By Emmet O’Connor
When the Costco Teamsters union in Tacoma, Washington recently authorized a strike against the mega mart, a peppy young boy and his hulking father came out to show their support for the union members. We tried to get an interview when they landed at the airport, but the deafening sound of the whole of SeaTac giving the Costco Guys five big booms drowned out any chance of speaking with the illustrious father-son duo.
We were able to catch them on the freeway, heading to Tacoma to greet the Teamsters, and conducted an impromptu car-to-car interview at 60 miles per hour with AJ and Big Justice. “We just think those corporate cronies need to lighten up!” Big Justice shouted as he leaned out of the car window. “Yeah! Those guys need to have A DOUBLE CHUNK CHOCOLATE COOKIE!” his father tacked on. That last part they said, eerily, in complete unison. Then they sped past us, leaving a fading trail of BOOMS in their wake.
When we finally caught up with them at the Tacoma Costco we were greeted by “BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOOOOM” as AJ and Big Justice were lifted above the heads of the workers. We were able to talk to one of the workers about how he felt about the Costco Guys. “I love them! I used to think they were corporate shills, but it turns out they’re bringing the BOOM to the bosses,” he said. We then tried to weasel our way to the front for a better view, at which point we sustained several injuries from swinging elbows as the crowd boomed.
Big Justice hyped up the crowd alongside his father and yelled, clipping the mic, “We give shareholders a big DOOM!!” The audience echoed him, raising their fists and signs in the air. AJ followed his son, and proclaimed that “we also are gonna give unfair wages a big DOOM!” Again the audience roared.
Next up on the bill was for them to perform their hit song “We Bring the Boom!” As they traded off verses, we talked to a worker who was not as enthralled with the Costco Guys as most of the other members of the crowd. “I just don’t really get it. Why is the little one called Big Justice? But I guess if they support the workers it doesn’t really matter to me.”
After the rally, we finally met up with the Costco Guys at their hotel and interviewed them about labor politics. “We’re Italians! Of course we love radical labor politics!” Big Justice went on to name a list of Italian Marxists and explained how the working class are the basis for any party structure. While his son discussed deep Marxist theory, his father struck poses and smiled but, notably, didn’t blink. After leaving their hotel room, all we could hear down the hall was that they were practicing their “BOOMS!”