WEBVTT - Lorena Gonzalez Fights for California’s Workers 0:00:02.120 --> 0:00:05.360 I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:10.399 from my Heart Radio. My guest today falls into one 0:00:10.480 --> 0:00:14.200 of my favorite categories, politicians to keep an eye on, 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:20.479 because they're doing amazing things. Lorraina Gonzalez represents California's eightieth 0:00:20.560 --> 0:00:25.040 Assembly district in southern San Diego. She was first elected 0:00:25.040 --> 0:00:28.720 in two thousand thirteen and got into politics after years 0:00:28.760 --> 0:00:33.240 of working as a labor leader. She's a progressive Democrat 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:37.320 who supports working in middle class Californians with an impressive 0:00:37.440 --> 0:00:42.400 list of wins, including paid sick leave, overtime for farm workers, 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:48.640 protecting janitorial workers against sexual assault, automatic voter registration at 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:52.280 the d m V diaper tax relief. The list goes 0:00:52.400 --> 0:00:57.840 on and on. Growing up, Assemblywoman Gonzalez saw first hand 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:02.120 what government can do or not do to help working 0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:06.039 class families. She was raised by a single mom who 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:09.400 put in long hours as a nurse to support Gonzalez 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:13.800 and her two older brothers. Today, Lorraina Gonzalez has five 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:17.319 kids in a blended family with her husband, Nathan Fletcher. 0:01:17.840 --> 0:01:21.880 He's also in San Diego politics as a county supervisor. 0:01:22.240 --> 0:01:26.280 Gonzalez and Fletcher are both Democrats, but that wasn't always 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:29.560 the case. He was a Republican. He was actually a 0:01:29.600 --> 0:01:33.920 Republican assembly member, and at the time I was the 0:01:33.920 --> 0:01:35.240 head of the a f l c I O in 0:01:35.280 --> 0:01:40.440 San Diego, and he was always a much more moderate Republican. 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:43.720 But through the process when he ran unsuccessfully for Mayror, 0:01:43.920 --> 0:01:46.120 we had a ton of discussions. This is before we 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:48.880 started dating or anything, and he saw the light. He 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:52.320 became a Democrat. Then we started dating, then we got married. 0:01:53.120 --> 0:01:55.800 That makes sense to me. The first thing I think 0:01:55.840 --> 0:01:58.720 about when I look at your biography and so forth, 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:02.240 beyond your family, the thing that strikes me most is 0:02:02.760 --> 0:02:06.640 my goodness. You have the trifecta of academic credentials here 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:12.560 Stanford undergrad, Georgetown Masters, u c l A. Law school. 0:02:13.200 --> 0:02:15.520 You have the credentials to have done a lot of 0:02:15.560 --> 0:02:20.000 things for yourself. You know, you're certainly the whole Goldman 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:26.120 Sacks material academically and everything, and yet labor organizer, state Assembly. 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:29.200 What is it? What was the calling for you that 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:32.600 you wanted to forego taking care of yourself in order 0:02:32.639 --> 0:02:34.720 to take care of other people. I put a lot 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:38.000 of that on my mom. So my mom for most 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:40.200 of my life was a single mom. She just worked 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:42.280 her ass off. I don't know else to put it. 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:44.839 I don't ever remember her having a forty hour work week. 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:48.560 She worked fifty sixty seventy hours a week, multiple jobs 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:52.160 at times, all to make life better, not just for 0:02:52.240 --> 0:02:54.760 me and my brothers, to give us an opportunity to 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:56.799 go to college and do things, but also to make 0:02:56.840 --> 0:02:59.320 life better for her patients, for people she was serving. 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:04.040 She taught me that in life, what actually matters isn't 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:06.200 how much money you have in your bank account or 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:08.520 how many trips you get to go on, but how 0:03:08.560 --> 0:03:12.000 much you do to save the world. And we laugh now, 0:03:12.120 --> 0:03:14.160 my husband and I, and it's it's a question do 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:16.280 you want to savor the world or save the world. 0:03:16.480 --> 0:03:19.320 We're still on the save the world trajectory. At some point, 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:21.760 you know, it's everybody's right to take a step back 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:24.000 and savor the world a little bit. There's just so 0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:26.080 much work to do, and I think that I saw that, 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:28.880 and I saw hard working people and saw what they 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:31.399 go through, and just wanted to ensure that I could 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:34.360 try to make other folks lives a little easier. I 0:03:34.480 --> 0:03:38.240 moved to l A three for the first time, to work. 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:43.320 I lived in l A. I remember coming to California 0:03:43.360 --> 0:03:45.720 then and it was very much a dialogue and very 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:48.080 much a part of the culture was migrant workers, and 0:03:48.080 --> 0:03:51.560 the California was the great state of the migrant worker 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:54.400 in Chavez and all that legacy in the central California thing. 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:57.640 Now in northern San Diego County, you have a migrant 0:03:57.680 --> 0:04:01.760 worker a labor community. Correct. We have small family farms 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:04.080 in San Diego. When I say small family farms, they 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:06.720 have somewhere between twenty five and fifty maybe up to 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:09.440 a hundred farm workers. So it's not like the massive 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:11.080 farms that you have in the central Valley. But we 0:04:11.160 --> 0:04:15.080 do have small strawberry fields, flower fields, um in farm 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:17.400 workers where your father worked, Correct, your father worked in 0:04:17.440 --> 0:04:20.679 the strawberry was it a migrant worker community by and large. 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:24.600 There it's less migratory, if you will. Um, it's more 0:04:24.640 --> 0:04:28.520 farm workers who stay there, but they're immigrants primarily from Mexico, 0:04:29.080 --> 0:04:31.760 and they often stopped in me their homes. In North 0:04:31.760 --> 0:04:34.480 San Diego County and San Diego County, we have avocado 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:37.440 groves as well. So my father, like like most of 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:41.080 the workers even today, his father was Brasseto so it 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:44.000 was part of a program during the World War two 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:46.880 to ensure we had enough farm workers. They brought individuals 0:04:46.920 --> 0:04:50.159 up from Mexico to work the farms at substandard wages 0:04:50.160 --> 0:04:53.320 and sent them back home. And so my grandfather's Brasseto. 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:56.240 So my father, after hearing the stories, also wanted to 0:04:56.240 --> 0:04:58.960 come to the United States. Uh, so he came. He 0:04:59.000 --> 0:05:02.320 started in the straw fields in north San Diego County. Yeah, 0:05:02.320 --> 0:05:04.680 I asked, because and you say the preferred world is 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:09.120 migratory workers, not migrants. Correct, Well, there's different. They're considered 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:12.440 immigrants or migrant workers. But I sometimes people think of 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:14.960 probably in the eighties, and there was a time when 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:17.760 we had workers who would come and they might work 0:05:17.920 --> 0:05:20.680 in the fields and Imperial during certain seasons and then 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:24.600 migrate north and work other seasons in the pistachio or 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:27.200 almond fields, you know. And so they would travel throughout 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:29.120 California and all the way up to Washington for the 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:32.080 apple season. And that was a little bit different than 0:05:32.120 --> 0:05:34.000 what we're seeing today when a lot of immigrants come 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:37.839 in and work one farm. Now, my friend Christina since Soon, 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:42.000 who once ran and I think co founded the Workers 0:05:42.080 --> 0:05:45.880 Defense Fund. She mean for the Senate in Texas this 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:50.159 last election, and Christina since soon has run organizations to 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:54.320 protect migrant workers in Texas. In the construction industry, people 0:05:54.360 --> 0:05:56.599 would would they would lose a limb, they would have 0:05:56.600 --> 0:05:59.040 their their hand chopped off in an accident, and if 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:01.120 no benefits and nobody sources to help them deal with 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:04.560 their unemployment or whatever or workers compensation. So she worked 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:07.520 very hard and very successfully to address that. Is that 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:11.320 still a problem in California, whether it's in northern San 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:13.920 Diego County or up north of there, that these workers 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:17.440 lacked the protections that other workers have. It is and there. 0:06:17.760 --> 0:06:20.000 So you brought up construction. So let's take it in 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:21.840 two different ways. And I think it's important for people 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:25.000 to understand this. Farm workers in the United States don't 0:06:25.080 --> 0:06:28.039 have the same rights as other workers. There are two 0:06:28.080 --> 0:06:31.000 sets of workers. Way back in the FDR days, right 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:33.520 when they pass a Fair Labor Standards Act, there are 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:35.359 two sets of workers that were taken out of that. 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:38.120 The Fair Labor Standards Act is what gives us minimum wage, 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:41.719 overtime protections, what we assume is kind of workplace protections 0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:45.279 we have today. They took out farm workers and domestic 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:47.599 workers and if you think why, at the time, it 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:50.159 was a vestige of slavery. So the work that was 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:54.080 being done at that time by rural Southern African Americans 0:06:54.600 --> 0:06:58.039 and then later by an influx of immigrants, was taken 0:06:58.040 --> 0:07:01.520 out of basic protections, not even the right to organize 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:05.120 and so um in California, we've done a lot to 0:07:05.160 --> 0:07:08.920 put those rights back in. So uh five years ago 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:11.800 we create the ail Er B which allows farm workers 0:07:11.840 --> 0:07:15.920 to organize. We had minimum wage requirements, and just a 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:18.240 few years ago, in fact, I passed the bill to 0:07:18.400 --> 0:07:21.400 ensure that farm workers also get over time. We're the 0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:24.440 only state in the nation that has passed that. There's 0:07:24.480 --> 0:07:26.840 only a couple that allow farm workers to organize or 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:30.120 pay minimum wage even to this day. The construction trades, 0:07:30.640 --> 0:07:33.720 they have those protections. But what happens with a lot 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:37.640 of our immigrant workforce in construction, in particular janitorial work, 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:41.480 is employers just cheat the system. So they pay them 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:44.000 under the table, they don't pay them the right benefits, 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:46.160 they don't sign them up for workers comp so they're 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:48.760 violating the law. But when it comes to farm workers 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:50.880 and domestic workers, they don't even have to violate the 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:53.240 law because there are so few laws for most of 0:07:53.280 --> 0:07:56.360 the country. Now there's a variety of bills and so 0:07:56.480 --> 0:07:59.640 forth that you've authored or co authored, and I wanted 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:01.320 you to hopped through a couple of those, because I 0:08:01.320 --> 0:08:05.000 find all this stuff very fascinating. Assembly Build five requiring 0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:09.320 workers classified as employees rather than independent contractors for more 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:13.080 labor protection. Take me through that. What's the difference. Well, 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:16.960 over the last maybe decade, a lot of employers have 0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:20.320 taken advantage of loopholes in the law and classified what 0:08:20.360 --> 0:08:24.600 would be traditional employees as independent contractors. And yes, it's 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:27.800 cheaper for the employer, but the cost that it puts 0:08:27.840 --> 0:08:30.720 on both the employee and society is a large has 0:08:30.760 --> 0:08:33.760 to be taken accounts. So when you're an independent contractor, 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:36.319 the employer does not pay their person of your Social 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:39.480 Security or Medicare that's seven point five percent. You're responsible 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:42.360 for the full fiftent of those two things. They're not 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:46.200 required to provide healthcare. They're not required to give you 0:08:46.240 --> 0:08:49.119 paid sick leave, paid family leave that we have in California. 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:52.160 They don't have to provide you with workers compensation. You 0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:54.839 don't have the right to a lot of civil rights 0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:58.120 and and sexual harassment laws. As an independent contractor, you're 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:00.839 viewed as an individual small business, not a worker of 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:05.120 the company. So obviously there's a number of benefits and 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:07.800 most important during COVID, which we found is nobody's paying 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:10.440 into unemployment insurance for you. So if you lose your job, 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:13.560 you're on your own. So it is this idea and 0:09:13.600 --> 0:09:16.480 I can imagine and for some people it's an important 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:18.800 piece to be an independent contractor, to be a true 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:22.360 small sole proprietor small business, and we have those. You know, 0:09:22.400 --> 0:09:25.400 you may be a plumber, you might be a doctor 0:09:25.440 --> 0:09:28.040 that has your own business and you're on your own. 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:32.680 So for example, a doctor as an independent contractor, he 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:35.720 would then become whose employee to qualify for the benefits 0:09:35.760 --> 0:09:38.600 you're enumerating here. Well, in doing a B five, we 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:40.800 took what was called in California a decision by the 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:44.400 California State Supreme Court dynamics, and we applied that it 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:47.200 was going to be presidential basically, and so we applied 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:49.200 it to our entire labor code, and we said, but 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:51.959 there will be exceptions, and we took the reasoning and 0:09:52.000 --> 0:09:53.920 the decision that said, if you have the ability to 0:09:53.960 --> 0:09:58.679 bargain for yourself, if you truly require a certain certificate education, 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:02.640 you have the ability to provide these things for yourself. 0:10:02.880 --> 0:10:06.320 Were less concerned, right, because what happens is a doctor 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:09.960 doesn't need these benefits necessarily, they self ensure they self 0:10:10.000 --> 0:10:12.640 provide them, and then if something goes wrong, society is 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:15.239 not on the hook, right, It's not like some taxpayer 0:10:15.280 --> 0:10:18.600 funded program. They can actually take care of themselves. If 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:21.680 a janitor is classified as an independent contractor and doesn't 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:23.920 have those benefits and they lose their job, they're going 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:27.120 to end up on state sponsored support. We we don't 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:30.240 want people to to be homeless or go hungary, so 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:32.959 we do provide a safety net, but they don't have 0:10:33.000 --> 0:10:35.640 somebody paying into the system. There's no social contract that 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:39.360 was established. And those companies who are misclassifying workers are 0:10:39.400 --> 0:10:42.560 at a competitive advantage over companies who are biding by 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:45.760 the law. So this is just strengthening the existing law. 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:48.079 And a lot of this came about because of the 0:10:48.160 --> 0:10:51.319 upswing of all these tech companies that think if you're 0:10:51.400 --> 0:10:53.679 hired through an app, you're an independent contract or your 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:56.199 own business, right, And that's what I'm curious about is 0:10:56.240 --> 0:10:58.760 that is that let's say I have a building an 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:01.480 office building, but you're telling me that they will hire 0:11:01.679 --> 0:11:05.600 janitorial staff and call them independent contractors and not call 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:08.120 them employees. So usually what would happen if you hired 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:11.760 a building is you hire janitorial company and you don't 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:14.000 know you have the building. You hire a company. That's 0:11:14.000 --> 0:11:17.520 all fine, But the people working for the company, they 0:11:17.640 --> 0:11:21.199 would be independent contractors when they're actually just employees who 0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:24.240 have been misclassified. Give us the most vivid example of 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:26.800 who the bill was aimed to help. The bill was 0:11:26.840 --> 0:11:30.920 aimed to help delivery drivers for Uber. For example, right yep, 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:34.040 I carry my Uber Eats bag. I'm being told where 0:11:34.080 --> 0:11:36.800 to go, when to go. I can't negotiate with Uber 0:11:36.880 --> 0:11:39.640 over my pay I can't negotiate with Uber over whether 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:41.679 or not I want to take a certain job. And 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:44.000 uh Uber says, I'm a small business and I have 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:47.400 to pay for my own expenses, for my own insurance. UM, 0:11:47.440 --> 0:11:49.520 I have to pay my own taxes. There's no payroll 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:53.560 taxes taken out. Uber investors and Uber owners get very 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:57.920 very very wealthy and billionaires and the workers making submimum wage. 0:11:58.520 --> 0:12:01.040 Another area is in two thou in seventeen. This one 0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:05.040 was very sensitive to me because I was involved tangentially, 0:12:05.040 --> 0:12:08.120 but I was part of drafting and circulating petitions in 0:12:08.200 --> 0:12:10.640 terms of lead paint in the schools of New York 0:12:11.000 --> 0:12:13.400 and in two thousands seventeen, you would have be requiring 0:12:13.440 --> 0:12:15.880 all K through twelve schools to test their drinking water 0:12:16.000 --> 0:12:20.560 for lead. Did your concern for this issue in was 0:12:20.600 --> 0:12:23.680 the trigger that you're a mother? What was the genesis 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:26.840 of that? Obviously A lot of what I do is 0:12:26.920 --> 0:12:28.920 the fact that I am a mom, and I'm a 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:32.280 mom first, right, So I approach a lot of issues 0:12:32.320 --> 0:12:35.400 that we're facing as any mother would. Yes, you send 0:12:35.440 --> 0:12:38.160 your kids, I send my kids public school. I hope 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:40.520 and pray um that they're safe, that nobody's going to 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:44.120 gun them down, that nobody is going to um poison them, 0:12:44.160 --> 0:12:47.640 that nobody's gonna sexually abuse them, and that they'll get 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:49.920 a good education at the same time, So there's a 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:52.880 lot of trust we put into our schools. And we 0:12:52.960 --> 0:12:55.640 had a situation in my district where it was a 0:12:55.679 --> 0:12:59.599 really odd situation. A dog, they put water out and 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:02.720 the all that reacted to it, and so they end 0:13:02.800 --> 0:13:05.480 up testing the water and um, the water had lead 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:07.960 in it. And this is like New York City. We've 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:10.760 we fought for years in my community in particular, which 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:14.560 is a Latino working class community, to replace lead paint 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:18.200 in the houses. We took lead out of candy. We 0:13:18.280 --> 0:13:23.120 know that it poisons children and disproportionately poor children, and 0:13:23.160 --> 0:13:25.840 so when we found it in the water fountain at school, 0:13:26.120 --> 0:13:29.640 it was a shell shock for me because the one 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:31.280 thing you sent your kid to school and you're like, 0:13:31.360 --> 0:13:33.800 don't drink the sugary drinks. Go have some water, Go 0:13:33.920 --> 0:13:35.880 drink some water, drink for the water fown, drink more, 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:40.000 you know, and like how many times drink diet code exactly? 0:13:40.120 --> 0:13:42.160 And I thought, oh my gosh, for my own kids, 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:43.800 you think of that thought, like how many times do 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:46.360 I say, okay, after pe make sure you drink some 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:49.160 water from the water fountain, you know, hydrate? Well a 0:13:49.200 --> 0:13:51.960 little did I know We're sending kids to poison themselves. 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:55.120 So what we did is in some of these schools 0:13:55.120 --> 0:13:58.240 are very, very old, and we said it's time to 0:13:58.360 --> 0:14:01.079 test it for lead. And we got a lot of pushback. 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:04.160 Everybody's like, well, is it makes sense to test? I'm like, 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:06.959 how can we not test when we know that there's 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:10.000 lead in the water. Who on earth would be opposed 0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:12.560 to testing the drinking border of your children in the school? 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:15.720 Who people who know that if it's positive, they're going 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:18.280 to have to pay to replace the pipe? Right? What 0:14:18.440 --> 0:14:20.280 was the upshot of that in two thousand and seventeen, 0:14:20.360 --> 0:14:23.280 Did the testing lead to any remediation of the problem 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:24.920 that they ripped the pipes at a certain schools? Or 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:28.120 what happened? They filter? It was filtration the answer filtration um. 0:14:28.160 --> 0:14:32.160 They replaced, they brought in water stations to some And 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:35.440 what happened is there there had already been a number 0:14:35.440 --> 0:14:38.680 of school bonds that had passed, both statewide school bonds 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:41.520 as well as local school bonds. And what happened as 0:14:41.520 --> 0:14:43.960 soon as they started finding this then you know, when 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:45.600 you pass the school bond, there's a lot of things 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:47.880 you can spend it on. In in San Diego Unified, 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:50.520 for example, had well, we had some football fields and 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:53.160 some lighting that needed done, and we wanted, you know, 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:56.720 some hvac um done in the classrooms, all important things. 0:14:57.160 --> 0:14:59.360 But if you find lead in the water, guess what 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:01.880 replacing the as water fountains gets to the top of 0:15:01.920 --> 0:15:03.680 the list in money that was already going to be 0:15:03.720 --> 0:15:06.960 spent it becomes prioritized. So the world didn't end. The 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:13.680 waters has been tested, and now it's being fixed. California 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:18.600 Assemblywoman Lorraina Gonzalez. If listening to interviews with up and 0:15:18.640 --> 0:15:21.800 coming politicians gives you a sense of hope, be sure 0:15:21.840 --> 0:15:25.400 to check out my conversation with Texan Christina since Soon, 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:29.600 who co founded the Workers Defense Project. I think that 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:32.600 there's an image of Texas that people have that is 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:35.840 not the true Texas story. When people think about Texas, 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:38.120 they usually think about us in a singular way of 0:15:38.160 --> 0:15:41.120 people like my white grandfather, which was a cowboy. And 0:15:41.160 --> 0:15:43.040 the truth is that the state is you know, you 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:44.800 have a city like Houston, it's one of the most 0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:48.800 diversities in the entire country. You have one in three 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:52.880 Texans that are immigrants, were children of immigrants. The state's 0:15:52.880 --> 0:15:56.040 population is Latino. It's majority people of color. At this point, 0:15:57.360 --> 0:16:00.680 here more of my conversation with Christina since Soon in 0:16:00.800 --> 0:16:05.520 our archives at Here's the Thing dot org. After the break, 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:10.160 Lorena Gonzalez talks about cheerleaders and her fight to get 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:14.600 California's biggest sports teams to pay them like the professionals 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:30.840 they are. I'm Alec Baldwin and you were listening to 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:35.440 here's the thing. In two thousand eighteen, Lorena Gonzalez co 0:16:35.680 --> 0:16:38.520 authored a bill which put California on a path to 0:16:38.640 --> 0:16:44.520 generate of its electricity from clean, carbon neutral energy sources 0:16:44.560 --> 0:16:47.720 by two thouty five. She says, the state is on 0:16:47.840 --> 0:16:52.480 track to meet its goal even sooner. We're already almost there. 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:56.680 I gotta be honest, We're gonna get renewable quicker than 0:16:56.720 --> 0:16:59.720 we had imagined or hoped. But that's because we required 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:02.720 it by way of what. By way of large scale 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:05.560 solar farms that you're seeing go up wind energy that 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:10.280 you're seeing. We're exploring other forms, biomass, pub stations, things 0:17:10.359 --> 0:17:15.320 to provide renewable energy sources throughout California. Obviously rooftop solar 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:18.360 plays a role in that, but we have really adopted 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:21.880 in California an approach that is getting us on any 0:17:21.920 --> 0:17:26.160 given Saturday, about of the energy coming through a grid 0:17:26.240 --> 0:17:29.320 is now coming from renewable sources. Well, the reason I 0:17:29.359 --> 0:17:31.359 mentioned this is because I was involved with a group 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:34.400 of people who were this was all theoretical, No, nothing 0:17:34.480 --> 0:17:37.359 was getting to the legislative phase where we were saying 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:40.000 how we wanted the federal government to withhold you know, 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:44.040 the classic withholding of transportation dollars. And there's always the 0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:46.760 threat of withholding those dollars if you don't this or 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:49.159 that or this or that. And what we wanted to 0:17:49.200 --> 0:17:51.480 do was we wanted to demand that the states do 0:17:52.359 --> 0:17:55.960 the two following things. That any construction over a certain size, 0:17:56.640 --> 0:18:00.800 over a certain square footage of any public building, college, dormitory, 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:05.280 high school, airport, library, hospital, you name it, anything that 0:18:05.359 --> 0:18:09.480 was funded by state or local or federal dollars, that 0:18:09.640 --> 0:18:13.320 any refurbishment over a certain size, and any new construction 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:16.040 over a certain size, you would demand that they had 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:19.199 some photovoltaic element built into that construction where there was 0:18:19.400 --> 0:18:22.720 solar panels on the grounds, solar panels on the skin 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:24.679 of the building or the roof of the building, something. 0:18:25.160 --> 0:18:27.000 And the second thing we wanted to demand was that 0:18:27.080 --> 0:18:30.840 any purchase of or any maintenance of fleet vehicles over 0:18:30.880 --> 0:18:34.600 a certain size, and exempting emergency vehicles like fire and 0:18:34.680 --> 0:18:37.480 ambulance and police because you can't have them have to 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:39.520 plug in. You have to have hybrids there at best, 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:41.520 but any of the fleet vehicles you had to go 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:43.960 fully electric, fully plugged in by a certain year or 0:18:44.000 --> 0:18:45.919 you were going to get the transportation dollars. Is there 0:18:45.920 --> 0:18:48.359 anything like that on the drawing board in California? I 0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:51.640 love that, But we're moving towards that naturally in California, 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:55.320 not with withholding funds. Under our previous governor, Jerry Brown, 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:58.199 he mandated that all new construction of houses have to 0:18:58.240 --> 0:19:02.480 have roof top solar private homes, private homes, new construction 0:19:02.480 --> 0:19:05.960 and private homes have to have rooftop solar. Unfortunately, there's 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:07.879 not a lot of new homes being built. You have 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:11.760 that now in California, yeah, yea through executive order, through 0:19:11.800 --> 0:19:16.399 the governor, and so we we naturally have some requirements 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:19.040 that were put in. Tom Steyer did an initiative a 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:22.400 few years ago, Prop thirty nine, which provided for schools 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:24.879 to be able to put solar on their rooftop. You know, 0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:28.000 it's good green jobs, and it's good for the environment, 0:19:28.080 --> 0:19:31.280 and it pulls down the cost of their energy bills. 0:19:31.400 --> 0:19:34.000 So it really did work. We had money available for that. 0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:38.840 We are going towards a gasless society. We have goals 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:42.000 um hopefully we'll be codified. I think in the next 0:19:42.080 --> 0:19:44.520 few years that will say, by by this year, we're 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:46.840 going to have all electric vehicles, but we have to 0:19:46.840 --> 0:19:48.639 do the hard work with that. It's not enough to 0:19:48.640 --> 0:19:50.639 say that we've got to have more charging stations. I 0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:53.199 always give example my husband. I. We have an electric 0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:56.119 vehicle and we live in my district. It's one of 0:19:56.160 --> 0:19:59.080 the poorest districts in California. It's a porst coastal district 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:02.800 in California, and there aren't charging stations. You know. Luckily, 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:05.160 we can charge at work. He works at the county 0:20:05.160 --> 0:20:07.359 building and work at the State building. Um, we we 0:20:07.520 --> 0:20:10.080 have rooftop solar and we can charge at home. But 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:13.760 a lot of apartments in multifamily complexes and working class 0:20:13.760 --> 0:20:16.400 communities don't have charging stations. And so as we moved 0:20:16.440 --> 0:20:18.760 electric vehicles, we really have to think about that piece 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:21.840 as well, the infrastructure necessary to get us off of 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:25.960 fossil fuels. How did you get involved with the cause 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:30.280 of the cheerleaders in the NFL as you lost I 0:20:30.320 --> 0:20:32.520 guess you lost your box seats at the Chargers game. 0:20:33.320 --> 0:20:35.480 I was not a popular person at the Chargers I'll 0:20:35.520 --> 0:20:38.560 tell you that. Uh what happened, to be honest, is 0:20:39.080 --> 0:20:42.000 you got a figure. I was actually a Stanford cheerleader, 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:45.520 so I was a cheerleader and a labor leader, right, 0:20:45.720 --> 0:20:48.600 I know how to use a bullhorn and a megaphone. Um, 0:20:48.680 --> 0:20:52.040 it's it's a rare combination. So when I had read 0:20:52.119 --> 0:20:55.000 at the time the raider at the cheerleaders for the 0:20:55.080 --> 0:20:57.720 Raiders had started a couple of them start a lawsuit 0:20:57.760 --> 0:21:00.280 against the Raiders for not paying the minimum wage because 0:21:00.320 --> 0:21:03.639 they were classified actually as independent contractors. And so I 0:21:03.760 --> 0:21:05.879 talked to the attorneys, and I'm an attorney, so I 0:21:05.880 --> 0:21:09.399 talked to their attorneys and I was like, this is outrageous. 0:21:09.520 --> 0:21:14.080 They're basically almost pain to do this fantastic job. Yes, 0:21:14.160 --> 0:21:17.399 it's a job women want, it's a job that that 0:21:17.600 --> 0:21:20.240 is respected to a certain extent, but it's still a 0:21:20.320 --> 0:21:22.880 job everybody else on the football field. It doesn't matter 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:24.840 if you're the physical trainer. It doesn't matter if you're 0:21:24.880 --> 0:21:27.159 the person picking up the trash. It doesn't matter if 0:21:27.160 --> 0:21:29.280