Speaker 1: It it could happen here. Yeah, that's the podcast that you're
Speaker 1: listening to. It's also the thing that is happening. The
Speaker 1: thing that is happening is it is a kind of
Speaker 1: rough time to be a transperson in the US and
Speaker 1: also in most other countries. And you know, we do
Speaker 1: a lot of episodes on this show about how it's
Speaker 1: rough and why it's rough and the specific things that
Speaker 1: are happening. But also sometimes we do we do the
Speaker 1: other part of the podcast, which is to put it
Speaker 1: back together part of the podcast, or in this one,
Speaker 1: I this is more of a bring to birth a
Speaker 1: new world from the ashes of the old episode. And
Speaker 1: in order to talk about doing that, we're talking to
Speaker 1: Samantha Medina, who's an organizer for Donut Workings United and
Speaker 1: also the Coalition of Independent Unions and Shineyid who is
Speaker 1: an organizer for the CiU and also the IWW. And yeah,
Speaker 1: both you two. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Hey, thanks for having us, good to be on.
Speaker 1: Great to talk to both of you. And so the
Speaker 1: specific thing that Yeah, I wanted to talk about today
Speaker 1: is the trans Day of Solidarity that is being organized
Speaker 1: in Portland right now. And Yeah, I wanted to I
Speaker 1: guess we should start with what is this event, who
Speaker 1: is doing it, and then we can get into why
Speaker 1: it is being done.
Speaker 3: Sure thing, So, the Trans Day of Solidarity is an
Speaker 3: event being put on right now by the Coalition of
Speaker 3: Independent Unions, and it's an event that's basically about both
Speaker 3: celebrating trans people in the labor movement and the worker's
Speaker 3: movement as a whole, highlighting the importance of workplace in
Speaker 3: union organizing for trans communities as a way for us
Speaker 3: both to survive but also to struggle towards our own liberation.
Speaker 3: And finally, it's a way of it's a way of
Speaker 3: sort of us clarifying how we can start using workplace
Speaker 3: struggle as a means of turning the tide against the
Speaker 3: current genocide.
Speaker 2: With this, Yeah, that covers most of it.
Speaker 4: I think the only thing that I'd like to add
Speaker 4: is a lot of what this event is around is
Speaker 4: bringing awareness to the trans community and specifically our experience
Speaker 4: within the labor movement and on the job. And it
Speaker 4: is a way, as Shaneide mentioned, to kind of like
Speaker 4: highlight exactly what unions do and can do for trans
Speaker 4: people well at the same time also giving us a
Speaker 4: moment to remind unions that they should be doing more.
Speaker 2: Even if what they're already.
Speaker 4: Doing is great, they could always do more. And especially
Speaker 4: in a time right now where trans people are facing
Speaker 4: the discriminations particular to us across this country right now,
Speaker 4: and as she mentioned, the world, but focusing on the
Speaker 4: United States, it's really important that the avenues that are
Speaker 4: there to protect us are aware.
Speaker 2: Of how it to protect us.
Speaker 4: So I think this is our opportunity to kind of
Speaker 4: remind unions to step it up a little bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean I think I think another thing
Speaker 1: that's kind of important about this in particular is, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know about bunch of YouTube are intimately aware of this.
Speaker 1: But I don't know if overrepresented is the right term.
Speaker 1: But like trans people, like literally right now in particular,
Speaker 1: are effectively the vanguard of new union organizing. They are
Speaker 1: you know, enormously like quote unquole, I guess, I guess
Speaker 1: overrepresentati or whatever that's the word you want to use
Speaker 1: in in you know, like among union organizers a lot
Speaker 1: of actually and then this I think is you know,
Speaker 1: another thing I'm excited about for this is that like
Speaker 1: y'all are kind of like at the forefront I guess
Speaker 1: of like what the new sort of union organizing stuff
Speaker 1: is and how it's how it's sort of you know,
Speaker 1: how how it's been working, and so like that the
Speaker 1: fact that this is like the one place where there's
Speaker 1: actually a lot of us and that you know, is
Speaker 1: a place where there's enough of us that it actually
Speaker 1: matters is important and that you know that that works
Speaker 1: in a lot of directions at the same At the
Speaker 1: same time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think it's good to acknowledge that, like, yeah,
Speaker 4: there are a lot of trans people that are organizing
Speaker 4: their workplaces. There's a lot of trans people taking part
Speaker 4: in their unions, and you know, a lot of that
Speaker 4: I think comes out of necessity, like if we're not
Speaker 4: there to discuss our needs with these unions or to
Speaker 4: create our own unions at a necessity where like maybe
Speaker 4: our CIS coworkers don't understand the struggle that we face
Speaker 4: on the shop floor, so.
Speaker 2: By reminding them, we're able to make it better. You know.
Speaker 4: Like all that's great and true and everything, but I
Speaker 4: think it's also really good to acknowledge that, like LGBTQ
Speaker 4: people in general, whether they just be trands or otherwise
Speaker 4: have been organizing and organizing their workplaces for decades now,
Speaker 4: So I think a lot of this like, yeah, we're
Speaker 4: seeing a lot more trans people involved, but we're also
Speaker 4: seeing a lot more recognition and visibility of trans people
Speaker 4: than ever bookedore right.
Speaker 3: Well, and part of the reason we're so involved is
Speaker 3: because it's a matter of basic survival. Right. The average
Speaker 3: trans masculine and non binary person make about seventy percent
Speaker 3: of the media and US wages, whereas transpendent people make
Speaker 3: sixty percent. And this is below like compared to SIS people.
Speaker 3: You know, that's that's wild, right. The level of homelessness,
Speaker 3: of discrimination of job, loss of hours being reduced, punishment
Speaker 3: of sexual harassment on the job is just you know,
Speaker 3: it's it's unconscionable, and it always has been, even in
Speaker 3: the good days. It was garbage and miserable and honestly
Speaker 3: took a lot of us out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean, you know, like part of part
Speaker 1: of the thing with that rud is like that all
Speaker 1: of that has knock on effects, right, you know, if
Speaker 1: you can't get a job and the job you can
Speaker 1: get pay less, A lot of this forces people, you know,
Speaker 1: like the rate of homelessness is unbelievably hot people get
Speaker 1: evicted constantly, and this, you know, this, this, this, all
Speaker 1: this ties together with sort of like transhousing struggles, because
Speaker 1: that's a huge thing. And yeah, the conferences, this is like, yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot more of us end up dead.
Speaker 1: And the way that we don't end up dead is
Speaker 1: by fight, is by fighting. And one of the places
Speaker 1: that you know, like one of the places we've gotten
Speaker 1: good at is fighting in the workplace.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And I like, I mean, I'm talking from my
Speaker 3: own experiences, you know, as an organizer and as an
Speaker 3: IWW member for god seventeen years now, Like wow, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's like I think about all the major campaigns that
Speaker 3: I've seen, and all of them, all of them have
Speaker 3: had trans people at as core organizers for each and
Speaker 3: every shop from the Canvasser's strikes to Burgerville to any
Speaker 3: number of like fast food shops and service sector shops
Speaker 3: and retail shops. Like every single time, there are folks
Speaker 3: that are are trends, that are playing key rules. Which
Speaker 3: is given that we're what probably between two and four
Speaker 3: percent of the population at least, uh, you know, at
Speaker 3: least according to current testaments, probably gonna be higher, but
Speaker 3: you know that's shouldn't be possible.
Speaker 2: Yes, that is shocked.
Speaker 3: It makes no sense except for the fact that well,
Speaker 3: survivability bias. Motherfuckers, it's this or we're dead.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like no, I mean yeah, very well, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: it's I.
Speaker 4: Mean that is the blatant truth, right, And I mean, like,
Speaker 4: even if we're not talking about life and death, I mean,
Speaker 4: it's the difference of whether we have access to a
Speaker 4: bathroom to you, you know, yeah, like you know, like yes,
Speaker 4: of course this is also about life and death. But like,
Speaker 4: you know, I think another thing that trans people based
Speaker 4: a lot is like access to health care, or really
Speaker 4: the lack thereof access to health care, and especially healthcare
Speaker 4: that will actually get us, you know, the medication that
Speaker 4: we need to be on or the surgeries that we need,
Speaker 4: because again, these are issues that help with dysphoria, and
Speaker 4: we all know the statistics on how dyspory affects people
Speaker 4: of all ages, and that is again a matter of
Speaker 4: life and death. So like, I don't think that's wrong
Speaker 4: to not sugarcoat that stagey.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right.
Speaker 3: And there's another side to it too, is that like
Speaker 3: this is also a point of community. This is a
Speaker 3: point of actually like folks from you know, it's meeting
Speaker 3: up with other trans folks, but it's also like working
Speaker 3: together with others, like with CIS coworkers and friends. Right,
Speaker 3: this is a point of belonging and togetherness and of
Speaker 3: being able to really be there for your neighbors and
Speaker 3: your friends and your coworkers in ways that like and
Speaker 3: to be a part of community, which is something that
Speaker 3: is often stripped of us. Right. Yes, it's about survival
Speaker 3: and it's about what we need to do in order
Speaker 3: to keep breathing, but it's also about we need to
Speaker 3: do to live, you know, to go beyond survival, to
Speaker 3: have joy and to have enough money to make it through,
Speaker 3: and you know, maybe people to actually have something for ourselves,
Speaker 3: maybe be able to not have the constant anxiety but
Speaker 3: instead spend more time being happy about who we are.
Speaker 3: Ceacy to overlook that, but again biased sample source, But
Speaker 3: almost all my fondest memories are from being side by
Speaker 3: side with my fellow workers.
Speaker 2: Right absolutely.
Speaker 4: And I think also, you know, like time's gone long
Speaker 4: enough now where you know, trans people are starting to
Speaker 4: be something that people are aware of, something people are
Speaker 4: talking about, whether.
Speaker 2: That's in the best ways or not. We're at least
Speaker 2: more than we.
Speaker 4: And I you know, I think like organizing in general
Speaker 4: community in general, whether that's you know, community, uh, within
Speaker 4: the city you live in, or within your workplace. You know,
Speaker 4: like a lot of our success at being able to
Speaker 4: live the lives that we want to have or be
Speaker 4: the people that we want to be and be respected
Speaker 4: for that really does come down to our family members,
Speaker 4: our co workers, our friends, and ultimately complete strangers who
Speaker 4: we need to rely on.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: I hate to use the word ally, but we need
Speaker 4: our allies more than ever, and it's about time that
Speaker 4: they step up to and that starts typically speaking in
Speaker 4: your community and in your workplace.
Speaker 2: I think it's also really.
Speaker 4: Good to address the fact that, like, you know, when
Speaker 4: we're talking about trans issues and organizing around them and
Speaker 4: like organizing the workplace in your community and all that, Like,
Speaker 4: it's it's also important to acknowledge how intersectional the trans experiences.
Speaker 4: And that's something I really wanted to try to We
Speaker 4: got talking about specifically about unions and things like that,
Speaker 4: because also unions are an incredibly intersectional piece of politics
Speaker 4: and life that we need to appreciate. Because when we
Speaker 4: talked about these statistics affecting trans people. They affect disabled
Speaker 4: trans people and black and brown trans people at much
Speaker 4: much more much high rates then they affect white trans people.
Speaker 4: And I think that unions being something and not just unions,
Speaker 4: I mean every aspect of organizing and community building really
Speaker 4: needs to pay attention to this.
Speaker 2: But I think this is something that is so ingrained
Speaker 2: in unions that unions have been fighting for this sort of.
Speaker 4: Protections that are very intersectional, you know, like whether they're
Speaker 4: protecting women in the workplace, whether they're protecting black and
Speaker 4: brown people, whether they're protecting disabled people, or whether they're
Speaker 4: protecting trans people. That is a large part of why
Speaker 4: you unions were established. You know, we talked about wages
Speaker 4: and working hours a lot, and that is all fine
Speaker 4: and dandy, and it's wonderful, and that's something that is
Speaker 4: a base core value of unions. But I don't think
Speaker 4: it's celebrated enough how much work unions did in equality
Speaker 4: in this country. And I think this is just a
Speaker 4: continuation of that tradition. And trans people just happen to
Speaker 4: be one of the largest topics right now, and we
Speaker 4: tend to have one of the largest targets on our
Speaker 4: back more than we've ever had before.
Speaker 2: And so yeah, I think that's why.
Speaker 4: We discussed unions in relation to this, because for you know,
Speaker 4: working class folk, that's where a lot of our organizing begins.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think I think it's actually honest, it's
Speaker 1: had an interesting impacts on the kind of union organizing
Speaker 1: as happening because you know, like one of one of
Speaker 1: the sort of consequences of transferbent discrimination in workplaces is
Speaker 1: that you get a lot of trans people in what
Speaker 1: is Okay, I refuse to call it service sector. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna there's gonna be a whole episode that's been yelling
Speaker 1: about the service sector that's coming to a recording thing
Speaker 1: near you, specifically like job jobs and fast food jobs
Speaker 1: that are very low wage, like high turnover things, and
Speaker 1: particularly fast who's been a very interesting because that's that's
Speaker 1: a sector that like a lot of trade unions just
Speaker 1: completely ignored, like they just gave up on and you know,
Speaker 1: like they've been starting to organize like Starbucks in the
Speaker 1: past few years, right, but like you know, like if
Speaker 1: you want to look at the people who've actually been
Speaker 1: trying to organize fast food workers, it turns out it's
Speaker 1: a bunch of trans people because because because who works,
Speaker 1: because who actually does this stuff?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: Turns out turns out.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a lot to be said about that, like
Speaker 4: with larger unions, and larger unions, especially within the trades,
Speaker 4: have done a lot of great work, you know, and
Speaker 4: that's the lovely and I appreciate them for that.
Speaker 2: But on the other hand, they really did turn their
Speaker 2: back on the service sector industry for the silliest reason possible,
Speaker 2: which is that.
Speaker 4: High turnover is just too difficult. And we want to
Speaker 4: talk about people, Yeah, it's just too difficult.
Speaker 2: You know, who wants.
Speaker 4: To organize something difficult, right, like that might cost too
Speaker 4: much money or not make them enough money, And which
Speaker 4: I find highly hypocritical of unions in general. I mean,
Speaker 4: like not of all unions, but like, if that is
Speaker 4: a stance that unions will take to not organize the
Speaker 4: service industry, being a union seems to be exactly why
Speaker 4: you would target those industries, right, because those are where
Speaker 4: workers needed most. And if we want to talk about
Speaker 4: high turnover rates being the reason, who do we think
Speaker 4: is affected the most by high turnover rates? You know,
Speaker 4: like it is hard to find a job as a
Speaker 4: trans person, let alone keep a job for any length
Speaker 4: of time, there's oftentimes no upward mobility for trans people
Speaker 4: in that job, and so you pace a variety of
Speaker 4: life issues when you're not making enough money, which inevitably
Speaker 4: leads to you losing your job and adding to the high.
Speaker 2: Turnover rates in these companies.
Speaker 4: This is exactly why, and we can get into you know,
Speaker 4: what we've been up to and what we're doing later,
Speaker 4: but that's exactly why the CiU and the IWW and
Speaker 4: other organizations like us do what we do is because
Speaker 4: we believe in helping the workers that need it most,
Speaker 4: who are underrepresented and not taken care of by the
Speaker 4: larger units.
Speaker 3: Because we are those workers, right, I mean, that is
Speaker 3: the thing we're able to do this and put you know,
Speaker 3: I mean, we'll put the fucking hours in because that's us.
Speaker 3: We're doing this because it's the only way out, right.
Speaker 3: So like when we schedule something like or like create
Speaker 3: an event like the trans Day of Solidarity, we're doing
Speaker 3: this because both on the backbone of years of experience,
Speaker 3: but especially like collectively but also bringing in new organizers
Speaker 3: because we knew how we can think back to how
Speaker 3: we were brought in, right, we can talk think back
Speaker 3: to our friends, our allies, and our especially our transfellow
Speaker 3: workers who were the ones who mentored us well before
Speaker 3: the tipping point in a lot of cases, right, because
Speaker 3: this is why we're here, and like thinking about who
Speaker 3: this affects, right, I mean, like it affects trans people deeply,
Speaker 3: and it can cut off our access to the healthcare
Speaker 3: that many, but not all of us very much need
Speaker 3: to keep going. And the threats above us, you know,
Speaker 3: only increase as the like you know, the oppressions you
Speaker 3: face are are increasing. Right, if you're a transpression of color,
Speaker 3: if you're disabled, like you were saying, right, like, shit
Speaker 3: gets worse, it gets harder, The sword over your head
Speaker 3: dangles a little closer, so we work to figure a
Speaker 3: way to get out from under it. But it's also
Speaker 3: like why the Trans Day of Solidarity, Like when we
Speaker 3: talk about it, it's it's an event that that is
Speaker 3: what it is because it's designed to not simply be
Speaker 3: us just speaking into the wind, but it's meant to
Speaker 3: be a practical thing. Right. The the whole event itself
Speaker 3: is is like a rally with you know, trans speakers
Speaker 3: from you know, a number of different shops and unions
Speaker 3: in town. But it's also then just quickly becomes a
Speaker 3: flying picket, right, And this is a tradition that I
Speaker 3: think we do miss a little bit in this country.
Speaker 3: The flying picket's an old one and it's a it's
Speaker 3: a fucking goldie. It's where you get a big old
Speaker 3: mob of people and you just start going to places
Speaker 3: all over your town and throwing fucking pickets. It's everything
Speaker 3: you love about a breakaway march and also a picket.
Speaker 3: At the same time, it has direct economic leverage to it.
Speaker 3: You can do you know people, it's it took a minute,
Speaker 3: but and you know this is also coming from someone
Speaker 3: who's organized in premierly in Portland, so there's a certain
Speaker 3: bias here. Your locale may have vary. But if you
Speaker 3: organize enough pickets in your city, people might cross them
Speaker 3: at first, they get a lot less likely to the
Speaker 3: more you do them over the years. So the more
Speaker 3: pickets to throw, the less likely people are to cross them.
Speaker 3: And if they are not likely to cross them, that
Speaker 3: impact that you know, increases their impact. So you know
Speaker 3: we're gonna be given our speech, is sure, and we
Speaker 3: are going to speak to our experiences. That's critical and
Speaker 3: then we're also going to ruin some people's day or
Speaker 3: you know, make their day if you're the.
Speaker 1: Workers, Yeah, ruin some bosses day exactly. Just always the
Speaker 1: best kind of day.
Speaker 3: Well, it's also part of the reason, listen, should bosses
Speaker 3: have good days? I'm going to go on a limb
Speaker 3: and say no never ever ever you want to, yeah,
Speaker 3: damn straight. At the bare minimum, you get at least
Speaker 3: one less good day than us.
Speaker 4: And you know what, you know what if the bosses
Speaker 4: don't like having these bad days, then they can just
Speaker 4: go find another job.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, it's not that same deal, right, They.
Speaker 3: Can actually contribute to their communities, you know, do some
Speaker 3: real work for a change, which in this case is
Speaker 3: sometimes just working a fucking tailla.
Speaker 1: That's okay, speaking speaking of things that suck, we need
Speaker 1: to take an ad break. This is the best ad
Speaker 1: pivot I've been able I've been able to think of
Speaker 1: in the last like six minutes. So we're taking it
Speaker 1: right now that we're going to get this good again
Speaker 1: and we're back. So one of one of the things
Speaker 1: that I also wanted to talk about is about I
Speaker 1: guess just talk a bit about what the Coalition of
Speaker 1: Independent Unions is and how it sort of formed, and yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know the sort of potentials they're in because
Speaker 1: it's a really interesting organization coalition.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 4: So the CiU, it's got a long history if we
Speaker 4: really dig deep into it, I mean, effectively, this idea
Speaker 4: started after organizing within Portland for the last gosh, I
Speaker 4: think people.
Speaker 2: May people have been organizing here forever.
Speaker 4: But let's say, how long ago did Burgerville Workers Union start, shanaan.
Speaker 3: Let's see, there's that's a question. If you want to
Speaker 3: talk about the official date we went public shore twenty sixteen.
Speaker 3: If you want to talk about the antecedents, you'll find
Speaker 3: it in the Industrial Research Organizing Group Precarious Workplace. No,
Speaker 3: it is Low Wage Worker Subcommittee the Portland General Membership
Speaker 3: Branch of the IWW circa August of twenty thirteen. Incredible,
Speaker 3: So you're welcome. Yeah, Oh honey, honey, I'm a whap.
Speaker 3: Do you know how many fucking acronyms do we have?
Speaker 3: Oh my god, listen the number of things I had
Speaker 3: to take the GMB when I was BST, despite not
Speaker 3: actually being the TA part of the BST, the only
Speaker 3: T part I'm not part of oh, I could tell
Speaker 3: you about the GOB and the GEB until the Cow's
Speaker 3: come home. But the point is they're antecedents. The CiU
Speaker 3: is a relatively new organization with deep roots in Portland.
Speaker 3: It kind of came out of the flurry of independent
Speaker 3: unions that kind of in fast food service and retail
Speaker 3: that flourished in the wake of the Burgerville Workers Union.
Speaker 3: Burgville Workers Union itself goes public in God, that was
Speaker 3: April of twenty sixteen, because of course it's been that
Speaker 3: fucking long. It was in the works a while before that, God.
Speaker 2: All those meetings.
Speaker 3: The earliest antecedents are arguably the Portland General Membership branch
Speaker 3: of the IWW's Industrial Organizing Research Group, the Precarious Worker Subgroup,
Speaker 3: or maybe it was the Low Wage Workers Subgroup August
Speaker 3: of thirteen. But that's anteceedus, right. This kind of goes public.
Speaker 3: This itself is built on, you know, the Jimmy Johns
Speaker 3: Workers Union, especially around the Twin Cities and earlier in
Speaker 3: the two thousands, and then of course before that, the
Speaker 3: Starbucks Workers Union that had multiple different campaign flourishings. I
Speaker 3: think the earliest in the late nineties early aughts in
Speaker 3: New York City on which honestly you'll see some articles
Speaker 3: mention this, on which the foundations of the modern Starbucks
Speaker 3: Workers United now rests. So what we've seen now in
Speaker 3: the wake of all of this shit, right is you
Speaker 3: have an incredibly militant working class coming forward and they
Speaker 3: start popping off. They're not waiting for permission from any
Speaker 3: org to just start fucking organizing their workplace, sometimes filing
Speaker 3: for union elections, sometimes not the ones that have been
Speaker 3: filing for contracts. There are, i have complicated feelings, but
Speaker 3: there are real gains you can make from contracts, right
Speaker 3: that it is a lot easier to get certain victories
Speaker 3: than you can in others. Now, there's also limitations, right,
Speaker 3: But the CIWU comes from a number of different unions
Speaker 3: coming together, you know, don't work as united a few
Speaker 3: others to basically like actually preserve you know, democracy in
Speaker 3: their workplace, to pool resources around you know, trainings around
Speaker 3: contract bargaining and elections, as well as to allowing each
Speaker 3: other direct for direct action assistance and things like that.
Speaker 3: And you know, the IWW has also got a thread
Speaker 3: in all of this. But yeah, it's it's essentially a
Speaker 3: series of like you know, we're not trying to own everything. Right,
Speaker 3: The CiU exists as a platform for all the different
Speaker 3: types of independent union activity they're occurring, right, and to
Speaker 3: create a base on which we can actually start talking
Speaker 3: to each other more, to cooperate and interact with each other. Right.
Speaker 3: There is more of a contract focus in the CiU.
Speaker 3: So you know, I'm a wob with experience in duel carding.
Speaker 3: You know, you have your contract union on the one hand,
Speaker 3: and you're fighting union on the other. And this allows
Speaker 3: folks to sort of approach union organizing and labor organizing
Speaker 3: from any level of experience and any number of backgrounds. Right.
Speaker 3: I think that's the real strength of the CiU is
Speaker 3: not to instead to constrain the upswell of worker miltoncy,
Speaker 3: but instead to give it a place to help put
Speaker 3: down some while also allowing even more relateant struggle to
Speaker 3: intertwine within those growths.
Speaker 2: So I think that's a really great explanation of the
Speaker 2: CiU and how the CiU formed, and the purpose that
Speaker 2: the CiU provides to workers.
Speaker 4: All.
Speaker 2: I mean, so far, the CiU is growing rapidly.
Speaker 4: We've been talking with a lot of workers, and primarily
Speaker 4: in Oregon and in Portland, but even workers outside of
Speaker 4: that purview. And I have a lot of hope that
Speaker 4: the CiU is going to be able to help unionization
Speaker 4: in a way that other unions are not willing to
Speaker 4: at the moment or having difficulty breaking into. And so far,
Speaker 4: so good. I mean, I think we have gosh, I
Speaker 4: think there's like at least trying to do the math
Speaker 4: right now in my head. I do lose count sometimes,
Speaker 4: but I think we got about six different shops involved
Speaker 4: in the CiU currently, six including my own, exactly six
Speaker 4: weekublic shops including my own.
Speaker 3: Fine, yeah, yeah, honey, there's so much more to come.
Speaker 3: There's so much to come.
Speaker 2: Oh, they're gonna learn why we picked this city, all right, crows.
Speaker 4: But it's going really well, and we have a lot
Speaker 4: more campaigns that are going to go public in the future.
Speaker 4: But one thing that we really noticed while organizing all
Speaker 4: of these campaigns, uh, and you know, whether we ourselves
Speaker 4: organize them or whether we had a hand in assisting
Speaker 4: them organize themselves throughout the city, one thing that all
Speaker 4: of us various organizers started to realize is that we
Speaker 4: represent a.
Speaker 2: Large amount of trans folks at all these jobs.
Speaker 4: And now some of that could be chalked up to
Speaker 4: the fact that we live in Portland and we kind
Speaker 4: of live in the trans mecca, So of course you're
Speaker 4: going to come across a lot of trans workers. But
Speaker 4: here's the deal that we kind of noticed, is that
Speaker 4: trans workers regardless of living in Portland, Oregon, or you know,
Speaker 4: the fact that we have so many trans people living
Speaker 4: here for.
Speaker 2: A lot of reasons. I won't get into that. We
Speaker 2: all know, which is why we moved here in the
Speaker 2: first place.
Speaker 3: Refugees. We're let's be real, let's run away refugees.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but we noticed that there's a lot of trans
Speaker 4: workers working, as you reluctantly put it earlier, service industry jobs,
Speaker 4: and not just service industry jobs, a variety of jobs,
Speaker 4: but most of which are you know, minimum wage, poverty wage,
Speaker 4: let's be honest, jobs that offer almost zero upward mobility
Speaker 4: for trans folks. And so that's the thing that we
Speaker 4: started looking at is the ladder. And as you go
Speaker 4: up the ladder, you see less and less and less
Speaker 4: trans folks. So down here at the bottom working you know,
Speaker 4: fast food jobs, working, sweaty donut jobs, working you know,
Speaker 4: in I mean, the restaurant industry, as a whole, I
Speaker 4: think is a lot of we assist as well as
Speaker 4: you know, potentially some grocery store workers and other people
Speaker 4: like that.
Speaker 2: We don't have a whole lot.
Speaker 4: Of representation in our workplaces that we make up, you know.
Speaker 4: I mean, we can look at some of the larger
Speaker 4: industries in town that do provide unionization for workers, and
Speaker 4: there's many, but you know, I think it's easy to
Speaker 4: look at like a lot of the auto industry or
Speaker 4: the warehouse industries and things like that, and of course
Speaker 4: they have trans workers, but it's an overwhelming amount working
Speaker 4: within the service industry. And so as we started organizing
Speaker 4: more and more service industry shops, we started realizing that
Speaker 4: we are representing a lot of trans people. And what's
Speaker 4: really important to us is that if we're going to
Speaker 4: be representing trans people in the workplace, then we should
Speaker 4: give them a platform and a voice to be able
Speaker 4: to speak about their concerns and their issues that they
Speaker 4: haven't otherwise had. And that's why the CiU decided to
Speaker 4: put on this action, you know, and we chose it
Speaker 4: when we chose it for a very particular reason, and
Speaker 4: to be honest, we thought about doing it over Pride weekend,
Speaker 4: and I think that would have been lovely.
Speaker 2: But on the other hand, you know.
Speaker 4: Pride is about a celebration of existence, and there's a
Speaker 4: lot of visibility during Pride already, so we kind of
Speaker 4: step back.
Speaker 2: We reflected on that for a little bit, and we
Speaker 2: decided that Labor Day.
Speaker 4: Is not exactly a time of year where you hear
Speaker 4: about people talking about LGBTT rights and trans rights.
Speaker 2: I mean, of course there's a little bit of that
Speaker 2: going on.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure and say that there's none, but it
Speaker 4: seems like a really great opportunity for us to host
Speaker 4: this event over Labor Day week and give trans workers
Speaker 4: the working class an actual platform and a voice to
Speaker 4: express their concerns issues and give their thanks at the
Speaker 4: same time to the unions who represent them. And like
Speaker 4: I said before, it could represent them even better. So
Speaker 4: this is our way reminding them and all so at
Speaker 4: the same time follow up picket reminding Portland that if
Speaker 4: you don't take care of your community, and specifically, in
Speaker 4: this case, you're trans working class community, then we will
Speaker 4: make ourselves heard and you will listen to us one
Speaker 4: way or another. And if we have to take to
Speaker 4: the streets in order to have our voice heard. We
Speaker 4: are more than happy to do that.
Speaker 3: Read the promise, black the threat. That's an old slogan,
Speaker 3: but again it's when we really need to bring.
Speaker 4: Back and city birds. City birds are very important all
Speaker 4: this but I know important this episode.
Speaker 3: But listen, listen, We're in Portland. The obligatory crow conversation
Speaker 3: is just part of the bargain. The Labor Day weekend
Speaker 3: tends to be very important because this has been a
Speaker 3: lot of retail and food and entertainment business happens, and frankly,
Speaker 3: given you know, the whole genocide, we decided we were
Speaker 3: going to help, you know, show the power of organized
Speaker 3: labor by throwing a bit of a wrench into that, right,
Speaker 3: So why we chose Labor Day Getting into sort of
Speaker 3: like what the Trans Day of Solidarity is. We're going
Speaker 3: to be having a a speaker and rally at four
Speaker 3: pm at Pioneer Square in Portland, Oregon on Saturday, September second.
Speaker 3: This is a huge, huge weekend for food, service, for entertainment,
Speaker 3: and yeah, for retail, and while we're having trans speakers
Speaker 3: from a number of different campaigns and you can speak
Speaker 3: from four to you know, wrapping up at around five.
Speaker 3: We're then going to start moving on a mobile picket line,
Speaker 3: a flying picket all over downtown Portland because we need
Speaker 3: to bring joy to a lot of workers and ruin
Speaker 3: a lot of bosses' days. This is leverage and we'll
Speaker 3: use it. We'll just cost them as many, you know,
Speaker 3: as much money as we possibly can. We'll be hitting
Speaker 3: a number of different stores. It looks like we'll be
Speaker 3: hitting well, you'll see it the march, but we'll be
Speaker 3: going all over the city. We have everything covered in
Speaker 3: terms of needs and amenities. There's going to be chants
Speaker 3: and leaflets, they'll be medics a plenty, they'll be all
Speaker 3: sorts of safety concerns will be addressed by or organizers
Speaker 3: on the ground. So please come one, come all. We
Speaker 3: actually should have a marching band that'll be pretty fun
Speaker 3: that I didn't expect to land up. But it'll be
Speaker 3: a Union marching band.
Speaker 1: No less nice, nice. I love to see it.
Speaker 3: It's gonna be pretty great. So, UH, if you like
Speaker 3: trans people and making bosses cry, you should come to this.
Speaker 1: What time if we do?
Speaker 3: This is starting again four pm the UH at Pioneer
Speaker 3: Square in downtown Portland.
Speaker 2: UH.
Speaker 3: And then we'll be doing the march throughout the city
Speaker 3: from around.
Speaker 4: Five o'clock and I do recommend that folks wanting to
Speaker 4: come out to the event be ready to chant. Bring
Speaker 4: your blocking shoes because we have a bit of a
Speaker 4: trek ahead of us, making bosses miserable across town. And uh,
Speaker 4: make some signage, bring, bring picket signs, bring you know
Speaker 4: in in picket signs and support of both trans people, uh,
Speaker 4: working class folks, union workers, or just reminding bosses to
Speaker 4: stop being ship heads.
Speaker 2: Whatever you want to put on your sign, it's lovely.
Speaker 4: I will give you a hint as to one of
Speaker 4: the locations that we will be picketing, and I think
Speaker 4: it's okay for me to mention this, but you know
Speaker 4: we'll make sure to picket the world's worst tourist trap
Speaker 4: also one of the absolute difficult, one of the absolute
Speaker 4: most difficult. You can even struggle that I've ever been
Speaker 4: a part of, only being one so far particularly, but
Speaker 4: you know it really irks me. So anyways, if you're
Speaker 4: interested in that, come on down and you can see
Speaker 4: the world's worst turnus trap on your way.
Speaker 1: And for people who are not in Portland, I do
Speaker 1: want to remind people it's it's probably not enough time
Speaker 1: to do it this year, but you too, you too
Speaker 1: can have a transient solidarity. You could also have it
Speaker 1: on a different day. We can have one. If we
Speaker 1: planned this correctly, we could in fact have three hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty five days of transit of transoliarity. We could
Speaker 1: take all of the days. I don't know. This is
Speaker 1: people can have like the leap Yeer Day or something
Speaker 1: like that. We'll get, We'll get the February.
Speaker 3: We already have May Day. It's called you know, there's
Speaker 3: no need for a second Labor Day. I really feel
Speaker 3: like if we keep doing this every year, we can
Speaker 3: just take it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we can. We can get rid of Fay Day
Speaker 1: and make it based Labor Day again exactly.
Speaker 3: I mean it's trans labor Day.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know. That's a lot.
Speaker 4: I mean I'm only visible one day of the year,
Speaker 4: and I only remember things one day of the year.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I know, Okay, okay, okay, there's there's
Speaker 1: one day. We got one day of pride. There's like,
Speaker 1: isn't there like a bisexual visibility day or something?
Speaker 3: There is one. There is, Yes, bisexuals only appear one
Speaker 3: day it's at least three days, and we know a
Speaker 3: four might be four.
Speaker 1: There's like two others ones. We we could possibly have
Speaker 1: a full five days that we were VISITSLID.
Speaker 3: I'm just gonna put forward that, like, listen if you
Speaker 3: also want to, you know, and if you can get
Speaker 3: something together for Sunday, September third, we could just make
Speaker 3: trans Data solidarity followed by Transdai wrath, you know, because
Speaker 3: if the picket line has to go too long, well,
Speaker 3: you know, we get mighty ownery.
Speaker 1: Well and also, okay, like I have been watching you
Speaker 1: all make up it's Wrath month. Oh it's enough pride
Speaker 1: wrath time jokes for too long and there has been
Speaker 1: not enough wrath. So I'm calling for more wrath days.
Speaker 1: We need to actually do the day.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 5: Oh, soze your workplace, Oh absolutely organize your workplace fine,
Speaker 5: you know, and if you find out that like the
Speaker 5: people that own your company are fascists or helping to
Speaker 5: fuel the genocide, organize even harder.
Speaker 3: Help get friends involved, have them try and get on
Speaker 3: jobs to help take those motherfuckers down. Remember, there's so
Speaker 3: much you can do to cost the people that are
Speaker 3: trying to kill us. A lot of money well also
Speaker 3: making your lives so much better. So do your part.
Speaker 4: Hope to see you all again, well, not again, I
Speaker 4: hope to see you all there and again. It's going
Speaker 4: to be September two, four pm Pioneer Square, downtown Portland, Oregon,
Speaker 4: and be there for the rally. Listen to people's voices.
Speaker 4: We are doing this for a reason. It's important that
Speaker 4: we give trans folks a platform and support us on
Speaker 4: the picket line. We would really appreciate this there. Oh,
Speaker 4: you can also find a link to all this on
Speaker 4: the Coalition of Independent Union's Facebook page. We also have
Speaker 4: an Instagram you can find us on. Just type in
Speaker 4: Coalition of Independent Unions or CiU.
Speaker 2: And you can find that in the decripsion Perfect Perfect.
Speaker 4: And if you need any more information, please feel free
Speaker 4: to hit up either of those accounts.
Speaker 2: I'm'd be happy to inform you on whatever you need.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm with that. Wishing everyone a happy trans Day solidarity.
Speaker 1: If you're a boss, wishing you a bad trans data solidarity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and everyone, go out into the world, make more trans
Speaker 1: Day of STASA solidarity, Make more bosses sad, make workers happy.
Speaker 1: This is within your power to do. And yeah, go
Speaker 1: go into the world and make mischief.
Speaker 2: It could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media.
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Speaker 4: Thanks for listening.