Speaker 1: All Zone Media.
Speaker 2: It could happen here.
Speaker 3: It's the podcast where things happen and you do something
Speaker 3: about it. I'm your host, Via Wong, and we have
Speaker 3: done you know, okay, over the course of this, we
Speaker 3: have done so many union episodes that I lost count
Speaker 3: a year ago, two years ago, I don't even know.
Speaker 3: I lost count at the dawn of time of how
Speaker 3: many of these we've done. But something I think some
Speaker 3: of you probably know this, but a lot of you don't,
Speaker 3: is that many unions have their own unions for the
Speaker 3: people who to do staff work and to do sort
Speaker 3: of a number of other things, and sometimes unions bust
Speaker 3: their own unions and this unbelievably sucks. And to talk
Speaker 3: about an instance of this happening that is happening right now,
Speaker 3: I am talking with Alex Chan, who is an organizer
Speaker 3: for the UAW, who is I don't know what.
Speaker 2: Technical term is.
Speaker 3: I'm going to describe it non legally bindingly as being
Speaker 3: purged for doing organizing.
Speaker 2: But yeah, Alex, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Hi, it's nice to be here. I think being purged
Speaker 1: is a great way to describe it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the tentative title for this is the UAW Staff purge.
Speaker 3: So it's not great. So why don't we start off.
Speaker 3: I've given a very very brief sort of description of
Speaker 3: what a staff union is, but can you talk a
Speaker 3: bit more broadly about what a staff union is, what
Speaker 3: it does, and why you all are sort of trying
Speaker 3: to organize one.
Speaker 1: Of course, So in terms of staff unions, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: definitely an interesting phenomenon for people who are less familiar
Speaker 1: with the labor movement. But when unions have a lot
Speaker 1: of staff, sometimes those staff also need a union to
Speaker 1: make sure that they are treated fairly in the workplace. Coincidentally,
Speaker 1: this year there have been a lot of incidents that
Speaker 1: have shown why staff unions are happening in the first place.
Speaker 1: And so with my union, we are called UAW Staff United.
Speaker 1: We are part of Region nine A of the us
Speaker 1: UAW is split into a lot of geographic regions, and
Speaker 1: nine A covers New York and New England, including Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut,
Speaker 1: New Hampshire, Vermont, not New York State. New York State
Speaker 1: is covered by Region nine. So we are a bunch
Speaker 1: of temporary organizers and local staff that are organizing for
Speaker 1: a lot of things, among them wages, workload, job security, healthcare,
Speaker 1: and so on so forth, very normal things that you
Speaker 1: would actually see in a lot of the contracts that
Speaker 1: we helped fight for in the shops that we work
Speaker 1: for and organize and the units that we help support.
Speaker 1: So uaw Staff United otherwise known as Yuzoo like the fruit.
Speaker 2: Oh that's fun, No, it's cute, right.
Speaker 1: We really love the USU imagery a lot. We were
Speaker 1: formed in twenty twenty three, first went public in the spring.
Speaker 1: I joined the unit in the summer, but I was
Speaker 1: just kind of peripherally around and organizing with a lot
Speaker 1: of these folks before they went public in the spring.
Speaker 1: God recognized slowly and then slowly came to the bargaining
Speaker 1: table in August. And so at this point we have
Speaker 1: been at the bargaining table for over a year and
Speaker 1: we still do not have a contract. Normally, in most
Speaker 1: shops that you would see organizing, that would be cause
Speaker 1: for escalation, and so that is actually part of what
Speaker 1: we are doing here. After hitting one full year bargaining,
Speaker 1: we are still very stuck on items such as wages,
Speaker 1: job security, yep, all the very normal things that we
Speaker 1: can see in units that we help support and bargain
Speaker 1: for and so the situation that we're facing is slightly
Speaker 1: more complicated because of many other internal things that For example,
Speaker 1: UAW has another staff union. It is called Staff Council,
Speaker 1: and that covers more regions of UAW rather than nine A.
Speaker 1: It also includes people who are our direct supervisors. On paper,
Speaker 1: those people are called lead organizers and they do make
Speaker 1: low six figures. Yeah, and yes they are our direct supervisors.
Speaker 1: So they are a managerial union, and they are what
Speaker 1: some people may call a business union, you know, works
Speaker 1: closely with management to secure a good deal, that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. It's never really been known to agitate in
Speaker 1: a contract, and that is partially one reason why Yuzu
Speaker 1: was formed, because we knew that some agitation needed to
Speaker 1: happen in order to secure actually good treatment for people
Speaker 1: in our position. Our position meaning temp and local staff.
Speaker 1: Now I keep saying temp staff, right, is that the
Speaker 1: next question?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I am so good.
Speaker 1: I'm one step ahead.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I want to talk about both a the way your
Speaker 3: contracts work and be what the thing you're actually doing is,
Speaker 3: because I'm not sure, I'm not sure people are one
Speaker 3: familiar with what specifically you do and what a what
Speaker 3: a sort of like staff union organizer does, and the
Speaker 3: difference between you and the.
Speaker 2: People that are sort of the organizer layer above you is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, So that has to go a little bit
Speaker 1: into how we are hired, and that's why I kept
Speaker 1: seeing temp staff and local staff. Our unit is formed
Speaker 1: somewhat on our pay structure, and so temp organizers are
Speaker 1: hired by the international or the region, and local staff
Speaker 1: are hired by the locals, which is kind of a
Speaker 1: sub unit of the regions and how different unions are organized.
Speaker 1: There could be multiple units in one local, a local
Speaker 1: may hire a staffer, but that staffer could be subsidized
Speaker 1: by the international, and that is kind of what our
Speaker 1: unitformation is like, where funding comes from the international, and
Speaker 1: this layer of people does the most in new organizing,
Speaker 1: so supporting new shops that form new campaigns, that are
Speaker 1: organizing new unions that are just forming and need to
Speaker 1: secure an election or a first contract. Some of our
Speaker 1: colleagues go a little bit further into the stage because
Speaker 1: of their local staff status where they're supporting contract renewals
Speaker 1: or bargaining around the second stage. But a lot of
Speaker 1: these has to do with on the ground, worker to worker,
Speaker 1: peer to peer organizing, supporting them and many different ways,
Speaker 1: including data work, including just resources. Like when you think
Speaker 1: of how the parent union might be supporting a new shop,
Speaker 1: we are kind of the resources that are supporting the
Speaker 1: new shop that can help direct institutional knowledge, that can
Speaker 1: help direct logistical or legal information like how or what
Speaker 1: is necessary for an election or a petition, that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. And yeah, it's a lot of different tasks,
Speaker 1: and that's why for a lot of us, our job
Speaker 1: description is I'm doing air quotes here a flexible forty.
Speaker 2: Hour work week, Jess Christ.
Speaker 1: And of course that usually means a lot more than
Speaker 1: that when campaigns ramp up, and so you know, there
Speaker 1: are a lot of different models on how to combat that.
Speaker 1: But I'll get into that a bit later. So going
Speaker 1: back to the difference between us and perhaps our direct supervisors,
Speaker 1: our direct supervisors may be tasked with monitoring the status
Speaker 1: of a lot of different campaigns at the same time,
Speaker 1: and we might be assigned to one or two or
Speaker 1: three at a time to work very very directly with
Speaker 1: the organizers and the new workers. Of course, this looks
Speaker 1: slightly different across different locals. Our different campaigns can be
Speaker 1: adjusted depending on the shop's needs, but our supervisors who
Speaker 1: are the leads will be handling a lot of different
Speaker 1: campaigns at the same time, and just like kind of
Speaker 1: overseeing that progress and giving the okay for the next
Speaker 1: stage or or whats whatsoever. So I wanted to go
Speaker 1: back a little bit to why we are called temp organizers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is nuts. Well, I was so angry when
Speaker 2: I forgat about this.
Speaker 1: So do you know what a temp organizer is?
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is actually weird. So I have friends who
Speaker 3: are staff organizers for other unions that it doesn't work
Speaker 3: like this. So yeah, I'm going to let you explain it,
Speaker 3: because I.
Speaker 1: Mean, do let me know about those in another Yeah,
Speaker 1: but for temp organizers in UAW, this is a holdover
Speaker 1: from the kind of older model of organizing, where theoretically
Speaker 1: a worker might come off the shop floor for six
Speaker 1: months nine months to do union work and then go
Speaker 1: back to the shop floor when that concludes, so that
Speaker 1: the job would remain open for them. So temporary, like
Speaker 1: the nature is temporary. Someone is coming off to do
Speaker 1: union work and then you know, sometimes it's even part time, right,
Speaker 1: sometimes it's even part time, and the worker never stops
Speaker 1: working at their original job. But nowadays the model doesn't
Speaker 1: look like that anymore, right because, especially in say higher
Speaker 1: ed shops, people graduate out of their graduate union jobs.
Speaker 1: People may not have their reappointment if they are an
Speaker 1: adjunct or contract faculty. And then a lot of our
Speaker 1: unit members u zoom, meaning a lot of our uzoom
Speaker 1: members come out of a shop that is UAW whether
Speaker 1: that means they're legal services or museum workers or higher ed,
Speaker 1: but it is less common nowadays to have a job
Speaker 1: to return to. However, the model remains the same in
Speaker 1: that the temper organizer job has three month renewals and
Speaker 1: a three year cap. Every three months our contract is renewed,
Speaker 1: and if we hit three years on this job, we
Speaker 1: are no longer hired. Theoretically, you be hired to another
Speaker 1: job internally, but there's no pipeline, there is no internal
Speaker 1: movement that way. You would have to apply to the
Speaker 1: job like a regular other job that is a more
Speaker 1: full term job, or you just kind of like quote
Speaker 1: unquote like age out the system and you're just no
Speaker 1: longer an organizer. You no longer have a job. And
Speaker 1: so this has manifested in a lot of different ways.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of my colleagues that have gotten
Speaker 1: tired or burnt out and have decided to leave before
Speaker 1: their three years or leave at their three years of
Speaker 1: their own will. There are folks that have left way
Speaker 1: earlier than their three years as well to pursue other opportunities.
Speaker 1: Yuzu at any given time has about forty to fifty
Speaker 1: members and that is our nine a unit. Again, one
Speaker 1: thing that we have come to find out is that
Speaker 1: in the last five years of this temp organizer model,
Speaker 1: only three people who have hit their three year cap
Speaker 1: have managed to attain full term jobs in the UAW
Speaker 1: afterward Geese. And then there is me, who, again within
Speaker 1: the last five years, is the only person to have
Speaker 1: been not renewed before their three year term, very unceremoniously
Speaker 1: as well as in the middle of very active campaigns.
Speaker 1: That brings us to another piece of context, and the
Speaker 1: reason why I keep saying five years is because in
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen there was a first iteration of the Yuzoo.
Speaker 1: There was a first attempt to forming this staff union
Speaker 1: of temp and local staff. Of course it was created
Speaker 1: by different people. But what happened then, especially under the
Speaker 1: Administrative Caucus when it was before the reform leadership septed
Speaker 1: in is that everyone was just fired Jesus. Yeah, everyone
Speaker 1: was just let go. And there are people still around
Speaker 1: organizing these days in other positions or in other workplaces
Speaker 1: that you have talked to us about it. And there
Speaker 1: are people that are working in user now that had
Speaker 1: friends or were peripheral to that happening. So we are
Speaker 1: all very familiar with how non renewal is a very
Speaker 1: retaliatory practice used in UAW in the past, or we
Speaker 1: thought was in the past, because we were so excited
Speaker 1: to have this reform leadership come in and now we
Speaker 1: are finding out that it is still a tool that
Speaker 1: is consistent. And so when we are excited that there
Speaker 1: is democratic reform, especially with one member, one vote, which
Speaker 1: was extremely extremely exciting to see, we also need to
Speaker 1: point out that there are a lot of different places
Speaker 1: here that still need to change, especially in how the
Speaker 1: union treats its own staff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and unfortunately we need to go to ads. We'll
Speaker 3: we come back. I want to circle back around and
Speaker 3: talk a bit more about the ways of the UAW
Speaker 3: is acting like a fairly conventional boss trying to break
Speaker 3: a union.
Speaker 2: And we are back.
Speaker 3: So there's something really interesting, I mean I say interesting,
Speaker 3: it's something sort of terrible about the way that the
Speaker 3: UAW is relying on effectively a casualized workforce, because because
Speaker 3: you're dealing with these constant renewals, which are an incredible
Speaker 3: sort of pressure leverage because it means you don't have
Speaker 3: job security. It honestly feels like the way Amazon works,
Speaker 3: where they're just like trying intentionally instead of trying to
Speaker 3: retain people, they're just trying to churn through as many
Speaker 3: organized as possible because like the more seniority people have
Speaker 3: and the more experience they have, the harder it is
Speaker 3: to like just completely underpay them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the keyword in here is flexibility.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it seems like, also on an institutional level,
Speaker 3: a terrible idea because you know, you're training a bunch
Speaker 3: of organizers and then the moment that they're you know,
Speaker 3: the moment they have a bunch of experience, you're just
Speaker 3: casting it into the wind and then hiring the less
Speaker 3: experienced person. It's like, you bring up a great point. Actually,
Speaker 3: something that I want to touch on is end bargaining.
Speaker 3: We have asked for training and we have not been
Speaker 3: met with a satisfactory answer. People are not trained.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: Before they take on this position. But yes, you're absolutely
Speaker 1: correct with the institutional knowledge aspect. The campaigns that I'm
Speaker 1: working on, the organizing committees are real pissed that I
Speaker 1: have been suddenly disappeared. And I want to highlight something
Speaker 1: that one organizer brought up is that for all the
Speaker 1: talk of us being one big union, how we are
Speaker 1: the union, how we have a democratic saying this process,
Speaker 1: it's very weird that someone higher up in the union
Speaker 1: can just make one of our members disappear. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that is in reference to my unceremonious departure, of course.
Speaker 1: And the points that we, as you you really want
Speaker 1: to highlight and emphasize is that we really want to
Speaker 1: just hold UAW to the values that it has espoused,
Speaker 1: ending tiers, job security for workers, fair wages. Like I said,
Speaker 1: in bargaining, we had asked for training, and that has
Speaker 1: not gone very well. UW is refusing to bargain over
Speaker 1: free speech and continuity representation, which refers to the hypothetical
Speaker 1: scenario if Region nine A were to be absorbed somewhere
Speaker 1: else the right for user to still exist, and they've
Speaker 1: refused to bargain over that we are stuck in wages
Speaker 1: at somewhere around three percent per year of four years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not great, and there's been a lot of chaos
Speaker 1: behind the scenes that it is implied to be a
Speaker 1: bad thing to let the members know about the members
Speaker 1: that we work with and organize with. But to a
Speaker 1: certain point things boil over, and especially in the case
Speaker 1: where I am suddenly not renewed, it is really important
Speaker 1: in our view that our members know what is happening. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that the members know what this is about, because they
Speaker 1: get the news landed on them after our social media
Speaker 1: posts come out, because I am told not to inform
Speaker 1: the organizers myself, and so the organizers had to hear
Speaker 1: about it from my supervisors about a week later with
Speaker 1: no details. Mine non renewal was without cause, without justification,
Speaker 1: without reason. They did not give me an answer to
Speaker 1: my face. And then as Yuzu kept pushing higher ups
Speaker 1: kept flip flopping on who to blame and what the
Speaker 1: actual cause was. And what I'm getting is a sense
Speaker 1: of surprise that people are angry about this in the
Speaker 1: first place, as if this was a normal situation, that
Speaker 1: people were just getting fired any other day with a
Speaker 1: month's notice, and they're like, we gave her a month's notice.
Speaker 3: Which also like I feel like, like, what was the last
Speaker 3: a bit of these people were on a shop floor?
Speaker 3: Like do you know how disruptive it Like if someone
Speaker 3: had pulled like so we had when we we were
Speaker 3: organizing our union, we had we've had a number of great, writer,
Speaker 3: skilled staffers, and it's like if someone had just pulled
Speaker 3: our staffer out in the middle of the drive, like
Speaker 3: all of use would have been unbelievably pissed and it
Speaker 3: would have done incredible about it damage to the organizing
Speaker 3: because union organizing, as you are well aware, and I
Speaker 3: think as the audience should be increasingly aware, is built
Speaker 3: on personal relations. You can't just yank someone out and
Speaker 3: then not allow them to even know what's happening. Like,
Speaker 3: that's incredibly disruptive. It pisces people off.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's been very enraging for a lot of our members,
Speaker 1: and so I've been extremely grateful for the support that
Speaker 1: I received, whether it be on social media or by
Speaker 1: our email campaign to management. And what I've seen from
Speaker 1: this is that management was really taken by surprise that
Speaker 1: there was a reaction at all, kind of unfortunately for them.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of shops and a lot of
Speaker 1: units that I have supported and organized with and have
Speaker 1: relationships with, and even for the shops that I don't
Speaker 1: have relationships with, Yuzu members are working in those shops,
Speaker 1: and there is a common understanding that it'd be really
Speaker 1: weird for a stafford to be randomly pulled out during
Speaker 1: a very active campaign. I've had a rough couple months
Speaker 1: of going at it because I think there have been
Speaker 1: some really unhealthy dynamics in the workplace with supervision that
Speaker 1: was unjust and punishment that was unjust for my attempt
Speaker 1: to advocate for different units and attempt to advocate for organizing,
Speaker 1: and I think that is why we have reached the
Speaker 1: conclusion that retaliation retribution must be involved somehow. On paper,
Speaker 1: this was a very oddly handled situation. I was notified
Speaker 1: by email on three thirty PM on a Friday before
Speaker 1: Labor Day weekend.
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: I was not informed by a meeting, not informed by
Speaker 1: a call. My supervisor didn't pick up my calls until
Speaker 1: two and a half hours later.
Speaker 2: Oh my God.
Speaker 1: In the meantime and where they were actually informing my
Speaker 1: co workers that I had been terminated and then came
Speaker 1: back to me saying that they were busy Jesus, which
Speaker 1: no firing happens like that. I'm sorry, but there was
Speaker 1: no conceivable way where the HR email happens. And then
Speaker 1: my supervisor is busy telling my co workers that I've
Speaker 1: been let go, which you know, we are interpreting as
Speaker 1: intimidation because why else would this be happening.
Speaker 3: Yeah, even corporate best layoffs don't work like that, Like
Speaker 3: you at least get a meeting.
Speaker 1: No, I didn't get a meeting until the Tuesday after
Speaker 1: to talk about transitioning my work, and they had no
Speaker 1: plan to transition my work. So currently no one is
Speaker 1: handling the work that I was responsible for, which is they.
Speaker 2: Just screw your units.
Speaker 1: That's quite dangerous for campaign and higher ed as the
Speaker 1: semester ramps up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1: And of course the HR email was signed in solidarity
Speaker 1: and had no name. I didn't want to bring up
Speaker 1: that point. There is evidence. Yes, it's extraordinarily funny if
Speaker 1: you actually look at it. But yeah, just even if
Speaker 1: we didn't have the context of what has happened to
Speaker 1: me in the workplace in the last six months, even
Speaker 1: just on paper, looking at how this non renewal was handled,
Speaker 1: it was handled atrociously. Yeah, and so there is not
Speaker 1: much else we can draw from it other than the
Speaker 1: fact that I was someone they wanted to get rid
Speaker 1: of expeditiously, but just didn't anticipate that people would be
Speaker 1: mad about it, which is, you know, to me a
Speaker 1: sense that people up there handling it are a little
Speaker 1: out of touch, like they haven't experienced what it's like
Speaker 1: to have this happen, to have a staff a randomly
Speaker 1: yanked out during the middle of a really active campaign.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we need to go to ads again, but we will.
Speaker 2: We will be back soon.
Speaker 3: And what our product services, we're about to have unionize
Speaker 3: them and then also ugnize your staff.
Speaker 2: We are back.
Speaker 3: So it's something we've been talking about in terms of
Speaker 3: sort of your specific situation and how it's the terrible
Speaker 3: impact and it's had on both you personally and the
Speaker 3: organizing that's going on. And I wanted to come around
Speaker 3: to talking a bit about the impact that this structure
Speaker 3: and the impact that getting denied benefits and stuff like that,
Speaker 3: the impact that this has in general on the way
Speaker 3: that organizing new shops works.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that the impact this has very concretely
Speaker 1: is that it does not let us do good work.
Speaker 1: It makes us as organizers scared every three months that
Speaker 1: we have to have another plan. It makes us have
Speaker 1: to prepare a plan every time that rolls around, and
Speaker 1: then you know that takes our focus off of the
Speaker 1: organizing that we could be doing. I mentioned earlier about workload.
Speaker 1: Organizers get burnt out extremely easily because there are no
Speaker 1: guardrails in place. And then there are plenty plenty of
Speaker 1: other circumstances that make it very difficult within this workplace too.
Speaker 1: For example, we don't have just cause we don't have
Speaker 1: grievance procedures Jesus Christ. And it makes a very damaging environment,
Speaker 1: especially when you consider that the members have to bargain
Speaker 1: for their own contracts, and then they look at us
Speaker 1: and they're like, wait a minute, why are your contracts
Speaker 1: that bad? Yeah, it doesn't inspire trust. It doesn't inspire
Speaker 1: faith in how this union would organize for its workers
Speaker 1: if the staff are insecure constantly. And we are not
Speaker 1: asking for the moon and the stars in Mars, which
Speaker 1: is unfortunately what the UW lawyer accused us of doing
Speaker 1: so in a bargaining session. We're asking for very simple
Speaker 1: guardrails on job security, on workload, on healthcare that could
Speaker 1: help cover our dependence on wages that are not stagnant.
Speaker 1: You know, they're not even giving us COLA, which is
Speaker 1: the phrase for cost of living adjustment, and christ a
Speaker 1: lot of us live in New York City, and then
Speaker 1: there's folks in Boston and hell, even the transport costs
Speaker 1: have been a bit of a sticking point where we're like,
Speaker 1: can we please just get an MTA card or the equivalent.
Speaker 1: But overall, this structure does not inspire faith in terms
Speaker 1: of how our contracts are actually negotiated and who is
Speaker 1: responsible for these contracts. It is very difficult to hear
Speaker 1: from the UAW lawyer that we are reaching for MARS
Speaker 1: when we are asking for things that are very present
Speaker 1: in our standard contracts that our members receive. You know,
Speaker 1: we have taken language from the contracts that our members
Speaker 1: have and tried to apply them for our own situation,
Speaker 1: and we've been told that they're too extra. And then,
Speaker 1: you know, this has been kind of an odd year
Speaker 1: for union staff. I wanted to highlight that anya earlier
Speaker 1: this year, National Education Association their staff were locked out
Speaker 1: during bargaining eleven ninety nine. SCIU also just formed their
Speaker 1: staff union and during the drive they had one of
Speaker 1: the organizers fired. Thirty two BJSCIU just announced their union
Speaker 1: and again during their drive one of their organizers. They've
Speaker 1: posted this on social media. One of the organizers had
Speaker 1: a miscarriage and then asked for help, was put on
Speaker 1: a performance improvement plan, and then fired after a month.
Speaker 1: And you know, there are these really uncomfortable trends of
Speaker 1: this mistreatment happening because priorities might be elsewhere, or there
Speaker 1: is assumption that we are more expendable, maybe we are
Speaker 1: Kennon fodder, but that really really is not what is
Speaker 1: supposed to happen in places that are advocating for fair
Speaker 1: labor standards. And I am glad that we're hearing more
Speaker 1: stories about this. I'm horrified at the stories that are
Speaker 1: coming out about this, but you know, I hope there
Speaker 1: are more that are formed because a lot of these
Speaker 1: things are very extreme.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's and it's you know, it's impacting not just
Speaker 3: the organizers. I think one of the reasons why unions
Speaker 3: issue RIGHTSIL declining is like, well, yeah, okay, you guys
Speaker 3: keep firing all of your organizers, Like yeah, of course
Speaker 3: we're not getting shops for it.
Speaker 2: And I want to say what I think about just specifically,
Speaker 2: like the mood and.
Speaker 3: The stars thing is this like okay, this is not
Speaker 3: to say that this kind of stuff will be okay
Speaker 3: at a smaller union, but like, this is not Like
Speaker 3: we've had a lot of independent unions on this show,
Speaker 3: and those are people you know, who have formed their
Speaker 3: own using completely independently. In the money they've collected is
Speaker 3: stuff that's come from them, like putting out their head
Speaker 3: on the street, right.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know some of these unions have like
Speaker 2: a thousand dollars of assets. This is the UAW. The
Speaker 2: UAW has hundreds of millions of dollars. They have unbelievable
Speaker 2: amounts of money.
Speaker 1: And earlier this year they were just bragging about how
Speaker 1: they are putting so many more millions into new organizing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's like, well, okay, if you're gonna put
Speaker 3: if you're gonna put all this money into organizing, and
Speaker 3: again they probably should. They should be doing more, because
Speaker 3: what is the point of sitting on this much money? Right,
Speaker 3: It's like you're behaving like a financial institution and not
Speaker 3: a and not a union, but like you have the
Speaker 3: money to actually like cultivate and develop effective union organizers,
Speaker 3: and you have the money to meet like pretty mild
Speaker 3: contract contracts that are like that your contract is probably
Speaker 3: significantly cheaper than like the contract that they're negotiating, right, Like,
Speaker 3: this is just this is nonsense, Like we know you
Speaker 3: have this kind of money also because you're paying your
Speaker 3: like managerial staff for six figures, so clearly you can
Speaker 3: do this and you're simply not. And I think that
Speaker 3: should outrage everyone.
Speaker 1: I think that's exactly the response of a lot of
Speaker 1: our members because knowing that a lot of our temp
Speaker 1: organizers and staff organizers are people that are most passionately
Speaker 1: devoting themselves to the labor movement and you are met
Speaker 1: with such unstable job conditions is truly horrifying, because this
Speaker 1: is not this is not a path to careerism. Like
Speaker 1: as a temp organizer, there is not much upward mobility here.
Speaker 1: Let me be very clear, there's not much upward mobility.
Speaker 1: It's not like this is a cushy job. There's no
Speaker 1: real way for me to just sit back and relax
Speaker 1: on piles of bureaucratic money or something like that. And
Speaker 1: that reminds me of how I shout out to our
Speaker 1: Korean comrades that I've met at labor notes, where I
Speaker 1: explained to them what a temporary organizer's job is like
Speaker 1: and how many people we handle and how temporary our
Speaker 1: status is. I was talking to some of our equivalents
Speaker 1: in the auto industry as well, the union workers there,
Speaker 1: and they were pretty horrified at the workload, at the insecurity,
Speaker 1: at the just again lack of EQUIVALENCYE. And again I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to claim that Korea's labor organizing world is perfect,
Speaker 1: like absolutely nobody is. But the chocker to them is like, well,
Speaker 1: why are you doing this? Why do you Why are
Speaker 1: you working in this job? They have asked me this
Speaker 1: to my face, Why are you working in this job?
Speaker 1: What is possibly good enough for that for you? And unfortunately,
Speaker 1: a lot of it is optimism of the will, and
Speaker 1: I think that's a lot of what's keeping us going.
Speaker 1: And so my last day is supposedly September twenty eighth,
Speaker 1: but hopefully this month there have been fantastic outpourings of support,
Speaker 1: and we are also picketing the political leadership conference on
Speaker 1: the Friday the thirteenth, Scary, and I think that is
Speaker 1: going to really align with how YUSUS needed to escalate.
Speaker 1: I think this is again just a boiling point, and
Speaker 1: it has shown how all of this culminates in a
Speaker 1: very unfair labor standard and practice of which we have
Speaker 1: filed a few charges. But there's a lot more that
Speaker 1: needs to be done. And even if I don't get reinstated,
Speaker 1: I think that USEU is a great example of how
Speaker 1: there's still more change that needs to happen within UAW.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to close by talking about through line.
Speaker 3: Through a lot of these episodes that we've done, We've
Speaker 3: talked with a lot of people who work for Planned Parenthood,
Speaker 3: We've talked for a lot of people who work for NGOs,
Speaker 3: and this is this is the same behavior that they
Speaker 3: do where you know, quite frankly, what they are doing
Speaker 3: is exploiting, exploiting the labor of people who believe in
Speaker 3: the cause, and because people are willing to you know,
Speaker 3: because because people believe in what they're doing, because the
Speaker 3: work that they're doing is vital and necessary, These NGOs
Speaker 3: and these unions think that they can just continuously exploit
Speaker 3: the people who work for them, and this damages the workers,
Speaker 3: This damages the people who they're nominally trying to help,
Speaker 3: and this damage is the entire left because when you're
Speaker 3: sort of charting through organizers and when you're sort of
Speaker 3: fundamentally betraying the missions that you're supposed to be doing
Speaker 3: in order to just do more exploitation, this significantly damages
Speaker 3: literally the entire organizing project that we're all fighting for.
Speaker 3: So Alex, thank you so much for coming and talking
Speaker 3: and talking to us about this. And I where can
Speaker 3: people go to support you and support Uzoo?
Speaker 1: Our accounts are UAW staff United on Instagram and Twitter.
Speaker 1: Please follow for more. Check out the adorable Yuzo Lemon
Speaker 1: logos that we have everywhere. If you're in New York
Speaker 1: or Boston, those are our major hubs we keep an
Speaker 1: eye off for a future Actions awesome.
Speaker 3: Thank you again for coming on the show. And yeah,
Speaker 3: if you are a union staffer, because I know I
Speaker 3: know a number of you are listening to this.
Speaker 2: If you're in the UAW, raise hell.
Speaker 3: And if you're not and the UAW and you don't
Speaker 3: have your own staff union, consider it.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you. It could happen. Here is a production
Speaker 2: of Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 1: From More podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website
Speaker 1: cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out from the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 3: You can now find sources for it could happen here,
Speaker 3: listed directly in episode descriptions.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.