Speaker 1: Welcome to Dick had Happened Here, the show about things
Speaker 1: following apart how to put them back together again. I'm
Speaker 1: your host, Mia Wong, and today we have a really
Speaker 1: exciting episode. We're gonna be talking to a group of
Speaker 1: workers from the California Nurses Association, which is specifically their
Speaker 1: national Organizing Committee, which is I think better known to
Speaker 1: most people. And then you are a National Nurses United
Speaker 1: and these people are part of a shift of workers
Speaker 1: who was for the first time running a rank and
Speaker 1: file slate for the Council of Presidents, which is sort
Speaker 1: of They're a body that combines the positions of vice
Speaker 1: president president in the union. They're called Shift Change. And so, Eric,
Speaker 1: do you want to introduce yourself? All right, my name
Speaker 1: is Eric Cook. I've been a nurse for thirty two years.
Speaker 1: I currently work in the cardiac telemetry floor. And I
Speaker 1: became a nurse after being a Navy corman in the
Speaker 1: First Call War and just continued in healthcare from there.
Speaker 1: I was originally an alvin and then became a registered nurse.
Speaker 1: And I've been on the past three negotiating teams for
Speaker 1: Altabates Summit Hospital and I've seen a lot of changes
Speaker 1: in the attitude and movement of the union in the
Speaker 1: past twelve years. So I'm hoping with John and Raina
Speaker 1: and Mark to make a change for our union and
Speaker 1: our members for the better. Yeah, I'm glad, glad you
Speaker 1: could be here to join us. Thank you. Yeah, Rina,
Speaker 1: do you want to introduce yourself? Hi? There, I'm Rina Lindsay.
Speaker 1: I have been a California nurse for over thirteen years,
Speaker 1: and out of those thirteen years, eight of them I've
Speaker 1: been in Altbate's Medical Center, which was my first union
Speaker 1: as an r N. How I be an Also, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: And also i work in ice you and I've been
Speaker 1: there through been there for about seven years wow. And
Speaker 1: I've worked with Eric a year prior to that. So
Speaker 1: the reason why I became a nurse, it is a
Speaker 1: long story, but the bridge version is at the beginning,
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a lawyer. So when I went
Speaker 1: to college, kind of fund I was dyslexic, so that
Speaker 1: kind of backed out. And then I also was a
Speaker 1: teen mom, which that's something that a lot of people
Speaker 1: do not know about me. And during that whole process,
Speaker 1: I wanted to find something that I could be an
Speaker 1: advocate for people and also know the political side of it.
Speaker 1: So nursing became the best benefit. One thing I love
Speaker 1: about nursing is you can learn everything about the world,
Speaker 1: to know about people without going anywhere, So that was
Speaker 1: the thrill. And then also being an advocate for the
Speaker 1: patients I take care for. In addition to that, you know,
Speaker 1: knowing my peers and knowing that we all have the
Speaker 1: similar struggles when it comes to the systems that we
Speaker 1: work for. Doesn't matter which employer you work for, and
Speaker 1: so being in the union it gives you that way
Speaker 1: of a contract between you and your employer. And along
Speaker 1: the way there has been some issues which Eric and
Speaker 1: I and John all been experiencing where things do need
Speaker 1: to change, and being part of shift change is part
Speaker 1: where we have to change of leadership and be more
Speaker 1: transparent between the union, the employer, and the people in general.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, and yeah, John, do you want to introduce yourself? Yeah? Sure,
Speaker 1: I'm John Horronymous. I'm a packy recovery nurse at University
Speaker 1: of Chicago. Before that, I was in the medical u
Speaker 1: for six and a half years, and then before that
Speaker 1: I was like a associate's degree our end working at
Speaker 1: the emergency room at holy Cross Hospital. And I also started,
Speaker 1: which is funny to me, as an LPN, which is
Speaker 1: the same thing as an LVN that Eric did. And
Speaker 1: I was a CNA before that. I decided to become
Speaker 1: a nurse way back in the day when I was
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what I wanted to do after
Speaker 1: dropping out of high school, and I was thinking about
Speaker 1: man and maybe it should become like a history teacher,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, why would I want to
Speaker 1: go back to this place I hate so much. I
Speaker 1: dropped out of it, and I personally got like incredibly
Speaker 1: sick with something called uld sort of kalitis, and I
Speaker 1: got a bunch of surgeries done and got some really
Speaker 1: amazing experience being taken care of by nurses, and it
Speaker 1: became really immediately obvious to me, like I also, like Raina,
Speaker 1: wanted to help people. And also I thought that nursing
Speaker 1: was like a way where even like for you know, individuals,
Speaker 1: I could change someone's day just a little bit for
Speaker 1: the better, but also like maybe changed some bigger things.
Speaker 1: And so I thought nursing was just like a really
Speaker 1: great way to do that. Also, it's really fortunate to
Speaker 1: be raised by an amazing nurse. My mom was a
Speaker 1: nurse and she was always like she's like one of
Speaker 1: those people was my hero. And a lot of other
Speaker 1: nurses in my family, both men and women, including someone
Speaker 1: who is like a Kentucky Frontier nurses, like the first
Speaker 1: group of nurse practitioner, nurse midwife back in the like
Speaker 1: the nineteen forties, back in Kentucky. So I've got a
Speaker 1: lot of nurses in my family and on this like
Speaker 1: incredibly proud to be like paring on all the stuff
Speaker 1: that they have been doing for all their years as
Speaker 1: like nurses. So and like meeting the folks out in California,
Speaker 1: like Raina and Eric. It just makes me feel so good,
Speaker 1: like we're doing really important stuff in terms of both
Speaker 1: our daily practice of being a nurse, but also like
Speaker 1: that we can have like this bigger impact on how
Speaker 1: things are happening in our profession, in the healthcare industry
Speaker 1: and just the broader world. Yeah. Yeah, we've we've talked
Speaker 1: like a decent amount on this show now about sort
Speaker 1: of the labor issues that have been facing nurses both
Speaker 1: actually here and in the UK, and I think a
Speaker 1: little bit in a couple of other countries. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was I was wondering what were the sort of specific
Speaker 1: things that you all were dealing with, both just in
Speaker 1: the profession and then also in the union that got
Speaker 1: you all together to run this slate. Okay, So one
Speaker 1: of the things that caused us to actually meet by
Speaker 1: coincidence was one of my co workers, Torol Doordall, who's
Speaker 1: a Norwegian nurse who's been a nurse here in America
Speaker 1: for over thirty years. She contacted Labor Notes and, you know,
Speaker 1: realizing something was wrong in our union, she started talking
Speaker 1: with specifically Sarah Hughes at labor Notes, and through labor
Speaker 1: Notes and Sarah, we were able to connect with John
Speaker 1: and Chicago, and it was amazing that what we discovered
Speaker 1: is that our problems here in California were mimicking what
Speaker 1: they've experienced in Chicago, and through Sarah finding out from
Speaker 1: other diverse communities of nurses and tech Florida, North Carolina,
Speaker 1: New York, in Minnesota that there same things are happening
Speaker 1: there under our same union. And our complaint was through
Speaker 1: our union was that we felt we were being siloed.
Speaker 1: And of course, when I say siloed, is actually in
Speaker 1: our negotiations. We had seventeen facilities negotiating, but we were
Speaker 1: told that we were not allowed to communicate with each other.
Speaker 1: I said it was it was forbidden by the federal mediator.
Speaker 1: Now why this is? Yes, yes, I know that was
Speaker 1: my reaction initially too. There were two other negotiators on
Speaker 1: the team. It was highly suspicious because the union wanted
Speaker 1: to put all new nurses onto the negotiating team, and
Speaker 1: that was a little bit of a red flag. There
Speaker 1: were so many red flags through this negotiations. I swear
Speaker 1: I could almost see Lennon's tomb, that's how many red
Speaker 1: flags there were. It was amazing to us is that
Speaker 1: they said the mediator forbade us from talking to each other,
Speaker 1: because that was part of the agreement to have the
Speaker 1: federal mediator. The three of us that had previous experience
Speaker 1: with negotiating just knew that was the wrong thing. And
Speaker 1: it took over at least about seven months before we
Speaker 1: started breaking through to other tables and communicating with them
Speaker 1: on text and having our own zoom conversations with them
Speaker 1: to convince them that no, this is a lie. We
Speaker 1: are allowed to talk to each other. And we end
Speaker 1: up finding out that we were kind of being railroaded
Speaker 1: into what we considered an agreement that was less than
Speaker 1: satisfactory for the workers, for the nurses who have suffered
Speaker 1: during the pandemic. We could have gotten probably one of
Speaker 1: the greatest contracts that any nursing body had ever received.
Speaker 1: We had the industry by the throat. We suffered so much,
Speaker 1: you know, John, everybody throughout the country, all the nurse
Speaker 1: has suffered. Everybody's suffered, but everybody that was at that
Speaker 1: bedside during the pandemic, we it was a horrific experience.
Speaker 1: It's great when you take care of people and you
Speaker 1: heal them, Yes, it's that's a great thing. But the
Speaker 1: stress and the you know, the unending anxiety that you felt,
Speaker 1: and then in the midst of this you have a
Speaker 1: union that short changes you at a point when we
Speaker 1: had so much power, and thank Heavens for Sarah to
Speaker 1: put us into contact with all these other nurses to
Speaker 1: realize that it wasn't just the subter division of the
Speaker 1: California Nurses Association that was running things amok. It was
Speaker 1: actually it seemed to be a perceived playbook plan of
Speaker 1: what they were doing throughout the country. And I think
Speaker 1: nobody perceives themselves as doing evil or anything like that.
Speaker 1: I think they always think that they're doing it for
Speaker 1: the better interest of everybody. But that's what's important about
Speaker 1: a rank and file movement is that every nurse, every
Speaker 1: person in the union is important and deserves a voice.
Speaker 1: And we don't need to be gas lit. We don't
Speaker 1: need to be mistreated by the union that we pay
Speaker 1: to represent us. We need to be marching on the boss.
Speaker 1: We could have had an unending euphoria for nurses with
Speaker 1: a contract. We could have had great staffing, we could
Speaker 1: have had better pay, we could have had everything that
Speaker 1: we wanted to make our work lives to be the
Speaker 1: best they could be. And it seemed our union already
Speaker 1: had a preplanned agreement with the corporation. Now they deny that,
Speaker 1: but it's kind of hard to believe when they had
Speaker 1: the same agreement that they were supposedly negotiating in silos
Speaker 1: that they weren't communicate. Each table was supposedly negotiating their own,
Speaker 1: but it was the same thing they wanted at every table,
Speaker 1: and not all the tables were equal. It was very
Speaker 1: sad for us. Like I said, this is the third
Speaker 1: negotiating team. I was on the first negotiating team I
Speaker 1: was on. We lasted over two years negotiating and we
Speaker 1: went through nine strikes and threatened at tenth and until
Speaker 1: we got an agreement. So our hospital, obviously it's Altibates
Speaker 1: Hospital in Berkeley. Our sister hospital, Summit Hospital in Oakland,
Speaker 1: and we have affiliated with us, is the Herrot Campus,
Speaker 1: which is the the psychiatric facility. And we have struggled
Speaker 1: so much through this pandemic and it was amazing to
Speaker 1: us that we came up with less than what we
Speaker 1: should have gotten. I will tell you that thanks to
Speaker 1: Sarah and meeting all these other nurses, we were able
Speaker 1: to come back. And I think through fear and intimidation,
Speaker 1: our union was forced to back us and we're able
Speaker 1: to get economically what we wanted. But like the rest
Speaker 1: of the country, as nurses, we wanted better staffing. We
Speaker 1: needed more more bodies at the bedside. We're overworked, we're fatigued.
Speaker 1: Raina worked in the ICU and they had their own
Speaker 1: COVID unit there. Um. I don't think there was enough
Speaker 1: tums and roll aids to go around for all of
Speaker 1: those nurses. The anxiety and um, you know, the heart
Speaker 1: in your throat and of course John himself, I don't
Speaker 1: want to his personal business, but you know his experience.
Speaker 1: He has long COVID. So we we as nurses, have
Speaker 1: suffered quite a bit, and we expected a lot more
Speaker 1: from our union. Yeah, and I mean even just on
Speaker 1: a very basic level, like no matter what you go through,
Speaker 1: you have the right for your union not to light you.
Speaker 1: Let's see, this is a very elementary sort of that's
Speaker 1: a that's a really elementary thing. Yeah, but like it's
Speaker 1: really u it's really scary how comfortable some of the
Speaker 1: people who are paid their wages out of our dues
Speaker 1: are with lying to us. I think that's a thing
Speaker 1: that like, um, you know, like we're one of the
Speaker 1: things we're specifically fighting for is like transparency and accountability,
Speaker 1: especially for our staff. And you know, when I, you know,
Speaker 1: Eric mentioned that I had had long COVID, I'm finally
Speaker 1: getting I've been to the point where I'm like as
Speaker 1: recovered as I probably ever will be, and which is great.
Speaker 1: You know, being recovered from long COVID is so much
Speaker 1: better than having long COVID. But you know, I was
Speaker 1: always like someone that they came to to ask for
Speaker 1: help with like political sorts of issues inside the union,
Speaker 1: or they would come to me for Medicare for all
Speaker 1: or um you know, speaking around things like ratios that
Speaker 1: sort of stuff, or they would send me off to
Speaker 1: When the Chicago teachers went on strike in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: I was sent to speak on behalf of our union
Speaker 1: for them, and you know, just doing the work of
Speaker 1: I'm kind of a I'm a bit of an agitator.
Speaker 1: And then COVID hit and it was just a really
Speaker 1: surreal experience. And my area the hospital is one of
Speaker 1: those places where they basically did everything they could to
Speaker 1: minimize the amount of surgeries we were doing initially when
Speaker 1: the lockdowns were happening for the first six months of
Speaker 1: the pandemic, and then but they were moving us into
Speaker 1: because we are all former ICU nurses, so I would
Speaker 1: do my shift a few shifts up in the medical
Speaker 1: ICEU than we made a special clean ICEU because we're
Speaker 1: still getting traumas. A University of Chicago apparently sees more
Speaker 1: penetrating gunshot and stab wounds than any other hospital in
Speaker 1: the United States. Thirty percent of our traumas are are
Speaker 1: from some sort of violence, which is substantially higher than
Speaker 1: anywhere else in the US and then I got sick, right,
Speaker 1: and so to me, the union was like a thing.
Speaker 1: It was like, man, this is nice to have. I
Speaker 1: had never worked at an union hospital before. Getting union
Speaker 1: raises was like a big step up in my life,
Speaker 1: you know. And it was also like, oh yeah, our
Speaker 1: union's progressive, Like I kind of I like most of
Speaker 1: the things that it stands for, and I didn't really
Speaker 1: think of it as someone that needed the union right
Speaker 1: to do the things that unions really kind of like
Speaker 1: is the bread and butter of unions, which is like
Speaker 1: coming in and like helping you when you need help
Speaker 1: as an individual worker, and you know, when you're not
Speaker 1: in the middle of like a contract negotiation. And I
Speaker 1: got sick with long COVID and lost. We had negotiated
Speaker 1: this great you know, like COVID six pay polow see,
Speaker 1: and management just took that away without like from me,
Speaker 1: without really giving any notice or you know, explaination why.
Speaker 1: And you sit there trying to get like the help
Speaker 1: that you need from your Union's like I'm trying to
Speaker 1: explain why it is that, like this is a problem
Speaker 1: for me to our labor rep who's like our they
Speaker 1: called them business agents. Labor reps whatever. There are people
Speaker 1: who basically are paid out of our dues to kind
Speaker 1: of help us in theory like stay organized and be
Speaker 1: pushing management to do, you know, to follow the contract.
Speaker 1: And it got to the point where like my partner
Speaker 1: who's like is like literally screaming at the labor repel.
Speaker 1: I'm on the phone with the labor rep and she's
Speaker 1: you know, it's just like what the fuck is your
Speaker 1: union even doing? Like why are they not making sure
Speaker 1: that you are taking care of And it was like
Speaker 1: this really like come to Jesus moment where you're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: like this union ship isn't just like you know, flat
Speaker 1: tudes about like we need a ratio bill in Illinois
Speaker 1: or you know, Medicare for all or Bernie Sanders. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: this shit is actually like about my material well being
Speaker 1: and like my family still hasn't recovered from all that
Speaker 1: because they only you know, after an enormous amount of
Speaker 1: pressure was put on staff, they finally started looking into
Speaker 1: it and we got you know, payouts for not just me,
Speaker 1: but for ten other nurses who had had their COVID
Speaker 1: pay like cut, you like really unjust ways and really
Speaker 1: opened my eyes as to like what a union should
Speaker 1: be doing. Um, and it really opened my eyes that
Speaker 1: maybe there's a problem with how staff interact with us
Speaker 1: as workers, because like there should be you know, we
Speaker 1: try and like say, like you know, there's a service
Speaker 1: union service business or service unionism, and then there's rank
Speaker 1: and value unionism and we have this weird situation sharing
Speaker 1: union where they tell us where a rank and file
Speaker 1: democratic union, except the staff kind of treat us like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a business union. So we get told
Speaker 1: one thing, but then we see another thing and like
Speaker 1: not that I think that like, uh, it's you know,
Speaker 1: the whole point of a union, you kind of pull
Speaker 1: together to take care of people who can't necessarily take
Speaker 1: care of themselves. In that moment, and like it just
Speaker 1: took an enormous amount of effort on my family's part
Speaker 1: to like get that moving, and it just seemed incredibly
Speaker 1: it was as very eye opening for me as a
Speaker 1: you know, my experience here in Chicago. No, that that's
Speaker 1: really bleak. I mean that that's another thing that you
Speaker 1: would you know, you would expect a union like to
Speaker 1: just be on top of not not even just a
Speaker 1: sort of oh well, you asked them and they started
Speaker 1: doing it like you you would think that, hey, the
Speaker 1: people who got COVID doing this job not getting paid
Speaker 1: what they're supposed to be getting paid would be like
Speaker 1: priority and not something you have to fight them over.
Speaker 1: That is is incredibly crim I don't know, well, I
Speaker 1: haven't a story for you. So my first year working
Speaker 1: at out to Bates. Before that, I was working in
Speaker 1: Swallow hospitals and they gave you certain packages about your benefits.
Speaker 1: So when it was time for me to give my benefits,
Speaker 1: I couldn't give my benefits at all because during that
Speaker 1: time they were doing it at the yearly. So I said,
Speaker 1: is there any way possible at least to get something,
Speaker 1: because mind you, they are and for my benefits, I'm
Speaker 1: not paying for it anything for it that there should
Speaker 1: be a reason because if I had any medical issues,
Speaker 1: what would happen? And basically the union was very lackluster
Speaker 1: about it. Now, of course I went to the manager,
Speaker 1: went to human resource. Basically they basically told me, where
Speaker 1: there's eighteen hundred nurses, and you know what we're going
Speaker 1: to do about this issue, and pretty much it was.
Speaker 1: It has pretty much disappeared about it. There was nothing
Speaker 1: I could do so for that whole year. So I
Speaker 1: worked in January of two fifteen, I had to wait
Speaker 1: till the following year to get benefits. To get medical benefits,
Speaker 1: jes Now, I got everything else, so be honest, I
Speaker 1: got everything else, But the medical benefits is important. But
Speaker 1: thank god I don't have any health issues. Thank god
Speaker 1: my daughters didn't have any health issues where we didn't
Speaker 1: require any help and there wasn't in an emergency. But
Speaker 1: when I started noticing there were other nurses or teas
Speaker 1: that were spirits of the same thing. Because a lot
Speaker 1: of us got hired within that time frame, they weren't
Speaker 1: telling us these issues, and we would end up getting
Speaker 1: these things sooner. And it's all about transparency, it's all
Speaker 1: about our value. And then over the years, people always complain,
Speaker 1: I'm paying these dues, why are they not helping? Why
Speaker 1: are not supportive? And when I was actually hired, they
Speaker 1: were quick to give you the paperwork to tell you
Speaker 1: how to pay this. Also they could take money off
Speaker 1: your dues quicker than what about the history about the union?
Speaker 1: Why is the history is? Why is the union important?
Speaker 1: And what you can do if there's a grievemance? There
Speaker 1: was none of that, and to this day it's still
Speaker 1: the same thing because I precept new grads and I
Speaker 1: tell them about, you know, part of the union. What
Speaker 1: he got. Oh I didn't get a booklet or oh
Speaker 1: I didn't hear anything about it, but I got this
Speaker 1: paper here so they could take out my dues. That's
Speaker 1: what pisses me off of anything. Is that part so so?
Speaker 1: And then all this stuff dealing with what Eric has
Speaker 1: told you, what we've been doing with the strikes and
Speaker 1: the negotiations meet. Personally, we should have done negotiated within
Speaker 1: the first year the pandemic, and I think we got everything,
Speaker 1: but they were quick to say, no, we're going to
Speaker 1: get all these facilities all together at one and so
Speaker 1: we can all negotiate. And then the gag order happened,
Speaker 1: the slam of the gag order, and I'm like, there
Speaker 1: is a lot of collusion going on and that shit
Speaker 1: needs to stop. So I mean things that they don't
Speaker 1: really tell us, which I think is really a thing
Speaker 1: that we want to resolve, is they don't really inform
Speaker 1: you of what your union rights are. You kind of
Speaker 1: get the initial like here's your wine garden rights, which
Speaker 1: means that you have a right to representation whenever you're
Speaker 1: being disciplined. But aside from that, there's very little discussion
Speaker 1: inside of our union facilities, in particular about the kinds
Speaker 1: of things that we have as like union members, what
Speaker 1: our rights are, what are our rights within the union,
Speaker 1: how the union works. So many of my co workers
Speaker 1: don't like a big part of our work is just
Speaker 1: explaining that there's an election happening. And so you would
Speaker 1: hear that an election had happened maybe and you know,
Speaker 1: you would be like, well, who voted? I don't know,
Speaker 1: like and you'd get these like, you know, all of
Speaker 1: the communication from about the election to us as the
Speaker 1: people who are like the you know, the opposition has
Speaker 1: all been in these very like plane plane envelopes that
Speaker 1: don't look like anything like it could be like just
Speaker 1: an anonymous bill you wouldn't know or junk mail, and
Speaker 1: so like, you know, as a union member, you have
Speaker 1: something called a right to represent representation. So and every union,
Speaker 1: every union employee and elected officer is considered a fiduciary,
Speaker 1: has a fiduciary obligation to look out for your financial
Speaker 1: interest us and if they don't do that, it's called
Speaker 1: a failure to represent our union in particular, Spends had
Speaker 1: brags internally about never having a They called them unfair
Speaker 1: labor practice. Like if a nurse or any worker in
Speaker 1: any union decides that their union, you know, did not
Speaker 1: represent them their financial interests, they can file something called
Speaker 1: an unfair labor practice claim for failure to represent. Our
Speaker 1: union is like they've never had an unfair labor practice claim.
Speaker 1: Stick We've foy had one of their unfair labor practice claims,
Speaker 1: and somehow it got like withdrawn like in this really
Speaker 1: like sketchy way, and it was like just a random
Speaker 1: one that we picked to to see what happened, and
Speaker 1: so then it got like assigned like a special like
Speaker 1: liaison like afterwards, like they're like, oh, we weren't supposed
Speaker 1: to do that, like when we contacted the Department of Labor,
Speaker 1: We're going to look at that again and figure out
Speaker 1: what's going on with it. And it also turns out
Speaker 1: when we started doing research, which I think every union
Speaker 1: member listening to this should know, every union has to
Speaker 1: file paperwork they're legal. There's legally mandated reporting. So there's
Speaker 1: things called LM two's and nine nineties that you can
Speaker 1: get from the Office of labor management. You google them
Speaker 1: and they'll figure you can search for your own union
Speaker 1: and you get to see the union finances. And we
Speaker 1: found out that there's like forty two million dollars that
Speaker 1: our unions chief in the bank account. And this goes
Speaker 1: to there is an article it was in Jacobin I'm
Speaker 1: not sure about like the financialization of unions, and we're
Speaker 1: like forty two million dollars. What is that? It's like
Speaker 1: and they, you know, unions will brags like, oh, we've
Speaker 1: got a forty two million dollars war chest, but like,
Speaker 1: what are we spending that forty two million dollars on?
Speaker 1: Is it to like fight arbitrations and constantly be making
Speaker 1: like our like working conditions better and taking fights to
Speaker 1: the bosses? And is like no, Actually, what they're doing
Speaker 1: is they're spending that money on settling unfairly for practice
Speaker 1: claims so they don't actually officially stick. And even against uh,
Speaker 1: you know, isn't to go to war against our you
Speaker 1: know supposed you know, I mean to go to war
Speaker 1: against management. It's to go to war against kind of us.
Speaker 1: And you think about it, it's just it's just so
Speaker 1: wild when you start digging into this stuff it's just crazy. Um, Eric,
Speaker 1: you want to tell them about the office at Oakland. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so obviously we're in the heart of the empire. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, I live of just a few miles from
Speaker 1: the CIENA headquarters and I've been there many times prior
Speaker 1: to the pandemic. Um, you know, and I have taken
Speaker 1: part in lobbying in Washington, DC on behalf of the union.
Speaker 1: You know, nurses from all across the country that are
Speaker 1: in the Union go to DC and we lobby for uh,
Speaker 1: you know, not only for single payer UH and Medicare
Speaker 1: for all, but you know, individual bills that will benefit
Speaker 1: nurses across the country, whether they're in the union or not.
Speaker 1: And you know, I'm very familiar with it. I've lobbied
Speaker 1: in Sacramento, and I've bent to the NNU convention in Minnesota.
Speaker 1: So I've met a lot of nurses across our union.
Speaker 1: In fact, it's one of the when you do that,
Speaker 1: that's about the only time you get to reach out
Speaker 1: and see other union members. One of the things I
Speaker 1: will tell you that John and I and the person
Speaker 1: that's not on the call right now is Mark Goodick.
Speaker 1: He is an American citizen now, but he was a
Speaker 1: Canadian nurse before, and he is right now working on
Speaker 1: our campaign video to introduce us to a broader audience.
Speaker 1: And that's why he's not on the call tonight. We
Speaker 1: should be intermingling and talking with other nurses across the country.
Speaker 1: I should not be siloed here in Oakland and not
Speaker 1: knowing that what a nurse is doing in Texas. And yeah,
Speaker 1: we need to be part of our pledges that we
Speaker 1: need to join hands across this country. Every nurse needs
Speaker 1: to see. We need to digitalize our contract. We need
Speaker 1: to see University of Chicago's contract digitalized. We need to
Speaker 1: be sharing our contracts so we know what good things
Speaker 1: that maybe they got in Texas, or what good things
Speaker 1: they got at the University of Chicago, or what good
Speaker 1: things we have in our contract. We need to see
Speaker 1: that nurses can say, hey, I want that language. We
Speaker 1: need to be sharing that. I don't know why it's
Speaker 1: not happening or why it's just at the upper tiers
Speaker 1: of union management that they see these things, but we
Speaker 1: need to be joined together. No more siloing nurses. You
Speaker 1: know altivates the nurses stay in your lane, Kaiser nurses
Speaker 1: stay in your lane. University of Chicago stay in. You're like, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: we need to be one fighting body for the betterment
Speaker 1: of nurses. Uh doubt. You know, it's amazing when you
Speaker 1: find out that we have a beautiful building that the
Speaker 1: Union purchased in downtown Oakland. Um. You know, they only
Speaker 1: occupy a few floors of it and they rent out
Speaker 1: the rest, and you know what, it is a fabulous
Speaker 1: building and it would be great for it to be
Speaker 1: a headquarters where we're we're not just fighting and lobbying
Speaker 1: for Democratic politicians, but we're actually fighting for nurses at
Speaker 1: the bedside. And that's what you know, our whole mission
Speaker 1: is that we're going to be running for is for
Speaker 1: the council presidents. We need to take the macro focus
Speaker 1: down to what is happening at the bedside for every
Speaker 1: nurse across the country and make the change for the
Speaker 1: better for them. And that's the big difference here. I'm
Speaker 1: all for an activist union and I think and we
Speaker 1: have been, the Union is active, and you know climate
Speaker 1: change and you know how the environment affects the community.
Speaker 1: These things are important, but it's more important that we
Speaker 1: take care of the nurses at the bedside and offer
Speaker 1: opportunities for those nurses who want to be involved to
Speaker 1: make the community better. We need to have those resources
Speaker 1: available for them. And if we make nurses lives at
Speaker 1: the bedside better, we're going to have more nurses available
Speaker 1: to make the community better. And that's what we need
Speaker 1: to be working on. It is a it is going
Speaker 1: to be a fight. I can't be more more honest
Speaker 1: than to tell you we are David versus Goliath. We
Speaker 1: are four nurses who really have no big national exposure,
Speaker 1: but the most important thing we have is that we're
Speaker 1: bedside nurses and we know what's important for bedside nurses.
Speaker 1: I do want to say, like, there's four of us
Speaker 1: who are running for the for the council presidents, but
Speaker 1: we would not be even talking to you if we
Speaker 1: didn't have like at least one hundred nurses all over
Speaker 1: like the hospitals that we're based in, like doing the
Speaker 1: work of building our campaign. So I do want to
Speaker 1: point out that, like, because like our slate is like
Speaker 1: free white guys and it's RAINA, and RAINA is like
Speaker 1: and we want to make sure that we're not that
Speaker 1: it's we made. The choice that we made was not
Speaker 1: you know, us coming together as four individuals being like,
Speaker 1: we should fix the union by ourselves. It was this
Speaker 1: we keep mentioning labor notes, there's a healthcare worker chat
Speaker 1: with a fair number of nurses in our union. And
Speaker 1: we noticed that there was an election coming up. And
Speaker 1: this is also at the time when both altbates was
Speaker 1: having their issues. And then in Cook County we had
Speaker 1: a particularly traumatic firing of a very popular staffer who
Speaker 1: without any without any input from the local nurses or
Speaker 1: elected local nurse leadership. And we got together and we
Speaker 1: all were like, what are we going to do? This
Speaker 1: is crazy? And we had people like we are like, well,
Speaker 1: who would do? Like we have this opportunity and if
Speaker 1: we run as a slate, we can do things like
Speaker 1: get access to we can send emails out to other
Speaker 1: nurses and break down those silos connect nurses from across
Speaker 1: the country. And we're like, well, if we don't do anything,
Speaker 1: we're kind of stuck in this kind of like square one.
Speaker 1: You know, a few small hospitals talking to each other,
Speaker 1: not small, but you know a few hospitals talking to
Speaker 1: each other, still struggling against like these kind of silos
Speaker 1: that have been constructed for us by staff and we
Speaker 1: had a vote and there was you know, over twenty
Speaker 1: nurses all together raise their hands and where like, we
Speaker 1: could do this with an imperfect group of people that
Speaker 1: we recognize asn't like the fully representative of everyone in
Speaker 1: the union, but are fully committed to democratizing the union,
Speaker 1: or we could sit and wait. And a nurse who
Speaker 1: had been in the union for a very long time
Speaker 1: and she's now retired, said, if you all don't take
Speaker 1: this chance, you don't know what could happen in you know,
Speaker 1: three years from now union could be completely different. And
Speaker 1: so two thirds of everyone in that call said it's
Speaker 1: time to go, and we don't care. We would rather
Speaker 1: that you run and take that swing and maybe get
Speaker 1: big for all of us. So a big part of
Speaker 1: what we're doing is like I've got a meeting with
Speaker 1: you know, cook counting nurses on Thursday, and they're all
Speaker 1: basically going to come to me and tell me all
Speaker 1: the shit that I need to do for them, not
Speaker 1: the other way around. When you're the rank and file leadership,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like taking that pyramid and you invert it, right.
Speaker 1: The people who are matter the most are the regular
Speaker 1: bedside nurses and all we can do as like people
Speaker 1: who step up into that role is we take that.
Speaker 1: We take that heat and put ourselves out there so
Speaker 1: that we can enact what our co workers are asking
Speaker 1: us for. I literally have co workers walking up to
Speaker 1: me completely unsolicited. I'm a very like I'm not walking
Speaker 1: around telling I like I told a few people up
Speaker 1: front in the beginning, because I was like, all right,
Speaker 1: you're about to see my face on some flyers, let
Speaker 1: me tell you why. Um. But I now have coworkers
Speaker 1: coming to me and they're like, John, you've got to
Speaker 1: tell me what's going on because I heard a little
Speaker 1: bit about it and I need to help you. I'm
Speaker 1: just like, okay, it's very it's like it's a little
Speaker 1: bit like a drug. But I have to be careful because,
Speaker 1: like I like, I can't let this whole thing like
Speaker 1: none of this. We all have to stay humble as
Speaker 1: we're doing this. Because all four of us, John, all
Speaker 1: four of us were volunteering to help other people to
Speaker 1: run exactly. We were like, okay, we're here, you know,
Speaker 1: John Mark raining on myself. We're here to help you.
Speaker 1: Guys who's running now, I'm going to help you. We're
Speaker 1: gonna help you and and then it's like the crickets,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's like and it goes to show
Speaker 1: exactly what happened. It goes to show how impoverished. The
Speaker 1: internal to mycy of our union is that people who
Speaker 1: are leaders already did not feel comfortable or prepared to
Speaker 1: take on that kind of leadership role. You know, these
Speaker 1: are nurses who have been in our union for decades,
Speaker 1: who are taking fights to their bosses all the time already,
Speaker 1: and they did not feel that they knew enough about
Speaker 1: the union because there's an intentional I believe, like obscuring
Speaker 1: of how the union works. And that's like how you
Speaker 1: end up with a situation where people are like, well,
Speaker 1: I guess we're just kicking the door down for all
Speaker 1: these people who we know will be doing it better
Speaker 1: when when we get it situated so that they can
Speaker 1: do it better. It's amazing, though, to tell us that
Speaker 1: an America and History class, or you have Civics class,
Speaker 1: you learn about the US government, right, you know how
Speaker 1: it functions, how it runs. But when it comes to
Speaker 1: our union, we were all asking each other, you know,
Speaker 1: we're putting pieces together. Oh wait, I know the council presidents. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: how does this person fit into it? How does the
Speaker 1: board fit into this? Well, how does the election run?
Speaker 1: How is it done? We had no We had to
Speaker 1: search out the answers. We had to call all sorts
Speaker 1: of people, and we were only getting bits and pieces.
Speaker 1: There should be a clear outline of how you run
Speaker 1: a democracy and a union. I mean, it shouldn't even
Speaker 1: be that difficult. You know, obviously there'd be specific rules
Speaker 1: for the union, but they shouldn't be occluded. They should
Speaker 1: be you know, there shouldn't be occulted from the members.
Speaker 1: We should clearly know how you step forward to be
Speaker 1: a more of a contributing member to the union, to
Speaker 1: run and to serve the others in the union. And
Speaker 1: that was an amazing thing that we're finding out amongst
Speaker 1: each other. It's like, wow, how does our union run?
Speaker 1: I mean how? Why is it difficult to find out
Speaker 1: these things? And I mean I don't think it's insurmountable
Speaker 1: for us. I don't think that should disqualify us. I
Speaker 1: don't think if we can step in and do healthcare
Speaker 1: in a pandemic, we can very easily learn how to
Speaker 1: how the union functions, and a quick, a quick little tutorial.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's going to be a big deal
Speaker 1: for us, but yeah, it's pretty amazing. If we're talking
Speaker 1: about democracy in the Union. How is it that it
Speaker 1: takes I mean, to find the buy laws. We can
Speaker 1: all tell you it took a tremendous amount of effort
Speaker 1: to find the by laws that are used runs by.
Speaker 1: Hold On, hold on, let me tell sorry about the bylaws.
Speaker 1: So we have a nurse in Chicago who decided to
Speaker 1: make a pain of themselves about how to get the
Speaker 1: by laws, and then instead they went to the union
Speaker 1: be like, I want to see the by laws. I
Speaker 1: want to see the by laws, and they were less
Speaker 1: like you know like, and they give them the runaround.
Speaker 1: And essentially they gave him he got a personally delivered
Speaker 1: envelope that was like a photocopy of a photocopy of
Speaker 1: the photocopy of the by laws. And it's funny because
Speaker 1: the legally the by laws are all spopos to be
Speaker 1: filed with the federal government. And like, from our pressure
Speaker 1: and organizing to figure out how our union worked, they
Speaker 1: had to publish the newest set of by laws and
Speaker 1: on the federal reporting websites. I was in Oakland in
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen for the Global Nurse Assembly, and there was
Speaker 1: an after party and it was a bunch of staffers
Speaker 1: and like, you know, some nurses and you know, just
Speaker 1: chit chatting, and I was like, man, be really good.
Speaker 1: I told the story about you know, like the you know,
Speaker 1: the nurse you tried to get by finally got a
Speaker 1: copy of the by laws to you know, some of
Speaker 1: these one of these staffers, like, man, it'd be really
Speaker 1: great if we, you know, could figure out how are
Speaker 1: you know, getting hints for other union works, and just
Speaker 1: as like, good luck with that, and they just disappeared.
Speaker 1: Ways I'm not yeah, I mean because because what we're
Speaker 1: finding is that at any staff that helped nurses learn
Speaker 1: how the union works find themselves out of a job.
Speaker 1: Like that's what's really that's what really sketches everyone out
Speaker 1: is when like people, I mean, you all can tell
Speaker 1: tell the story about the staffer who like got random foul.
Speaker 1: So I will tell you that there are a lot
Speaker 1: of great labor refers, a lot of really great people
Speaker 1: out there, But to tell you that they would communicate
Speaker 1: with us, because obviously I told you I've done all
Speaker 1: these other actions, so I know a lot of people,
Speaker 1: and they have my personal number just because we would
Speaker 1: you know, when we're in other cities, you know, you
Speaker 1: text each other and hey, we're at this place, now
Speaker 1: where do we meet you? Etc. So we were getting
Speaker 1: texts from some labor reps in the union saying, you know,
Speaker 1: you guys need to stand tall. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of us supporting you. We can't come out and publicly
Speaker 1: support you because we'll get fired. What So. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: we were getting these texts from the labor reps saying
Speaker 1: what they're doing to you is wrong, and they were
Speaker 1: you know, we actually got together and we we wanted
Speaker 1: to go out on strike in October, and we were
Speaker 1: getting this runaround from a group of this I thought
Speaker 1: they were it was just an inner cabal. Little did
Speaker 1: I know that it probably extends throughout the you know,
Speaker 1: the organization, but that they were telling us that there
Speaker 1: was no need for a strike, and it seemed they
Speaker 1: were trying to just pressure us into taking a pretty
Speaker 1: lowball contract. And so we're getting push you know, the
Speaker 1: good labor reps are texting us like stick it, stick
Speaker 1: to it, stick to it. And we actually got a
Speaker 1: postcard campaign and we actually drove up to the executive
Speaker 1: director's house in Sacramento, knocked on our door and delivered
Speaker 1: five hundred some postcards that we organized on our own,
Speaker 1: not not with you know, it wasn't a union driven,
Speaker 1: it was just nurses union, nurses driven, and we delivered
Speaker 1: postcards saying we want to go out on stripe, and
Speaker 1: the union, of course still fought us on it, but
Speaker 1: we were allowed to go out on stripe. And there's
Speaker 1: a video of us confronting the executive director at our
Speaker 1: strike line, asking her why we were gagged, why the
Speaker 1: mediator gagged us, and she clearly didn't know what was
Speaker 1: going She said, the mediator wouldn't dag you, Why would
Speaker 1: they gag you? So she didn't even know what was
Speaker 1: going on at our table. We then got we were
Speaker 1: contacted and they we were told, oh my god, they're
Speaker 1: running around like chickens with their heads cut off because
Speaker 1: they're petrified that they might use their jobs, that they've
Speaker 1: been exposed to what they've been doing to you. And
Speaker 1: so one of the labor reps that used to work
Speaker 1: for us, she used to be at our hospital, and
Speaker 1: then she moved along and she was at Suttersilano and
Speaker 1: her nurses were asking Hey, did you see this video
Speaker 1: of this speech Eric made on this you know, at
Speaker 1: the strike line. And it was a speech where I
Speaker 1: kind of excoriated the union about why they would gag us,
Speaker 1: that that wasn't you know, we needed to be united
Speaker 1: and we didn't need a union, you know, working behind
Speaker 1: our back. They needed to stand with us. And so
Speaker 1: she says, well, let's see. So she was looking at
Speaker 1: the video on her Union cell phone and with the negotiators,
Speaker 1: nurse negotiators at her hospitals at Arsalana, who were also
Speaker 1: in negotiations with us that we weren't supposed to talk
Speaker 1: to because you know, the mediator forbade us. So she's
Speaker 1: showing the video and they thought because she was formerly
Speaker 1: at our hospital, that she was our inside scoop for
Speaker 1: all this information, I can swear to God and take
Speaker 1: a lie detector test. I had one exchange with her
Speaker 1: during like the twenty one months that we were negotiating,
Speaker 1: and it was at a joint Bargaining Council meeting on
Speaker 1: zoom where they kept the union kept muting us on
Speaker 1: zoom and prevent and preventing us from writing in the
Speaker 1: chat because we were saying we want to go out
Speaker 1: on strike. We want to go out on strike. And
Speaker 1: next thing you know, we would find out we couldn't
Speaker 1: type in the in the chat. So I texted her
Speaker 1: and says, can you see this, I'm trying to write
Speaker 1: in the chat and I'm forbidden from writing in the chat.
Speaker 1: They muted me, they I can't type in and she goes,
Speaker 1: I'm feel for you, buddy, I feel for you. That
Speaker 1: was my only exchange with her that caused her and
Speaker 1: the fact that her nurses asked her to look at
Speaker 1: this video with them, that's what cost her her job.
Speaker 1: She's it was. It was clearly guilt by association and
Speaker 1: the charges were outrageous for her. We had labor reps
Speaker 1: leave because they just felt that it was they couldn't
Speaker 1: live with themselves with what they were doing to the nurses.
Speaker 1: It was incredible for them that they're here to work
Speaker 1: for the nurses, there to work for the most progressive
Speaker 1: union in the country, and it was a fraud. That's
Speaker 1: been like a big, like consistent problem is that we
Speaker 1: know that they're busting their own like the staff are
Speaker 1: supposed to have a union, The staff have their own contract,
Speaker 1: and that's a normal thing inside unions, right, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: to keep you know, we believe in or that every
Speaker 1: worker who you know works for wages should be in
Speaker 1: a union. And we have seen time and again that
Speaker 1: like the like the contracts, that they've busted their own unions,
Speaker 1: so like that they've there was a slate that was
Speaker 1: run of nurses in our not nurses of the staffers.
Speaker 1: I think it was in twenty twenty one where they
Speaker 1: were like trying to get something together to change you know,
Speaker 1: things inside you know, how they relate to their management.
Speaker 1: And and several of those uh staff are we're basically
Speaker 1: illegally fired. So this is like I mean, and I
Speaker 1: know you keep saying Jesus a lot, but like there's
Speaker 1: a reason, you know me, I wouldn't be running into
Speaker 1: this sort of situation if it wasn't like so like
Speaker 1: out of this world. The stories that we hear, and
Speaker 1: they're the same. This is what's disturbing, is it? And
Speaker 1: it's because the union is baited. Like I was just
Speaker 1: talking to a lawyer today. She was looking over the
Speaker 1: by laws of our union and she's like, this is
Speaker 1: set up like a local like it's one big local union.
Speaker 1: It's got like a tiny little committee of people who
Speaker 1: are making the decisions of affect or we believe that
Speaker 1: it's mostly the director non nurse director staff that make
Speaker 1: the decisions, but these four people kind of rubber stamp
Speaker 1: them and that they make decisions for one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty you know, thousands some on nurses and it's so centralized.
Speaker 1: You know, this is one of the things is describe
Speaker 1: as like it's almost irresponsible because you know, we live
Speaker 1: in you know, you know, crazy times, and all it
Speaker 1: takes is one wrong election or bad decision and Supreme
Speaker 1: Court and it would literally our union could be dissolved
Speaker 1: with like you know, if they just arrested you know
Speaker 1: a handful of people and uh and froze our bank accounts.
Speaker 1: And a big part of our goal is to help
Speaker 1: disperse those resources out into foster more local leaderships so
Speaker 1: that any event that you know, something you know, like
Speaker 1: that terrible happens like that, we're not caught without anything.
Speaker 1: Because the way it situated now is we have this
Speaker 1: massive concentration of of all of the decision making and
Speaker 1: resources in a very small group of hands, and most
Speaker 1: of these people are are not have never been nurses,
Speaker 1: or if they've been nurses. They've been out of practice
Speaker 1: for so long that they wouldn't know how. I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe they can put band aids on. I don't need to, like,
Speaker 1: I don't want to disparage anybody. You know, a nurse
Speaker 1: is a nurse. I know nurses. You know, you learn
Speaker 1: it and you learn a lot of things. It's really important,
Speaker 1: great skill, but there's something to be in practice. If I,
Speaker 1: you know, I can walk back into the medical issue
Speaker 1: I used to work in, you know now it's going
Speaker 1: on like five years and be the same nurse that
Speaker 1: I was when I was at the peak of my
Speaker 1: practice there. And there's a real key thing too. I
Speaker 1: think we're all committed. None of us are doing this
Speaker 1: because we want to be the face of California Nurses
Speaker 1: Association National Nurses United for the next twenty like thirty years.
Speaker 1: We're doing this because we feel that there's a real
Speaker 1: value to there being a continual turnover in leadership, new ideas,
Speaker 1: people bringing in new energy. We think that nurses should
Speaker 1: have the opportunity to work release time so that they
Speaker 1: could see how the union works as staffers from the
Speaker 1: inside and then go back to the regular jobs. We're
Speaker 1: doing everything we can to like I like my job.
Speaker 1: I think my job is great. I don't want to
Speaker 1: leave my job. But doing what we can to bring
Speaker 1: our mentality as those bedside nurses to the sensibility of
Speaker 1: running the union, because nursing does give you a lot
Speaker 1: of really powerful tools, as like you have to be
Speaker 1: able to listen to people. We're not listening a lot tonight,
Speaker 1: but you know, we've got to talk and get the
Speaker 1: word out. Being able to kind of see. A big
Speaker 1: thing we see is like, you know, you have a
Speaker 1: lot of people who will tell you things and then
Speaker 1: they act in a different way. And that's a big
Speaker 1: part of nursing practices, being able to understand what people's
Speaker 1: real deal is, and you know, it's kind of that's
Speaker 1: one of the things where it's real frustrating, is like
Speaker 1: we know when people are lying to us, Like I know,
Speaker 1: we all know when like the staff are lying to us.
Speaker 1: Nurses do have bullshit detectors, that's for sure. You know.
Speaker 1: I slept through the class in nursing school where they
Speaker 1: teach you how to grow eyes in the back of
Speaker 1: your head. The class I slept through where they teach
Speaker 1: you to get a through arm. And I really regret
Speaker 1: sleeping through the class where they teach you how nurse
Speaker 1: mitosis like being able to asexually reproduce an extra nurse.
Speaker 1: But I definitely didn't sleep through the class where I
Speaker 1: can learn where I can see when someone is saying
Speaker 1: one thing and then but it's like what they're fucking
Speaker 1: lying to me? Yeah, And that's a that's like a
Speaker 1: constant theme. And that's one of the things that's driving
Speaker 1: a lot of our organizing is that a lot of
Speaker 1: people are tired of just being lied to by people
Speaker 1: who were paying their paychecks. And it's like and it's
Speaker 1: like they think that we I mean, we have staff informants, right,
Speaker 1: we know people inside staff who are allied with us.
Speaker 1: We know how they talk about us when we're not there.
Speaker 1: They talk about us like we can't figure this shit out,
Speaker 1: And it's like, motherfucker. I know how to keep a
Speaker 1: person alive who like who shouldn't be alive, Like I
Speaker 1: know how to walk a family through like you know,
Speaker 1: multiple family members with conflicting opinions through like an end
Speaker 1: of life discussion, and along with a doctor who can't
Speaker 1: really make up his mind, like you don't think it
Speaker 1: while I've got you know, like multiple pressors and like
Speaker 1: continuous dialysis. You don't think I can't figure out, Like
Speaker 1: when you are like telling us one thing and then
Speaker 1: another thing's happening. We know why they're canceling meetings right now.
Speaker 1: They don't want us talking to each other where we
Speaker 1: get that and this is kind of like it's it's
Speaker 1: almost like a feminist practice, like of women talking to
Speaker 1: each other makes men nervous, right, And it's like nurses
Speaker 1: talking to each other makes management nervous, and it sure
Speaker 1: as hell is making our union nervous. We want our
Speaker 1: union to be encouraging nurses talking to each other and
Speaker 1: not like discouraging it. And anytime someone is discouraging people
Speaker 1: from talking to each other who have similar concerns, that
Speaker 1: is an immediate you know, like Eric was saying the
Speaker 1: red flags. It's like this is the kind of thing
Speaker 1: that like this, it's like an almost an abusive relationship.
Speaker 1: You know, I would not be running if it wasn't
Speaker 1: this intense of a problem this has been. It could
Speaker 1: happen here. Join us tomorrow for two of the interview,
Speaker 1: where Shift Change discusses more of their vision for what
Speaker 1: the union could be in the meantime, you can find
Speaker 1: us on Twitter or Instagram That Happen Here pod, and
Speaker 1: you can find cool Zone Media the same place as
Speaker 1: at cool Zone Media. We've also posted a link in
Speaker 1: the description to Shift Changes go fund me if you
Speaker 1: want to help support their campaign. It could Happen Here
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