumpy start, what’s the big deal?
(It’s possible I missed coverage of this issue on a TYT outlet so I’m standing by to correct and apologize if wrong; please let me know)
It Wasn’t A Mistake — It Was An Opportunity
If the union were a ploy by Nancy Pelosi, if myself and my co-workers had been manipulated by forces our gullible toil-addled minds couldn’t comprehend, our wills suborned to the stock-trading fingers of a master legislatress who used DC sorcery to yank our synapses into… forming a union?
If that’s what happened… If it were indeed the ESTABLISHMENT… then one conveniently avoids being asked uncomfortable questions:
Why did your workers want a union?
Why did they organize in secret?
Are you a bad boss?
The questions go away. They dissolve behind a veil of confusion and implausible plausibility, the pall of fishiness obscures the scent and Cenk is spared from being exposed for who he really is, escaping via mirage with the mirage of his reputation intact, skirting accountability and allowing him to position himself as the victim in the situation. Hero status preserved. The Fancy Lad of Jersey lives to fight again.
It couldn’t possibly be that Cenk’s employees were fed up with feeling disrespected, low pay, having no meaningful way to address grievances and no voice in their workplace, among a cargo hold of private personal reasons, and were driven to act in secret undertaking the age-old effort of banding together to collectively bargain for better working conditions.
It couldn’t be that.
No, it was that damn establishment hell-bent on keeping Aurelius Cenk, the Bro of Brunswick, The One True Good Boss away from the halls of power. It was Pelosi! Union leaders! Smith! That’s the layout of the conspiracy, the version TYT told.
!!!And my dumb workers fell for it!!!
However…
As the person whose working conditions were at the core of why we organized and who played a central role in this attempt at forming TYT Union, I have a different story.
I am not speculating about Cenk’s honesty in this matter. My perspective isn’t incidental. It isn’t secondhand.
I lived the story he doesn’t want you to hear. So ye shall hear it.
Hear it ye shall! Hear ye! Hear ye!
[flanders town crier_GIF.gif]
~
~PART 1~
~
Why Would Workers Need A Union? (Answer: Shitty Boss)
Classification #1 — “Independent Contractor”
October 2018 - June 2019
When I was asked back to The Young Turks in late 2018 to work as a full-time video editor, the job came with a condition: No benefits.
None.
No health insurance. No paid vacation. No paid holidays. No bonus.
Nothing.
Just a big middle finger. Fuck you. Get to work.
In order to get the job, I had to sign a contract labeling myself an independent contractor.
It explicitly details my classification as not an employee.
It doesn’t mince words:
No Benefits:
It even lists the benefits I was to be excluded from.
Here’s the stuff you DON’T get:
No Benefits:
No vacation and holiday pay, sick leave, leaves of absence, health and welfare benefits; no severance, no retirement; or any other benefits of any kind or nature provided to its employees.
~
No Benefits:
Fuck you. Get to work.
Despite doing the same job as others classified as “employees” who received benefits and the fact that the previous video editor who held the role was an “employee” with benefits, I was to be considered a “Contractor” who would receive no ‘benefits of any kind or nature provided to its employees.’
On Friday, it was an employee’s job. When I showed up on Monday October 29, 2018, it was an independent contractor’s.
Makes you wonder:
Who is Cenk Uygur, really?
Who Cenk Uygur Really Is
Those familiar with Cenk Uygur’s politics would likely describe him as a strong proponent of Medicare4All. Easily one of his top three issues. He claims he’s for it all the time, though that becomes difficult to believe considering he’s not even for Medicare4AllHisWorkers.
Cenk will be the first to tell you how literally deadly it can be to not have health insurance. Examples abound but this tweet captures it.
“If you don’t have health insurance in America we let you die.”
-U.S. House of Representatives Candidate Cenk Uygur on Dec 3, 2019
~
Civilized countries provide healthcare.
They aren’t barbaric.
He uses that word again in this clip from a speaking engagement on Nov 27, 2023 at the College of Charleston for its Bully Pulpit Series during his campaign for The Presidency of the United States:
“We’re [America] the only ones that are barbaric enough that live under corporate rule where we say, ‘No, if you didn’t have enough money for health insurance, we’re gonna let your kids die.’ And I would fix that immediately.”
-Presidential Candidate Cenk Uygur on November 27, 2023
~
Barbaric.
In 2017, debating fellow employer and barbarism-decider Ben Shapiro at Politicon, Cenk succinctly expresses the danger of not having healthcare.
“If you don’t have good healthcare, you die.”
-Founder and CEO of The Home of Progressives, Cenk Uygur, on July 30, 2017
~
You might think a person with those politics, who seems to understand the harm not having healthcare can cause and seems to have staked stopping such harm as one of the core principles animating the ferocity of his advocacy, would conduct his business affairs in accordance with said principle. You might think that person would make sure people who worked for him were protected from such harm. From death.
From barbarity.
Unlike the realms of electoral politics, punditry and airport operations, Cenk Uygur the Dunker of Trumps, the Comer of Justice, the Plane-Demander has the power within the corporation he founded and runs to protect workers from the barbarity of corporate rule and the uncivilized cruelty inherent in not having healthcare. You can die if you don’t have it.
Imposing such cruelty is an act of barbarity and you’d think Cenk Uygur the Definitely Against Barbarism would be the last to commit such an act.
You’d be wrong. He’s for it.
Barbarity is the literal point of that contract I had to sign.
Fuck you. Get to work.
Cenk Uygur used corporate rule to deny someone working full-time hours healthcare.
That’s, to borrow a term: barbaric!
Fuck you. Get to work.
That’s the real Cenk Uygur right there. That’s who he really is.
THOSE are the principles he lives.
The ones he says when the cameras are rolling are very different than those reflected in the contracts he makes you sign to work for him.
The very corporate rule he warns about is how he operates his business.
The very same barbarity.
Has he done this to others?
It’s one thing for all the other CEOs on the planet to skate on the barbarism we permit them to inflict; that’s just how it goes but it’s different when it’s Cenk Uygur, the guy who made it core to his very public belief structure that corporations take advantage of the system, people need to stand up for themselves and that people who get screwed need a voice, his voice. They need a fighter to stand up for them. That’s Cenk’s whole thing — a self-appointed progressive champion.
At countless moments throughout this strange experience, I would lose myself in bafflement… Doesn’t this guy know he’s Cenk Uygur?
Fans and outsiders to TYT could be forgiven for assuming working for The Young Turks must be a lucky break. I sure thought so back when I was a paying member in the late 2000s. It seemed one of the few oases in the world where a boss who knows better treats people in accordance with the principles underpinning his knowing better. Look! He calls out bad bosses and corporate malfeasance! Look! He’s mad about the powerful taking advantage of the less powerful! Look! He said you can die without health insurance! Look! He’s against barbarity!
Look! He said he’s honest!
The world of work is rampant with shitty bosses; Cenk Uygur couldn’t possibly be one of them, could he?
(Answer: Yes)
I’d been in a very dark space mentally. I was months, if not weeks, from throwing everything away and moving back to my parents when I got a call from the editing department manager. It was the best kind of job interview, less than 60 seconds: Small talk. Here’s the rate. Starts Monday. Yes!
I’d been struggling. A job I knew I could do well not far from my home was a lifeline I couldn’t risk turning down so I signed the Independent Contractor Agreement and hoped maybe it was a trial period thing. I could deal with that.
They know it’s really shady to call someone an independent contractor but treat them as an employee so they’re not gonna let this go on more than a couple months, right?
I’d worked at The Young Turks before so I knew I wasn’t entering a high-respect environment but it was better than deliveries. If after a month or two I was added to the roster, if I proved my worth and the masters were generous enough to part with a bit more of their precious coin, I’d still find it obnoxious but I was so desperate for steady work I’d be able to reconcile that as a break-in phase — the kind of degradation Americans are so well-conditioned to endure.
Okay, fine, at least now I have health insurance and fair pay, I would have grumbled.
I woulda just been glad to be treated like the others.
I’d have let that skeleton stay buried.
The Young Turks Is A Video Production Company
Look Everybody, A Skeleton!
I was assigned as the regular editor for the shows The Breakdown with Francis Maxwell, Happy Half Hour with Brett Erlich and The Aggressive Progressive with Jimmy Dore, I did fill-in editing for The Damage Report with John Iadarola, The Breakdown with Hasan Piker, TYT’s The Conversation and of course, the Main Show with Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian, plus I contributed to the development of new formats, did special projects, worked special coverage events such as elections and what not and provided any other editing needs at any given moment.
I helped care for Mariguana the Iguana, with whom I will forever share a sacred Man-Lizard bond.
I kept Brett Erlich inspired by mesmerizing him with superior wit, giving him something to reach for but never achieve.
I was privileged to go on-camera for at least one episode of Happy Half Hour with Brett Erlich, one episode of Old School (co-hosts: Dan From The Internet and Brooke Thomas) and got to do the occasional Friday Post Game with Dave Koller, Malcolm Fleschner and Co-host of The Aggressive Progressive with Jimmy Dore & star TYT Executive—The Early Seasons, Steve Oh, before he left his hot shot media executive career to run a string of chicken restaurants in the Southeast.
There was one Friday Post Game with Steve and Malcolm in which Steve, fresh off a big vacation, shared how much fun and beauty he’d enjoyed touring the eastern Mediterranean coast. Multiple countries. Hotels. Views. Charms. So beautiful. So relaxing. Paris was a letdown, though. He didn’t like Paris. I sat along nodding, thinking to myself, “These fucking people won’t even give me motherfucking-ass health insurance and I’m sat here listening to this fucking guy complain that Paris was disappointing… grumble grumble…”
“This is some bullshit-ass bullshit going on right here,” my brain continued. I felt an urge to tell the camera what was on my mind — the audience deserved to know what was happening, they deserved the truth — but I stifled it. I kept it to myself. Besides, it was pre-tape; it would have been edited out along with my job.
But still, as a former stand up comedian, loudmouth idiot and aspiring know-it-all podcaster with a quick wit and the over-confidence to prove it, I was good and bald on camera. It was fun.
The Friday Post Game came with some stress as I’d caught a little grief from Judith Benezra, the Head of Programming, about being paid for the hour or two it took. I wasn’t hired for that. I was to video edit. I offered to clock out and do the show for free, hoping to not lose one of the few things I enjoyed. It didn’t impede any of my other duties and it didn’t seem an onerous expense for the World’s Largest Online News Show to pay someone $21.63 - $43.26 for prepping and appearing on a show, but if it helped, I’d forego pay. The issue fizzled but I felt guilty I got paid to be on a show and I worried it was adding to Judith’s stress.
Her desk was kitty-corner to mine. On at least one occasion I witnessed her break into tears after a phone call with Cenk’s Hand & TYT’s Chief Operating Officer & Acting CEO When Real CEO Becomes A Politician, Jack Gerard, a former health insurance executive. I’m a weep-with-you kind of person. My emotions roil. I felt sorry for her; nobody deserved to have to talk to Jack.
Such is the peril of an open office workspace. You can’t even sob alone.
Didn’t seem right.
But still, I enjoyed the fun.
Was I Really An Employee?
On top of receiving zero benefits, I was paid less per hour than every other editor.
Had I been pulling in a juicy contractor rate, 40 or 50 an hour, which is honestly low for professional video editing, the sting might have been less venomous but even then fuckery would be afoot.
But no, my hourly was $21.63. Not negotiable, I was told. It wasn’t much below the others, by the way. We were all underpaid.
With roughly fifteen years editing experience, ten as a professional, primarily in podcast, YouTube and talk show formats, some documentary, with an added skillset of photoshop, motion graphics and animation, I felt that was low. I’m worth at least $21.77, possibly as high as $21.92.
Though I wouldn’t be making a public stink about unsatisfactory pay alone as I am with This Whole Project, the pay rate illustrates the culture of exploitation and disrespect Cenk foments. That they divvied out rates so precisely to include $.63 cents is a sign of the spreadsheet tyranny girding the operation, its precision both honest and insulting.
Again: The union-busting, the lies and the classification(s) are the ethical boundaries that I am making a stink about, not the low pay, but it’s a sizable data point so it’s relevant.
I asked for a raise occasionally but was rebuffed. Since TYT embraces ‘at-will’ employment, the head-chopping axe always looms so you have to parcel out your complaining. They’ll kick you out.
While it was enough money to cover my bills and chip away at the rent debt I’d accrued, after taxes — a further burden considering this job status spared TYT from paying taxes the law obligated them to pay for the video editors classified as employees — there was nothing left over for outside health insurance, emergency expenses, savings or vacations anywhere other than to my parents house. Los Angeles is expensive and due to my ongoing mental health issues, I mostly kept at home as I’d not been doing well and had found getting by in Los Angeles very difficult. I’d made my world small in order to endure. I was fighting for my life.
Fuck you. Get to work.
The Majority Report’s Sam Seder, a woodworker, in Owner Class Wants Us All Temps w/ Josh Eidelson on Jun 1, 2021 asked labor reporter Josh Eidelson why an employer might prefer classifying someone as something other than “employee:”
Gosh, that’s interesting.
TYT paid me overtime, which I was told independent contractors weren’t supposed to receive but because video editors are expected to stay until the day’s clips are edited and exported in order to fulfill TYT’s contractual obligation to its Internet and cable distribution partners, they’re paid hourly and receive overtime. Some days are longer than others and you don’t know until the very last minute. You’re expected to adapt.
Was the overtime a mistake or did I deserve it because I was actually an employee?
Had I simply stopped at 8 hours and said, ‘I’m an independent contractor, I decide when I do this work. I’ll finish editing The Main Show with Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian tomorrow,’ there would have been severe disruption to the production pipeline, costing the company money and reputational damage. I’d be fired in a Uygur-minute.
Furthermore, I had to get approval from the manager for days I took off, just like the other editors.
My responsibilities, summarized: make sure that in coordination with the team of editors the company’s editing demands were met. We shared tips, know-how and we had to know each other’s jobs because people take time off and get flat tires. I was part of the editing team. We were good. We looked out for each other.
We were good BECAUSE we looked out for each other.
We were the kind of crew a good boss would welcome, support and care for, perhaps even respect.
Though I had done some freelance editing, as all out-of-work video editors do, I wasn’t running a business, nor did I have a roster of “clients” of which TYT was the only one and happened to get 40-ish hours a week, nor was the work I did at The Young Turks in any way outside its purview as a business that makes videos as, say, the pest control company or the coffee machine service.
It’d be weird to hire the pest control guy as an employee just as it would for a grocery store to hire a bagger as an independent contractor, especially if the other baggers were employees.
The Young Turks is a video production company and I was a video editor. They make videos. I’m a video-maker. I did regular company business on company property using company equipment on the company schedule under company supervision.
There was one difference, the lone positive: I wasn’t required to fill out the goal worksheets the company uses to titrate raises and bonuses but my work was reviewed daily by literally everyone, such is the nature of video editing. I had to uphold company standards. I made not a single decision that wasn’t revocable by a manager. I still had to submit a self-performance review and received a manager’s review at the end of year.
“He has also stopped selecting depressing music.
…
Hank’s tenure at TYT has not followed the trajectory that we all wanted… member of this team… financial growing pains…”
TYT Manager, informal review of music selection expert, Hank Thompson
~
Not having to fill out the dehumanizing goal sheets was the only upside. Everybody hates them.
I’m not sure that’s a big enough difference to justify denying me any and all benefits. Does that make it okay to keep my Thanksgiving pay? My Christmas pay? My New Years Eve pay? To place me at risk of death if I got sick or injured?
“Hank doesn’t do the goals so it’s okay if he dies.”
I was excluded from raises and bonuses anyway so the goal worksheet would have been pointless.
Though I brought fast, confident video editing, good creative energy and lizard-massaging skills to the company atop my deep history and knowledge of TYT, my contributions were deemed insufficient to warrant being treated the same as others doing the same job.
Despite being a human, my human needs meant nothing.
I didn’t matter and it was humiliating.
Fuck you. Get to work.
MEETING WITH HUMAN RESOURCES ON TUESDAY
I’m not a quiet person so eventually the office manager, well aware of my situation, scheduled a meeting with HR, 7-ish months since I’d started working. It was a Tuesday.
I expressed two areas of concern: the company and myself.
It seemed reckless that they would treat someone this way considering The Young Turks’ brand is built on being the good guys, on calling out corporations for mistreating workers, on standing up for the less powerful, on doing what’s right using honesty and transparency. Cenk sells himself as different than his fellow capitalists. He’s special because he has a heart and he cares and he means what he says, he tells the camera. TYT’s audience might not take kindly to someone working full-time for zero benefits. It violates the company’s principles. It violates progressive principles. I had been a paying audience member starting in 2008? 09? I moved across the country in 2013 to work for TYT. I played a role in deep company lore. As a TYT worker, I cared greatly that the company’s audience was properly serviced. This doesn’t mean I’m an expert on the audience but it’s a closer-than-average perspective and I maintain that this is an accurate assessment;
I suppose this project is a way of testing this theory.
Will TYT’s audience care? Will they even find out?
It was weird. Just really weird. Like:
Aren’t you worried about being a shitty boss? You know you’re Cenk Uygur, right?
Don’t you think it would be bad if this information gets out? What about the company’s reputation? Is that worth as much as whatever small potatoes you’re shaking out of my pockets? Why aren’t you at least fulfilling the minimum standards of decency? Is this in compliance with labor regulations? Do you know I have Google? The lowest ethical standards weren’t being met and I didn’t appreciate the burden of having to lie to protect the company if someone asked how I like working for The Young Turks.
I’m trying to protect you! Fix this to protect yourself! I implored.
And of course my other concern was me. It was simply unfair. I needed to see a doctor and not having health insurance was unfair. The unfair fear I lived with was unfair. Working full-time alongside others who got benefits was unfair and added unfair stress, which was unfair. It was unfair. Unfairly, I had a higher tax burden, which wasn’t fair. I was earning income I wasn’t receiving, which is unfair. So unfair.
It was unfair, I told them. Unfair!
I’d already been pondering an attempt to wake up the union drive and I hoped that this meeting might return with:
“Oh my god, Hank! We screwed up! We owe you for all those holidays and days off you didn’t get paid! Here’s a check for the healthcare benefit you didn’t get! Don’t worry, you’re good on the bonus back to when you started! Geez, Hank, we’re so sorry we put you through this. Our mistake. Our bad. Here’s a $25 gift card to Best Buy for your troubles. Buy yourself an Adele album. She’s so good!”
“The best,” I would have corrected, placing the Best Buy card in my shirt pocket. “Adele’s the best.”
I would have driven to Best Buy and had a good sob in the Adele section.
She would have shown up and we would have shared a 20oz soda in the parking lot and talked about hearts and how they can hurt so much.
But that didn’t happen.
See, even though I knew I didn’t matter to TYT, TYT mattered to me.
I cared about their reputation because I helped build it.
Looking out for the company’s interests was part of the job. A positive brand image aligned with the values the company’s audience supports via their money and attention was something all workers had a responsibility to protect.
I was doing my job in that meeting with HR on Tuesday.
I told my employer, The Young Turks, that an injustice was occurring. I told them someone was hurting and needed help.
Something is very wrong and you have the power to fix it. Fix it. Fix this injustice.
They didn’t. They could have called it a mistake, sincere or otherwise. It was an out. They could have made amends and healed the bruise and allowed time to wash the blemish away. We could have buried the skeleton for good.
That didn’t happen.
To them it wasn’t an injustice. It was an opportunity.
Unlike the title of Cenk’s book, “Justice Is Coming,” justice wasn’t coming.
So I plotted.
~~
~~PART 2~~
~~
Collective Bargaining Was My Only Hope For Health Insurance
CLASSIFICATION #2 — “Part-Time Temporary”
June 2019 - October 2019
Instead of doing the right thing, they “hired” me. They changed my classification.
After roughly 8 months of full-time video editing, I was “hired” under the classification “Part-Time Temporary.” Shifted to payroll, as an employee, I no longer had to send invoices but I remained excluded from company health insurance, paid time off, paid holidays and bonus.
The job was the same. The disrespect got worse.
Part-Time Temporary — I worked full-time hours and there was no scheduled end-date. It was neither part-time nor temporary. This is some bullshit-ass bullshit going on here, is what it was.
Money I’d been earning remained in TYT’s bank account. My co-workers received 8 hours pay for the 4th of July. I got nothing.
It felt like I was being robbed.
Fuck you. Get to work.
I could have quit but being without income or a job meant falling back even deeper into the emotional sarlaccs I expend so much energy keeping out of. My mental ecosystem requires a lot of maintenance and can get dark fast. It’s the kind that can be very dangerous. I was scared of returning to those risks, to the cocoon of numbness. I needed the lifeline of a paycheck but I also felt I deserved to be paid all the money I was earning, that I should receive the same benefits as my co-workers and I wanted to end the crushing stress of it all.
I had no protection. I had no leverage. I was alone. It felt like I was drowning.
Having seen the sausage made and being made into sausage I understood that TYT management were the last people I could count on.
How could I ask Cenk for help? He was the one drowning me.
Due to a separate set of employment conditions, about a year prior (~Spring of 2018), a group of workers first reached out to IATSE asking for help in dealing with their situation. That effort was frozen after a round of firings in summer of 2018.
I’d heard that story so I knew we had a contact and I plotted to revive the effort, first by confirming the contact and then intentionally bringing up the concept. I made sure to have at least one proper “So we’re not just blowing off steam, right? Are you serious serious or just serious? Because I’m serious serious.” It’s good to get real clear on certain details. That’s all. That was the plot.
It didn’t take persuasion. Cenk’s employment practices had already done that. I just brought it up and I listened. I listened and we talked. We talked and we heard. We heard and we felt seen. We nourished the seed of solidarity.
We mustered a sense of strength.
We created the conditions for hope.
We raised a collective fist and readied to defy our oppressor.
While it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to speak to the specific reasons and motivations of others with whom I organized, the generalities of low pay, disrespect, not feeling heard and wanting to address issues were common.
A tweet about what the contract provided gives some insight:
We secured just cause, raised hourly minimums, severance, and many more protections for our unit.
TYT Union, Oct 7, 2021
~
‘Just cause’ is a firing protection that raises the standard above ‘at will’ — a classic example of which is when I was laid-off, roughly five weeks before the union came forward:
Tuesday, January 7th, 2020 — I was nose-deep in the day’s edit when I was tapped on the shoulder around 11:15am, brought to a meeting with Cenk, Jack and HR, handed a stack of papers and told I had to be out by noon. We’re done with you. Get out.
They gave no indication I was fired for union activity. It was a possibility I girded for on the walk from my desk to the conference room but I didn’t pick up any signs they were aware of it. Just three dour-faced serious important people committing capitalist activity, shoving a human they called family back into the mouth of the coercion tiger.
I shook Cenk’s hand last and told him what I gave. I doubt he remembers.
I returned to my desk, collected my things and left without saying bye to anyone except the scheduling manager. Someone else would have to finish that day’s The Breakdown with Francis Maxwell, I said. It was quiet when I left.
I never received the severance I was offered ($3,028.20) because it required I sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). Seriously? A goddamn NDA after all this? TYT’s NDA included a provision I wasn’t allowed to recognize the existence of it to anyone except a lawyer, spouse or accountant. Besides the general malevolence of NDAs being yet another tool the powerful use to cushion themselves from accountability, as an organization that claims its “trademark is honesty” it didn’t seem right they used NDAs at all, let alone one that commits the signee to lie under threat of lawsuit.
My silence was not for sale. Especially not to Cenk Uygur the Buyer of Silence. Nor was I willing to lie to protect him as his NDA would have required. Cenk the Honest would have to do his own lying, thank you very much.
I can also report with confidence that my classification situation was a substantial reason my co-workers wanted to unionize. They’re good people. They cared. It was distressing. They felt that someone doing the same job should get the same benefits. They worried for my health and safety and were probably tired of hearing me bitch about it. Hell, I was tired of hearing me bitch about it.
It was an injustice they wanted to help fix. I would help them fix theirs. We would help each other. By helping each other we could alleviate our stress.
It was the presence of care, the precursor to dignity.
I wasn’t asking for special treatment. I pined for fairness. I craved equality.
I just wanted to be elevated to the same level of disrespect the others received.
Well, Are You?
Solidarity was all we had. It’s a tool that fixes injustice, which is why bosses hate it. It’s why they fight it when it reveals itself. Union-busting is solidarity-busting.
That Cenk was apparently surprised his workers unionized buttresses my theory that my dismissal on Jan 7 was unrelated to the union. Had management been aware we were conducting consent re-negotiation without their consent, if they had even an inkling of it, they may not have seemed so flat-footed when the union came forward on Feb 12. There would have been more time to consider the nuances and perhaps come up with alternatives than the absolute worst decision possible.
The nine-day period between Feb 12 and the 21st when the union-busting became public was a critical stage. As with many political projects, Cenk’s campaign was being documented for a film. The videographer responsible for TYT’s “Road To Revolution” series — candid behind-the-scenes pieces featuring progressive candidates battling their way into the establishment fortress — was part of Cenk’s retinue. His ascendancy to Congress and the doc about it would have been the crown jewel of that project. Was it shelved? Were the cameras rolling during union discussions? Does footage exist that Cenk could share with his audience to give us all some insight into how union-busters think? What happened to the film!?
Shame “Road To Revolution: Cenk Edition” never got made. Think of it: a political documentary about a famous progressive champion leading a revolution with an insurgent congressional run based on the premise that he’s a fighter for the working class becomes in its 2nd half an inside look at a boss and his management team ruthlessly busting a union. Revolution, indeed. It would be fascinating and hilarious.
It all gives a sense to the bubble Cenk must live in. The guy who spent two decades telling a camera that workers need to stand up for themselves was caught off-guard when his workers stood up for themselves.
By the nature of things, the kind of people who work at TYT are the kind willing to unionize. Like I told writer Kim Kelly in the New Republic, who did Cenk think would come work for him?
“TYT is staffed by liberals, progressives, and lefties—of course the notion of organizing to demand better would come up. Who did Cenk think would come work for him.
Hank Thompson in Mar 5, 2020 The New Republic article by Kim Kelly
~
I mean, duh.
You don’t want workers who might unionize, be The Daily Wire.
Like I said, it wasn’t fucking Nancy Pelosi.
I Gave My Best
Steady income helped a lot. I was finally able to replace the shoes I’d worn out doing food deliveries. I was able to pay rent and rent debt. I could put fuel in my 2012 Prius with leather seats without sweating the card being denied. It was such a relief.
What energy I had I gave to TYT — I’m a really goddamn good video editor and I did very good work for them. Cheap, too.
One large project I edited was a journalism training course called “TYT Academy.” The Young Turks partnered with Google/YouTube to produce a series of explainer videos offering guidance and instruction to motivated newbies on becoming citizen journalists. “Tell the truth! Check your facts!” and such.
The distasteful irony was not lost on me that while editing it, if I had spoken to a reporter about my terrible working conditions, I’d be fired. No doubt.
Scoop: YouTube to fund launch of The Young Turks local news academy
(Feb 11 2020 Axios article by Sara Fischer)
The Young Turks (TYT), one of the largest progressive digital publishers on YouTube, is receiving funding from Google-owned YouTube to launch an online course called TYT Academy that focuses on the creation of digital-first local news. Sources say the investment is in the mid-six-figures range.
~
While I have no knowledge if that figure is accurate, it seems my labor likely generated enough revenue for the company to afford to pay me my measly $173.04 if I took a day off or lost a day’s wage due to holiday, no?
I also designed a Medicare-For-All tshirt and used it to make a commercial advertising ShopTYT. All these years later, it still plays on their livestream.
It’s a cool shirt.
Let it be known that the guy who made that #Medicare4All shirt and the commercial selling it did so while excluded by Cenk Uygur from receiving company health insurance.
That was around the time Bernie Sanders had had his heart attack, which gave me the idea and since I had a few hours to kill, I hit screenrecord and followed my instincts. It took six to seven hours altogether over a few days, from opening photoshop, emails to the GFX/tshirt dept to delivering the commercial. Easy.
I thought about Bernie in the hospital, his heart kept beating by the grace of medical intervention, and I hoped my turn wouldn’t come until after we’d finished unionizing so I might be able to get a band-aid on my heart, too.
I made a shirt I knew my boss didn’t believe in.
Go buy it. It’s $28. They gave me a free one.
And I edited the 2019 Thanksgiving Special, a herculean task compiling a mishmash of videos of TYT workers expressing various gratitudes. I took great care to capture the good souls and authentic moments of my friends and colleagues. I’m proud of it and not just because it features my personal quest to get TYT co-founder & charismatic mega-grump Dave Koller to say “I’m grateful for Hank; I love Hank.” — sentences I’m afraid I’ll never hear and ones he’d likely get fired for uttering.
Dave and I had many conversations about my employment conditions. We were pals.
🎾🎾
Come forward, Dave.
You know what happened.
You know the truth.♟♟♟♟♟♟♟♟
Free yourself, Dave.
Say the forbidden words.
Classification #3 — “Part-Time Permanent/Regular”
November 2019 - January 2020
By November of 2019 when I was crunch-editing the Thanksgiving Special, I was under a new classification; “hired” for the third time as something called “Part-Time Permanent/Regular” I finally received nearly full benefits, still not on par with regular full-time editors but close. I got paid for Thanksgiving that year. Gobble gobble.
I’d worked twelve months solid producing excellent results before I was allowed to receive benefits.
Twelve. Fucking. Months.
For a guy who says shit like this:
“Not giving you paid sick leave saves them money.”
-Expert money-saver Cenk Uygur in “This Republican Is Blocking Paid Sick Leave in Pennsylvania” on Feb 18, 2021
~
I emailed HR asking for clarification about which of my three hiring dates would be used for pro-rating my inclusion in the “Incentive Compensation Plan” and offering TYT yet another opportunity to make whole on paying me the money I’d earned and giving me an Adele coupon.
Please do the right thing. We can bury this skeleton together. I’m trying to protect you.
“I received no payment for any of that time, including Labor Day and feel that since I did a comparable amount of work as those who did get paid time off, it would be appropriate to compensate me for time off. Excluding me from that benefit despite working 40 hour weeks makes no sense and is unfair.
-Hank Thompson, TYT worker, email to Human Resources, October 29, 2019
~
But nope.
Their answer?
Fuck you. Get to work.
“We will not backdate pay or benefits. As previously discussed, your role was temporary prior to October 14. The company was unsure about the need for additional headcount /ongoing support in your department until this month.”
-Young Turks email from Human Resources, October 31, 2019
~
Unsure. Temporary.
Okay, that makes sense.
Their position was that my money belonged to them because they weren’t sure if they needed me during those months I was needed. The job that ended with them hiring me permanently was temporary. That was their reasoning.
A role that started on October 29 was temporary until October 14.
The job we needed wasn’t needed. The work that didn’t end was temporary.
This is some bullshit-ass bullshit right there, is what that is.
Though close, my benefits were slightly less than what full employees received; a lower rate of PTO accrual (which is what Question 1 of the email is about).
I wasn’t surprised they refused to fix the injustice. That’s for book titles, not business practices.
Checking Capitalism With Democracy
Remember by the time of that email exchange our secret unionizing was well underway. Cenk didn’t know it yet but a much-needed reckoning was inbound.
The cavalry had been summoned. Democracy gathered.
I wanted to unionize because I was exhausted by living in fear and drained by knowing my boss, Cenk Uygur the Defender of the Little Guy, the Savior from the Great Sass Seat wouldn’t give two royal shits if I dropped dead. It might delay a video or two but cogs are easy to replace. Always more humans to resource.
We hadn’t yet begun expanding the bargaining unit any further beyond the core group but we’d affirmed through many conversations in clear terms that we were serious serious and had taken the important step of emailing our IATSE contact to see if they could help, which they could.
Inside the union campaign that roiled left-wing network The Young Turks
“Uygur also suggested that the union drive was part of an effort to undermine his recent campaign for Congress in California’s 25th District —in which the union had endorsed one of his Democratic opponents. Uygur finished fourth in the top-two primary on March 3. Uygur cited that dynamic as one of the “irregularities” when asked why he did not support card check.
Emails viewed by POLITICO, however, show that conversations between staffers and IATSE date back to April of 2018, and they began scheduling a meeting with the union on Nov 5, 2019, more than a week before Uygur declared his candidacy.”
Apr 10, 2020 Politico Article by Alex Thompson
~
Cenk’s suggestion to Alex Thompson that the union drive was part of an effort to undermine his congressional run shows his commitment to mislead and citing this false narrative as an “irregularity” as reasoning for rejecting card check indicates Cenk’s antipathy towards collective bargaining.
Another reason Cenk rejected card check is because he doesn’t believe in card check.
“Look, on card check, I don’t— So this is one of the issues that I’m not that progressive on... I don’t believe in card check.”
Cenk Uygur on Dec 3rd 2020, the night of his CA-25 election loss
~
The union drive had nothing to do with the campaign. At all.
That they coincided was coincidence. Our effort and IATSE’s interest in helping us was going forward whether Cenk decided to become a Congressboss or not. His campaign had nothing to do with our right and need to curb our boss’s behavior, with the reasons we revoked consent. Had a union emerged at another time, the union-busting would have had different contours. Cenk was a bad boss no matter what year it took place.
Of course we talked about it. It was the environment in which we operated although because I was laid-off in early January, I wasn’t privy to any discussions about using Cenk’s campaign for tactical leverage, although I would have been strongly in favor of doing so. Obviously.
Besides, nobody thought he would be stupid enough to reject the union. Busting a union — especially when you’re literally Cenk Uygur — is all down-side, whether it works or not.
Moron.
Wharton should be embarrassed.
From a pure business perspective, it was a decision so world-historic stupid, foreseeably so, that it should be taught in business academies across the realm, from rising sea to rising sea. A case study in what NOT to do, covering market awareness 101 and branding basics such as: don’t destroy your brand, moron.
The story Cenk wants his audience to believe is the one where he was outwitted by Nancy Pelosi, who tricked him into making The World’s Worst Business Decision, exactly as she knew he would when she dispatched her minions in mid-November to manipulate his castle goblins into unionizing.
Pelosi set the trap and her bumbling prey stumbled right into it exactly as her cauldron foretold. Yeah, that’s what happened.
Beats being outed as a boss who treats his workers poorly, I suppose.
Honestly, just more and more bonkers stupid the more you think about it.
At that first meeting in November we shared our experiences, learned about the process and asked questions. It was early morning. We had coffee cake.
One of the organizers, who had a large reassuring mustache, made a point, setting aside the details we’d been discussing.
“All this talk. What all this is about here,” he paused.
“This is about respect.”
No one moved.
Okay, eventually someone moved but it was one of those eternity-in-a-goosebump moments. To us, workers of The Young Turks, to be treated with respect, to hear it out loud from someone who meant it, was like finding water in the desert.
Oh, that’s what respect tastes like! Wow!
I’ll always remember the excitement we felt after the meeting ended as we scurried off to work, sure to not all arrive at once lest the warden notice we’d been scheming. I’m so proud to have hosted it. I had just the right amount of chairs though I remain despondent I didn’t have the budget for better coffee cake.
I bought the cheap stuff. It was fine. Cheap coffee cake is fine.
But dammit, still. My friends deserved better.
~~~
~~~PART 3~~~
~~~
Am I A Bad Boss? (Answer: Yes.)
Even just the middling disrespect of an average boss would be an improvement over the working conditions of Cenk Uygur.
He fretted in his union-busting emails about the harm to his reputation from forever being labeled a “union-buster.”
“And much worse,” he continues, “as a boss who treats his workers poorly.”
“I don’t know where I go to get my reputation back. Some portion of people will now forever know me as a union-buster, and much worse, as a boss who treats his employees poorly.”
-The Young Turks host, Cenk Uygur, in an email to unionizing workers
~
Not treating workers poorly is a great way to avoid that.
But look deeper and you’ll see a boss worried only about how he’s perceived.
Only that This makes me look bad! — nothing of the effects his mistreatment may have had on those he mistreated. Does he care that his workers felt so disrespected they formed a union? Does it matter that said workers [correctly] predicted and feared retaliation from Cenk that they organized in secret? Does he feel compelled to apologize for publicly slandering their integrity, intelligence and character? Does he have any sense at how insulted and disrespected, intimidated and worried those workers felt during those two months the union-busting lasted? That they felt attacked? How much psychological stress that imposed? All while still doing their jobs, inside making the people lying about them look and sound good on camera?
Just picture it. The brutality. I’m so sorry my friends had to go through that.
Cenk’s only concern was that the world might find out what kind of person he really is, that his audience might see what’s on the other side of the façade.
Has there been a word among prominent progressive voices recognizing that one of the top figures in the Progressive movement bullied his own workers with a deliberate campaign to inflict material and psychological stress? Why does he get a pass?
Will anyone with a large platform call him out? Will any host on The Young Turks be allowed to talk about it? Will anyone except me ever demand answers?
This behavior should be called out. It’s rotten. It’s rotten. The progressive community should normalize calling out union-busters. It should normalize standing up for workers against bad bosses. It should matter to The Left.
Does it mean anything that Cenk didn’t give a shit if I lived or died?
Does it matter that Cenk employs barbaric hiring practices?
Does it matter he still has money someone earned?
Does it matter that he has two sets of principles?
Does that matter?
Why was my life not worth protecting?
What mattered? What? What?
The Strength Of A Coward
I could have done without all this. I didn’t need the stress. Cenk did.
They don’t teach the following at the Wharton School of Geniuses: Sometimes people are fighting quiet battles in their loud brains and sometimes they give all their energy to doing a good job at their job leaving little for themselves because sometimes losing a job could mean losing one’s life. Precariousness means risk and not everyone experiences it the same.
My stress was a benefit to Cenk. It was useful. Renting my editing ability was only part of the transaction. My poverty gave him leverage. My weakness made him strong.
Being an individual meant I had no leverage as a negotiator. Fair treatment wouldn’t have changed that much but engineering my position for further deprivation gave the already-advantaged employer an extra dose of sweet, sweet control and power.
My personal terror about not working is the precise feeling the system is designed to elicit and exploit. My desperation an asset to be mined. Because I was a mere individual with only the option of quitting and returning to no-income hell, I was left with only dangerous options and no ability to demand better. No leverage. The famous millionaire capitalist with lawyers, assistants, public relations specialists, a media company to command, a treehouse of executive dipshits, an audience that trusts what he says and centuries-old society-wide boss-friendly governmental and cultural infrastructure who uses shady employment practices and classification trickery to further strengthen himself, had all of it.
Everything boils down to leverage — or rather: how much bullshit-ass bullshit does a person have to put up with?
This is what underpins the false scarcity regime our masters use to corporate rule: the more they can gatekeep human needs and basics, the more they’re able to regulate working class leverage, the more they’re able to dictate terms. It’s a throttle. When they push it towards stress, their leverage goes up. It’s easy to be strong when you control the other person’s weakness.
Strength can come from trust and community, from rest and respect, from shared conviction in a cause. Healthy, respected workers perform better and make bosses more money. That’s not the sort Cenk traffics in.
His is a bully’s strength.
He knew I was just one guy. He knew I had to put up with whatever he could throw at me. He knew he could replace me. He knew I had no leverage. He knew I was weak.
My weakness WAS his strength.
Strength by fear and violence is the root code of capitalism.
Strength by the leverage throttle keeping people scared.
Strength by keeping others weak.
Strength by mining desperation.
Strength by barbarism.
Fuck you. Get to work.
It’s a coward’s strength. The capitalist’s strength. Cenk Uygur’s strength.
Not that Cenk had it out for me, Hank, the guy, the guy Hank. My guess is he wishes he knew that I’m not someone who takes being ripped off like most would. This was on tap for anyone, I’m certain of that. In the sense abusers prefer — !!!I woulda done it to anybody; it wasn’t personal!!! — it wasn’t personal but in every other sense it was incredibly personal. I’m a person. It was beyond disrespectful. It was demeaning. I felt embarrassed every single day.
The project of our overlords is to sustain a depth of discomfort that coerces people to work without asking for too much and to put up with the shitty things shitty bosses do. This is why the only government expenditure capitalists are eager to pay and overpay for is violence and its threat. Wherever wealth concentrates, so must the violence required to sustain it. They always got cop and cage money. They always got bomb money. Our masters are all enormous cowards, just as you’d expect in a system designed by and for cowards, a system in which a deciding class is further privileged when it decides the terms of consent the non-deciding class must live with. Leverage.
The consent throttle is how they regulate the supply of souls to burn in their engine.
And it belongs to them. It’s theirs. Dictating the terms of consent is a one-way deal. Ruling class rules. Obeying class obeys. They have agency and you obey. That’s the system. Workers attempting to influence the leverage parameters… Are you kidding!? That’s CoMmuniSbumb! the cowards always say.
It’s democracy — how humans negotiate consent. By the sheer social physics that a group of humans has more strength than an individual, that human power scales by cooperation, by converting solidarity into action we were able to gain leverage. We stepped out of our place. We grabbed the throttle. We withdrew consent.
Capitalists HATE consent parity. They hate democracy. They love the collective for its power but only in a relationship of submission.
How dare we exercise agency over our lives in a way that wasn’t approved?
How DARE we challenge his claim to our individuality?
HOW DARE we show solidarity to each other?
HOW DARE WE weaken him?
This, especially to huge cowards, is experienced as loss. It’s threatening. What strength does a coward have if not another person’s weakness?
As is tradition, when a coward feels cornered, they retreat to what works: lies and pain. Control. They lash out, they assert dominance. They throw papers. They hire union-busting law firms. They withhold raises and bonuses. They threaten. They fire. They hide behind false narratives. They whine about their reputation.
They intentionally inflict material and psychological damage on their workers to re-subjugate them. They intimidate. They impose FEAR. WORRY. STRESS.
They union-bust.
We can call it ‘leverage-busting’ as much as union-busting.
Solidarity-busting, consent-busting, fairness-busting, dignity-busting.
A union is an outbreak of democracy. It’s a way for humans to claim agency, to use collective strength to demand less stress, to tell a shitty boss to treat everyone fairly, to put up with less bullshit-ass bullshit and there’s nothing more threatening to profit-crazed labor exploiters than a group of humans with the power to demand dignity.
For Me It Was More Than The Disrespect
I wasn’t even looking for respect beyond the basic notion that I be treated equally by my employer. Let’s be clear.
After working for Cenk Uygur and knowing many who have, I have zero interest in the kind of respect a person of his character might offer.
He can shove it up his ass.
I wanted to not die.
Not having health insurance can be life or death, you might have heard.
TYT’s aforementioned #2, Chief Operating Officer Jack Gerard is a subject matter expert on how deadly not having health insurance can be. According to his public LinkedIn, he worked as a health insurance executive for twelve years (Kaiser, Blue Cross Blue Shield) before bringing his corporate operations expertise to The Home of Progressives. Cenk should interview him about all the lives he devastated and how much profit he made doing so in his former job.
Did the guy who made a living, likely a fortune, using corporate rule to impose industrial-scale denial of health insurance and healthcare to generate profit and lower worker leverage have anything to do with TYT’s use of using corporate rule to deny health insurance, which generates money and lowers worker leverage? Could the two be related?
Any good management tips the Angel of Profit could offer the Progressive movement?
It was disheartening to work at a company billing itself the 'Home of Progressives' helmed by a famous talk show host who's screamed into a camera for two decades about universal healthcare and the harm of not having it and have that guy and his professional healthcare-denier lackey go out of their way to employ you in a way so the company’s off the hook for your healthcare, benefits and employment taxes. Trippy, right?
These fools kept my Labor Day money! Labor Day!
The mental health issues I keep mentioning would one day bloom into the singular most important moment of my life in Spring of 2022 when I learned what autism was. The moment stuns me still and I cry just typing about it. An article I’d tapped out of sleepy curiosity described my entire constellation of traits and struggles at every stage of my existence with more clarity and precision than anything I’d ever encountered or hoped to encounter. Lightning would have shocked me less. My world changed. It was as if my whole life I was lost at sea beneath a sky that was only ever clouds and suddenly, on a dark night, they parted and revealed a universe I didn’t know existed. After months of research and investigation I was beyond any doubt autistic and I’m even more confident two years later. ADHD too. While it’s been a wonderful gift and the only light of hope I’ve had in a long time, I’m still in a rough place and struggling to find stability and income. Had I known at a much younger age, I would have still had challenges but I wouldn’t have been so alone, I would have had better ways of protecting myself and I would have been spared decades of harmful self-hate and agonizing inner turmoil. Old narratives linger but I have made progress in re-writing them.
I’m so grateful to finally know. I’m still lost but I’m learning to read the stars.
Industrial Horror Of American Health Insurance
Instead of providing help to those in need, our society uses sickness or injury as an opportunity for a rich person to profit. Your pain is good for their bank account and what better moment than when a person is in extreme stress. What better leverage-maker than the desire to stay alive? What better hostage-maker than the survival instinct? Fuck you. Get to work. Fund a wealthy person and maaaaybe you’ll get the healthcare you need. The vampires get to drink because they have the keys to the hospital. How else could a health insurance executive earn a big bonus, right? Vacations are expensive! Have you seen how much boats cost!?
America’s health insurance system grinds humans into paste and spreads it in the form of profit to stockholders and executives of corporations. Lives end early, drained of their very last dollar, dried to a husk. Medical debt is a leading cause of bankruptcy. Even those who receive sufficient care don’t escape the strain of navigating the byzantine policies and procedures, the phone calls, the mail, the websites, the funerals — chores in the catacombs. Don’t forget to blame yourself if it drags you down. It’s an immeasurable cost of time, energy and stress. That’s on purpose. Systems humans invent are not fixed. They’re not natural. They’re not laws of nature. They are designed by immoral profiteers to achieve a purpose (profit and leverage) and are run by people determined to maximize that purpose, people hired for their immorality. Could you do your job if it killed people? Could you do it if it required killing people? The scale of harm health insurance executives impose on the societies they terrorize is so horrific it outpaces barbarity into outright depravity.
On February 21, 2020, while aggressively busting a union his workers formed in part to attain health insurance for one of its members, Cenk Uygur cited the horrifying truth about how many lives America abandons:
“As a new study just showed, we can save 68,000 lives a year if we do Medicare for all. Nothing else is universal healthcare. That’s a giant difference. We’ve got to get the money out of politics and we’ve got to get Medicare for all. Cenk2020.com”
-Congressional candidate & union-buster (CA-25) Cenk Uygur on Feb 21, 2020
~
The amount of literal-COSMIC DOOM-power such a job holds is hidden by the illusion of corporate professionalism, itself a façade for the violent ideology it’s designed to obscure. Decisions by boring people in boring meetings directly destroy lives and immiserate millions.
Just because they tuck their shirts in and perform Big Smart Adult for each other in their corporate lairs doesn’t mean they aren’t striding a global infrastructure of planet-scale violence. “If you don’t have good healthcare, you die,” said Jack’s boss Cenk Uygur.
The purpose of such barbarity is control and the Young Turks use of it is no different.
Cenk is a proud defender of the ideology with this monstrosity at its heart. It’s made him rich. It’s granted him status. The fruit of the time, talent and labor of others is his to accumulate and enjoy. He may advocate for a version of it with more social services than Americans are accustomed to (a premise I’m allowing despite my lived experience); that’s a preferable world than the kind of capitalism worshipped by Cenk’s classmates from The Wharton School of Geniuses, which counts Elon Musk and Donald Trump among its export of bigwig exploiters. But in his business operations, Cenk has no compunction about benefiting from the leverage advantage his class allows him, from resourcing humans from the labor market and its aggressive downward pressures to his reliance on an experienced corporate operator to operate his corporation. May TYT’s Jack the Leverage-Maker be of the last cohort of health insurance executives to blight the planet. Unlikely. It’s too banal to shame. Hey, as long as you hurt people with meetings, policies and PDFs, you’re in good standing. Here’s a card for sushi. Hope you enjoy Paris!
NO HUMAN should be allowed to wield such power, such influence over the lives of others, let alone those of Jack’s character. It’s too dangerous. For safety, his type (the type willing to do it) should be relegated to selling widgets and imposing goal worksheets, not cultivating human tragedies for harvest. Capitalism and the societies designed by capitalists allow dangerous people to hurt people because hurting people is how you milk them for profits and obedience. For leverage.
What a wild job; imagine if your neighbor killed people for fun. That’d be upsetting. It would make the news. Health insurance execs do it for profit and at far larger scales than serial killers. They do it for shareholder value. Big paychecks. Nice cars. Luxurious retirements. Status. Loot. It’s business, not mass murder — bureaucracy, not a literal hostage situation.
They do it so bosses can make someone sign an agreement forbidding them from benefits.
The job shouldn’t exist. It’s too powerful. Tolerating such depravity is shameful. Shame on us all for allowing this horror.
My One And Only Option
None of this was a choice. It was a response. I didn’t start this fight.
I shouldn’t have to crack open my containment vault of mental challenges and struggles to justify why I was so intent on getting healthcare. Or point to the dot on my nose, slow-growing thankfully, that I still wear which I’m confident is some kind of cancer, considering my dad and his brother have both had similar blotches chopped out of their faces. I shouldn’t have to explain that I hoped to find therapy for the depression and anxiety careening through my being and whatever the fuck else is going on with my big annoying amazing exhausting crazy-ass brain?
Even though I didn’t get into the union, the act of organizing one, from the first thought to the stages of follow-through gave me a sense of agency that I used to keep the despair at bay. As the months ticked on, I found solace bordering on hope that I wasn’t simply rolling over and taking it as I did in seventh grade when I was bullied after switching schools, a little autistic kid in a loud lunchroom so ashamed of being on assisted lunch he stopped eating and simply endured the teasing, no friends, no adults to turn to.
Not again.
Cenk had every advantage but I had nowhere safe to go.
I had one option: stand up to the bully.
Today I can label what I feel a kind of pride, if I’m allowed — this whole thing is a circus of emotions — but at the time it was an act of self-preservation and self-care. Just because my boss had abandoned me didn’t mean I had to abandon me.
Through an act of agency, and that of my friends, we were all able to shed the weakness of our individuation. As our unit formed, I felt solidarity take root. Looking out for each other, the oldest of human behaviors, was both new and familiar. Instinctive. Its presence welcome like an old friend, like the shade of a tree, an ancient love awakening. It’s only something you can experience for yourself, and I recommend you do. Organize your workplace.
I’m eager to reach the other side of this project. I’m not doing well. I need to get help with my wrists, the cartilage wrecked from vibrating tools at a woodworking job I got in 2021. I can’t use my hands without first calculating pain. I struggle with day-to-day energy and my noise and light sensitivities have never been worse, a characteristic of autistic burnout. And now I’ve got This Whole Project, making me even more unemployable than I already was. Try to imagine a bigger red flag to a future employer than a resume with a documentary titled, “Tell The Truth, Former Employer.” I will be punished; the hierarchy commands it.
I would love to contribute to the labor movement somehow. My talents are as abundant as the tigers in my head. I need to find community. I once had big ambitions but these days I’m just hoping to turn things around enough that my beard might grow back. I miss it. I had a good one.
The job was a lifeline, a rope behind a moving boat, but I needed the boat to stop and throw a rescue float, something I could collapse upon.
I wanted to stop feeling like I was drowning.
Please; it’s scary living like this.
I kept wondering why the boat won’t stop and help.
Please stop. Please; I’m so tired.
But I knew it wasn’t going to. I knew who drove it. I knew Cenk.
Please help. I might not make it.
I held on to the rope. I feared what would happen if I didn’t.
Why won’t Cenk Uygur stop the boat?
~Because he doesn’t care
Why won’t Cenk Uygur help me?
~~Because you have to matter
Why don’t I matter?
~~~Because he’s weak if you do
To Cenk, I was trash. It didn’t matter if I died. I was a resource to be consumed.
I felt demeaned. I felt humiliated. I felt stolen from.
Fuck you. Get to work.
That’s what I got from Cenk.
In exchange for THAT, he got my best.
And a union.
Cenk Uygur Lied — He Lied To Everyone
The narrative that the union at The Young Turks originated as a ploy by Nancy Pelosi has yet to be corrected.
Cenk Uygur remains okay with his audience believing a lie.
It is a lie in service of a hidden truth: the truth of who Cenk Uygur really is, the kind of boss he really is, the kind of man he really is.
He lied to Ana Kasparian, whose imprimatur validated the provably false narrative, affirming it on the altar of her credibility, compromising her journalistic ethics — according to my sources, there was no fact-checking — and converting her loyalty into complicity. She wasn’t wrong to trust Cenk, to be fair. Her job would be impossible if she didn’t.
He used her trust to smear his own workers.
He weaponized his prominence in the online left’s media ecosystem to deceive and confuse progressive commentators such as Kyle Kulinski, Sam Seder, David Doel, Mike Figueredo, Jeff Waldorf, Sahil Habibi and others who supported his campaign but shied away from coverage once the union-busting became public, all of whom with audiences who still haven’t heard the truth. Darkness favors the powerful.
He used their trust to smear his own workers.
Above it all, Cenk Uygur lied to his audience, to those whose wallets fill the coffers supplying his millionaire lifestyle and whose attention grants him status and influence, the very people who turn to him and his network for the promise of honesty and integrity. He lied to them.
He used the trust of his audience to smear his own workers.
That’s the kind of man Cenk Uygur is.
The façade held. The mirage holds. The lie lives.
Until Cenk Ugyur retracts and apologizes, I will call him out for it.
Are you a shitty boss?
Tell the truth, Cenk.
end.
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