Dan Osborn highlights the lack of working-class representation, stating, “Less than 2% of our elected officials in the House and Senate came from the working class… I’m going to have a worker agenda.” Connie Ryan echoes the need for change, emphasizing that “reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, and public schools are on the ballot,” calling for people to harness “the magical power of voting” to stand up for justice.
Dan Osborn is a U.S. Navy veteran, industrial mechanic, former labor union leader, and independent candidate in the 2024 Nebraska Senate election.
Hear the full November 2, 2024 episode here.
TRANSCRIPT:
REV. PAUL BRANDEIS RAUSHENBUSH, HOST:
I wanted to start with a story. I preached at a church, Countryside Church. It’s part of the Tri-faith Initiative, and had a really excellent time. Really gracious congregation. And as I do, I stood at the back and met people and met people and met people; and then this really lovely woman comes up to me and says, This is my brother, and he’s running for office.
And I was like, okay, every city needs a dogcatcher. That’s great. Like, everybody should run for office. And then she says, his name is Dan. And I’m like, Dan. What’s your last name? And it was Dan Osborn.
And I just want to say, Dan, welcome to The State of Belief! It’s really great to be able to talk to you. I know you’re very busy right now, so I’m not going to take up too much of your time. But I want to start by just noting that I’ve never really even heard of a politician who goes to a house of worship and doesn’t kind of make themselves a center of the show; and you just coming up afterwards and us having a talk, I just thought it was really indicative of the way you want to show up in politics. So thank you for that. And also, just, welcome. And tell me a little bit about your background and where you’re from, and how you got to this point.
DAN OSBORN, GUEST:
Yeah. I’ll try to keep it fairly brief. I suppose it started when I joined the Navy right out of high school. I come from a long line of Navy people. My grandfather, he retired from the Navy. My parents, they met while they were in the Navy. My uncles were all in the Navy – and then my older brother, he joined the Marine Corps. So we don’t talk to him anymore.
I did two Western Pacific cruises aboard the USS Constellation aircraft carrier. So I got to see the world as a young man. I feel like traveling can be a great educator. It certainly was for me. And the military instills a discipline in you, you know, from the time that first metal trash can comes barreling down to the berthing area, at three in the morning on your first day of boot camp, and you question what the heck you just signed up for.
But I came back to Omaha, where I’m from. I started attending University of Nebraska at Omaha. I then joined the Nebraska Army National Guard to continue my service. I always felt compelled to serve. I was a 19 kilo on m1A1 Abrams tank crew during that time, and I did those, both of those, for about three and a half years. And my life changed when my wife Megan had my first daughter, Georgia, who’s now a classically trained professional dancer in Hollywood. So, proud dad moment there.
But I knew when she was born I had to go get a job. You know, it’s easy taking care of yourself. So I got a job working at Kellogg’s as an industrial mechanic. One of the first days on the job, an old Polish guy by the name of Ron Jabowski came up to me. He looked like Tom Selleck from Magnum PI, and he said, Hey, kid, have you joined the union yet? And I said, No, sir, I’ve not. He’s like, Well, you might want to think about going and doing that. I’m like, well all right, Tom Selleck’s telling me to join the union. I better go do that. So I signed up. I paid my dues. I kept my head down for a lot of years just providing for my family. Kellogg’s was a very family-friendly-oriented company at one time.
W.K. Kellogg, the founder, always said his number one asset and resources is people. But over the years, the board became more beholden to the stockholders, and we started to lose on some contracts. Old guys like Ron started to retire, so I decided to run for executive board of my Local. I got elected as vice president. About three months later, the president stepped down. It was a complete changing of the guard, because you get yelled at a lot in that role by both your members and management alike. But I knew the role was important, so I took it.
I did that for about a year, and then Covid hit. This is really where the origin in politics… I’ve never really been a political person, paid much attention. I was always working too much. But sometimes they say, you don’t pay attention to politics, but politics is certainly paying attention to you. And that certainly holds true.
But, during Covid, we were working seven days a week, 12 hours a day as we were deemed “essential workers.” At one point in time, 50% of our workforce around the country was force quarantined and/or sick. But we kept we kept all four US plants running at 100% capacity, and they made record profits. They went from 19 billion to $21 billion. The CEO gave himself a $2 million raise. The board enriched themselves, the stockholders enriched themselves.
And then our contract expired. We figured it’d be a no-brainer. We’d get a little sliver of the pie; but instead they sat across the negotiating table from us and they said, we’re going to take your health insurance, your cost of living wage adjustment – which keeps us even with inflation. And then, we’re going to implement a two-tier wage system with no path for the lower tier to go to the upper tier.
So for me, as president, that was an oh-crap moment for me. I had to figure out what it meant. There hadn’t been a strike in Nebraska since 1972, so I had to learn how to picket. Why to picket. Where… Figuring out everything that goes into it.
So when October 5th midnight rolled around, we couldn’t come to an agreement. So we shut down four US plants and we walked off the job. Certainly one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. Take 500 of my friends and their families out into the great unknown, not knowing if we’re going to have a job at the end of it. But we all felt we were on the right side of history, and we knew Democrats were going to come out and support on the picket line, politically. It’s traditionally what they do is support organized labor.
But that’s not the way I see my world. I’ve been a registered independent from the time I could vote, and I don’t see men or women or Black or White or Republican or Democrat on a picket line. I just saw people that wanted to go to work for a fair wage and decent benefits for the time that they trade in service of the company, so I set out to make it a nonpartisan issue.
I was able to get a Republican congressman, US Congressman John Bacon out to the picket line, to shake hands with my members in favor of what we were doing. I saw Governor Pete Ricketts, now US Senator Pete Ricketts, at an event I was at. I cornered him, and I told him who I was and what was going on in his state. He agreed to meet me at the Capitol. So I drove out to Lincoln a couple days later and met with him and his team, and then he ended up drafting a letter to CEO Steve Cahillane imploring him to get our people back to work.
But we settled on a contract after 77 days, just before Christmas, and I remember walking back to my plant with my members, just feeling a huge sense of pride in what we were able to accomplish. 500 jobs in Nebraska and 1500 around the country. And that’s why I’m doing this today. I want to continue to be a voice for working class people across our state, and certainly the country, because I don’t think there’s anybody like me in the United States Senate.
It’s a country club of millionaires that work for billionaires. They all have a corporate agenda. I’m going to have a worker agenda. Robin Williams, the late comedian, said it best when he said, our politicians should be wearing NASCAR jacket patches with their sponsors, so we know how they’re going to vote.
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
I never heard that. That’s great. I just think your story, you know, obviously it’s really, really compelling. And it’s resonating in Nebraska.
I’m curious – you were in church that day – how religion, in your mind, fits in with democracy, and some of the ways that personally, but also in the way it has implications for policy. What are some of the ways you think about that, as you represent working class people?
DAN OSBORN:
So my background on religion probably isn’t unique. I was born and raised Catholic. I went to Catholic schools. When I got into the Navy, I stopped going to church. And then certainly, when I got out of the Navy and came back and was working at Kellogg’s, the last year I worked at Kellogg’s, I did 33 double Sunday shifts. Sundays was a double time day.
You know, I’ve always felt something. But as far as, in the organized part of religion, just, really, I didn’t have time to fit that into my life, working 70 hours a week. But you know, it is a community, and it’s a community full of people that have numbers, and numbers equate to votes and can sway elections. So yeah, it is important. And again, even if you don’t like politics, politics is going to like you.
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
Yeah, yeah. And I, that day, one of the things we were really talking about is that there’s no one religious group that gets to be the religious group. There’s lots of religious groups in Nebraska. And it’s very interesting to hear how they are viewing things. And I really appreciate how open you are, and really in a state of really trying to figure out how to represent the people. I think it’s really great.
And I got a chance, we had a rally yesterday in Omaha before we took off, and I’m in Des Moines now. But, you know, people just really appreciate your forthright way and I just think that you’re a breath of fresh air. I really appreciate you. And I’m really glad to have met you. And I know this is incredibly hard time, so I do hope you have people supporting you all around you. And there’s just a lot of folks who are thinking you represent something that politics could be, and that there is a history of people going to Washington to represent working people. And we’re not right there now, but maybe you’ll bring back that. So, I’m just really glad to talk to you.
DAN OSBORN:
Yeah, less than 2% of our elected officials in the House and Senate came from the working class, if that gives you an idea. So, yeah, I hope this is the beginning of something bigger, because if Nebraska elects an independent mechanic to the halls of power, it’s going to tell people all over the country – nurses, teachers, bus drivers, carpenters, plumbers – that they can do it too; that you don’t have to be a self-funding crypto billionaire to run for office and represent their people the way they should be represented.
PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:
I have been talking to Dan Osborn, independent candidate for the US Senate in this great state of Nebraska. Really a pleasure to meet you. And thank you so much for taking a few minutes today to talk with The State of Belief.
DAN OSBORN:
Sure. Thank you. Appreciate you
