Speaker 1: Cool media.
Speaker 2: It could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis, and yeah, it's happening.
Speaker 2: The past few years, I've been writing about how the
Speaker 2: religious right has been trying to roll back trans rights,
Speaker 2: take away gender affirming health care, and essentially remove trans
Speaker 2: people from public life. And the day that I'm writing this,
Speaker 2: President Trump just issued an executive order aiming to ban
Speaker 2: gender affirming health care for everyone below the age of
Speaker 2: nineteen in the United States, with promises to weaponize the
Speaker 2: Justice Department and alter the national Health guidelines for gender
Speaker 2: affirming care. And unfortunately this is just the start. But
Speaker 2: this won't be a wallowing in the Doom and Gloom episode,
Speaker 2: nor will I be laying out the fool proof solution
Speaker 2: to get us out of this predicament. Instead, we'll be
Speaker 2: hearing from two people who are trying to do something
Speaker 2: to affect change in the physical world. Last month, Mia
Speaker 2: and I talked with Neha and Cassie, who are organizers
Speaker 2: and baristas with Starbucks workers Unite It, and they also
Speaker 2: co facilitate that union's trans rights action committee called Track
Speaker 2: And specifically the topic of this episode is how to
Speaker 2: use union organizing as a way to fight for trans
Speaker 2: rights and secure access to gender affirming healthcare, which is
Speaker 2: unfortunately an increasingly critical issue. We've already had conservative states
Speaker 2: like Tennessee pressuring private insurance companies to drop covering gender
Speaker 2: affirming care by blocking insurers from contracting with the state's
Speaker 2: medicaid program, basically holding it hostage, and now with the
Speaker 2: federal government threatening gender affirming care and seemingly more and
Speaker 2: more restrictions kind of on the horizon. Working outside the
Speaker 2: state and not relying on government programs like Medicare and
Speaker 2: Medicaid will only become more necessary, and union organizing is
Speaker 2: one way to do that. A union contract, union infrastructure,
Speaker 2: and the collective resources of you and your fellow union
Speaker 2: workers can help protect trans people in the workplace and
Speaker 2: get us the things we need. If you already have
Speaker 2: a union at your workplace, you can get more involved
Speaker 2: and fight to prioritize trans rights. And if you don't
Speaker 2: have a union, you can work to secure access to
Speaker 2: gender affirm and care through unionizing your workplace and having
Speaker 2: healthcare protections as a core part of your contract. For
Speaker 2: more on that topic, I'm going to play the conversation
Speaker 2: between my fellow union member Mia and Neha and Cassie
Speaker 2: from Starbucks Workers United, and I'll occasionally pop back in
Speaker 2: to provide some context. Here's Cassie.
Speaker 3: When you fight for a collective bargaining agreement, a contract
Speaker 3: between union workers and their employer, you can fight for
Speaker 3: gender affirming care to be included in the healthcare that's provided,
Speaker 3: and make sure that that healthcare is affordable and actually
Speaker 3: usable by the people working there, and that their wages
Speaker 3: are adequate to cover out of pocket expenses, including travel
Speaker 3: expenses if you live in a state that's coming under threat.
Speaker 2: But it is not just healthcare that is under threat
Speaker 2: right now. Just days into office, Trump already started to
Speaker 2: roll back Biden era federal discrimination protections. Last Monday, the
Speaker 2: Trump aadmin sent a memo ordering a freeze to all
Speaker 2: federal grants, loans, and aid, requiring a sort of audit
Speaker 2: to ensure the recipients of those funds use the money
Speaker 2: in a way that quote conforms to the administration priorities unquote,
Speaker 2: and not to promote quote DEI and woke gender ideology unquote.
Speaker 2: On Tuesday, a judge temporarily halted the order, and on Wednesday,
Speaker 2: the White House revoked the directive. But this clearly demonstrates
Speaker 2: what the new priorities are for the conservative government, and
Speaker 2: they will most certainly try this again, probably in a
Speaker 2: more targeted discriminatory fashion to limit the general backlash. But
Speaker 2: even as the government starts openly allowing discrimination or even
Speaker 2: encouraging it, discrimination protections is still something that unions can
Speaker 2: write into their contract.
Speaker 3: Having non discrimination language in a contract that covers gender
Speaker 3: identity is a really critical way to improve not just
Speaker 3: for yourself, but then also we talk about these things
Speaker 3: like hiring discrimination. If you get that kind of language
Speaker 3: in a contract at a union job, that's going to
Speaker 3: help everyone who comes after you. Because additionally, as a union,
Speaker 3: you have the mechanism of enforcement of aggrievance and an
Speaker 3: arbitration procedure. Right, that's sort of, you know, the critical
Speaker 3: in addition to obviously all the kind of actions you
Speaker 3: can perform. And you know, we can talk about what
Speaker 3: things might look like without the NLRA, but for now
Speaker 3: we have grievance and arbitration procedures still. And even in
Speaker 3: states where there are legal protections against employment discrimination for
Speaker 3: trans people, like here in California, the bar to defending
Speaker 3: yourself legally is obviously a lot higher, including financially than
Speaker 3: defending yourself through a grievance procedure at a union job. Right,
Speaker 3: a grievance procedure at a union job is way more
Speaker 3: accessible to the average working person than hiring a lawyer
Speaker 3: and going through a legal system that is totally stacked
Speaker 3: against you and in favor of the wealthy. Having a
Speaker 3: union to defend you, you know, with the collective resources
Speaker 3: of your union that you're part of, and having your
Speaker 3: shop steward or you be a shop steward and filing
Speaker 3: those grievances yourself. It's so much more accessible for regular
Speaker 3: workers to get enforcement when they are discriminated against. And
Speaker 3: that's obviously not only relevant for trans people, but it
Speaker 3: is certainly relevant for trans people.
Speaker 2: Now, if you don't have union organizing experience, this could
Speaker 2: all seem a little intimidating, even if you are already
Speaker 2: have a pre existing union at your workplace. Mia has
Speaker 2: done a whole bunch of episodes on unions and labor
Speaker 2: organizing on this podcast. You could certainly look to you
Speaker 2: for more information and a bit of encouragement. In twenty
Speaker 2: twenty three, Neha co founded TRACK the Trans Rights Action Committee,
Speaker 2: which is a subcommittee of the Starbucks union that was
Speaker 2: started to help advocate for trans rights within the union
Speaker 2: and share information about the challenges trans workers were experiencing.
Speaker 2: We asked Neha about the process of getting this focus
Speaker 2: on securing trans healthcare through your union to be something
Speaker 2: that the union collectively fights for.
Speaker 4: The way that our union started focusing on trans healthcare
Speaker 4: as one of the core issues, like we weren't organizing
Speaker 4: around and all started with a conversation with like a
Speaker 4: regional staffer here in Oklahoma. I have like a regular
Speaker 4: check and call with my staffer, and this was like
Speaker 4: two two and a half years ago, and he was
Speaker 4: just like asking, you know, what's going on?
Speaker 5: What are you concerned about?
Speaker 4: And I was like, well, I'm having some issues with
Speaker 4: like accessing healthcare. And he not heard like how difficult
Speaker 4: it was for like trans people to access healthcare and Starbucks.
Speaker 4: He wasn't aware of like how expensive it could be.
Speaker 4: And as I started talking to him, he was like,
Speaker 4: hold on, let me like set up a meeting with
Speaker 4: some other people. I think they need to hear this too.
Speaker 4: So then we have like a follow up meeting with
Speaker 4: more like staff and other organizers. I talked about these
Speaker 4: issues again, and one thing led to another thing, and
Speaker 4: they ended up encouraging me to form a subcommittee with
Speaker 4: their union for trans workers to kind of like build
Speaker 4: community for us and connect us, but also hear more
Speaker 4: stories from trans workers about the struggles that they were facing,
Speaker 4: specifically in accessing healthcare. And so that's kind of how
Speaker 4: TRACKS started. And it's been really moving to see how
Speaker 4: over the past like two three years, this went from
Speaker 4: like an issue that was affecting like a minority of
Speaker 4: a minority of workers, right, Like, it's not like every
Speaker 4: single work at Starbucks is trying to like have facial
Speaker 4: comminization surgery or anything like that.
Speaker 5: Right, This issue that.
Speaker 4: Was affecting like a small step set of us ended
Speaker 4: up becoming like one of the biggest issues we are
Speaker 4: organizing around. It makes me really emotional when I think
Speaker 4: about like how much my union coworkers and like my
Speaker 4: comrades like actually like fucking care about trans people. Right
Speaker 4: of kind of like how TRACKS started and how we
Speaker 4: started to organize around trans healthcare specifically.
Speaker 3: It's been a focus for us for a long time.
Speaker 3: Also in part because the initial you know, our public
Speaker 3: bargaining proposals that were released early on when we first
Speaker 3: formulated our demands included improvements to gender affirming care at Starbucks.
Speaker 3: And part of that's because there were trans people involved
Speaker 3: in writing those initial demands, right and you know, Nehaw
Speaker 3: was involved nationally in the campaign and had the opportunity
Speaker 3: and the encouragement to start track. You know, we have
Speaker 3: to be part of it, I think is on some level,
Speaker 3: you know, the most basic prerequisite for everything that came
Speaker 3: after is because trans people have been involved with this
Speaker 3: campaign from the beginning. We do have so much support
Speaker 3: and solidarity from our coworkers and from our fellow union comrades,
Speaker 3: regardless of whether they're SIS or trans, And I think
Speaker 3: part of that is because we've really showed up and
Speaker 3: done the work. This again goes to that kind of
Speaker 3: like false narrative of there's like some kind of contention
Speaker 3: between workers rights and trans rights. It's like trans people
Speaker 3: have been super motivated to get involved in this campaign
Speaker 3: and for the rights and benefits for every worker at Starbucks.
Speaker 3: Other workers have seen that, seen the way we've been
Speaker 3: involved and dedicated, and that's given them the sympathy and
Speaker 3: solidarity to stand by us for an issue that affects us.
Speaker 3: Very you know directly and somewhat narrowly compared to a
Speaker 3: lot of the other things we're fighting for. So yeah,
Speaker 3: on some level, I think it comes down to unions
Speaker 3: are a place where trans people can get involved in
Speaker 3: political life in a way that's hard to do in
Speaker 3: other parts of American political life, and you get to
Speaker 3: build that solidarity, and if you're there at the table,
Speaker 3: you have a chance to highlight the issues that are
Speaker 3: important to us. And if you're fighting for everyone else,
Speaker 3: they're going to want to fight for you too.
Speaker 2: Track's logo says trans rights are labor rights, a phrase
Speaker 2: one of Nahe's co workers came up with to express
Speaker 2: the idea that even if your state becomes an unsafe
Speaker 2: place for queer and trans people, trans people will still
Speaker 2: fight to a sure that their workplace, their store, is
Speaker 2: a safe place for any trans person who works there.
Speaker 2: As the functioning of the state and the federal government
Speaker 2: becomes more and more alienated and distant, or in many cases,
Speaker 2: increasingly hostile to the likes of you and me, one
Speaker 2: of the few ways we can still exert power over
Speaker 2: our lives is through unions. Regardless of whether you live
Speaker 2: in Portland, Oregon or Oklahoma City, and specifically as access
Speaker 2: to trans healthcare becomes more and more of a growing issue,
Speaker 2: this is becoming more of a core issue itself that
Speaker 2: you can organize around and can actually build a union around.
Speaker 3: Lots of different struggles have been highlighted in our campaign.
Speaker 3: You know, we have really made racial justice a major
Speaker 3: priority as well. I mean, obviously economic justice is at
Speaker 3: the core of any union struggle, but you know, we're
Speaker 3: really invested in making sure all workers are in included
Speaker 3: in this movement and their specific concerns are represented as
Speaker 3: well as our general shared concerns. And as more and
Speaker 3: more things get taken away at the level of federal
Speaker 3: politics and state politics in many places, people will be
Speaker 3: looking for recourse. It's like, how do I get back
Speaker 3: the stability, the protections, the dignity, the power that I've lost,
Speaker 3: Particularly if you know some of these folks are not
Speaker 3: super democratically accountable. People will be looking for how they
Speaker 3: can build power and how they can find security when
Speaker 3: the state is not providing it and when the state's
Speaker 3: actively undermining it. Actually, and unions are one of the
Speaker 3: truly critical, irreplaceable answers for protecting yourself, for protecting the
Speaker 3: people you work with, for protecting your community and for
Speaker 3: taking back some of the things that they're trying to
Speaker 3: take away from you, whether that's on the job protections,
Speaker 3: whether that's economic equity, whether that is your access to
Speaker 3: trans healthcare, whether that's protections from racism or misogynistic discrimination
Speaker 3: in your job and harassment, all of these things. If
Speaker 3: the state steps away, people should and will look to
Speaker 3: labor organizing as the answer instead.
Speaker 4: Our ability to build power in this way is a
Speaker 4: way that we maintain hope so that we can keep
Speaker 4: organizing for a better future. I think one of the
Speaker 4: best tools like these fucking fascist freaks have is making
Speaker 4: us feel like there's no hope. It's beating us down,
Speaker 4: it's making us feel like we have no power. It's
Speaker 4: making us feel completely disconnected from like the government, our workplace,
Speaker 4: all of these different things that like exert power over us.
Speaker 4: And I think labor is such a direct way to
Speaker 4: give people that power back.
Speaker 6: Yeah, morales a terran a struggle, and this is the
Speaker 6: way that you can fight there. That does other things
Speaker 6: too at the same time, which is important, And.
Speaker 2: Do you know what else is important? Being subservient to
Speaker 2: the capitalist impulse of pivoting to ads. Okay, we are back.
Speaker 2: Here is more of our interview with Starbucks Workers United.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm excited to talk to you because things have
Speaker 6: been very bad. And one of the specific ways that
Speaker 6: they've been very bad is that there's become this framing
Speaker 6: and this has been around for a while, but it's
Speaker 6: getting sort of increasingly adopted in mainstream circles that trans
Speaker 6: rights are opposed to workers' rights, and that's just nonsense.
Speaker 6: So I wanted to sort of start there with a
Speaker 6: bit of a discussion about so the ways in which
Speaker 6: the trans struggle is a worker struggle.
Speaker 4: The trans community is like disproportionately like impoverished, like a
Speaker 4: lot of us are struggling to just pay for rent,
Speaker 4: are basic like needs, right, Yeah, I think that's framing
Speaker 4: assumes that like all trans people are like, I don't know, rich, working,
Speaker 4: attack or some shit like that, which just is not true.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: The actual stats, by the way, these are running from
Speaker 6: the US Trans Survey, which is the largest survey of
Speaker 6: trans people in the US. Thirty four percent poverty rate
Speaker 6: than the national number for assist people is eleven percent.
Speaker 6: The unemployment rate is eighteen percent. The US unemployment rate
Speaker 6: assist people is four percent, eighteen percent is nineteen thirty
Speaker 6: six great depression levels of unemployment. Thirty percent of trans
Speaker 6: people have experienced homelessness in their lives. The national rate
Speaker 6: is about seven percent, And those numbers are actually very
Speaker 6: misleading because it's actually much worse than that, because these
Speaker 6: demographics skew young significantly because of both the shortness of
Speaker 6: our life expectancy and how often we get killed. And
Speaker 6: also there's more people who are realizing that they're trans
Speaker 6: now than there ever has before. So those homelessness numbers,
Speaker 6: we are we are racking up a rate of homelessness
Speaker 6: that is four times higher than the regular rate, and
Speaker 6: we're doing iticately less years than it takes the cispopulation
Speaker 6: to rack up these levels of homelessness. So things are
Speaker 6: extremely bad for trans people. Transfems make like sixty cents
Speaker 6: on the dollar of like the average American worker.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think you see that in our union
Speaker 3: we have a lot of worker leaders who are trans.
Speaker 3: It's a noticeable obvious fact about our unions that trans
Speaker 3: people have really been deeply involved since day one at
Speaker 3: all levels of this union. And I think part of
Speaker 3: that is because Starbucks has been associated as a place
Speaker 3: of economic stability and opportunity for trans healthcare for a
Speaker 3: community that has relatively few opportunities. I mean, if you're
Speaker 3: talking about eighteen percent unemployment, then you're talking about people
Speaker 3: who certainly are going to have difficulty getting employer provided healthcare,
Speaker 3: let alone employer provided healthcare that's going to include gender
Speaker 3: affirming care, right, And so Starbucks has been held up
Speaker 3: as an opportunity for that for a lot of people.
Speaker 3: It's obviously drawn a lot of us to the company.
Speaker 3: Many of us started working there for that exact reason,
Speaker 3: and then you know, have discovered in many cases that
Speaker 3: it's actually not so accessible. You know, I can say
Speaker 3: in my case, it's definitely one reason I started working
Speaker 3: at Starbucks because I heard like, Hey, if you want
Speaker 3: facial feminization surgery, go work at Starbucks. That was a
Speaker 3: community tip. And then it turned out that I made
Speaker 3: so little money that I qualified for Medicaid, And in California,
Speaker 3: where I'm lucky enough to live for now, Medicaid covers
Speaker 3: those things and is more affordable and accessible than the
Speaker 3: Starbucks healthcare actually was, So I ended up relying on
Speaker 3: Medicaid instead. And I think a lot of us have
Speaker 3: felt and seen that dissonance between coming to this company
Speaker 3: looking for opportunity, looking for a place that is inclusive
Speaker 3: and will hire trans workers, it says, and a stense
Speaker 3: offers trans healthcare, but then finding out where those gaps
Speaker 3: are and realizing like, actually it's better for me to
Speaker 3: stay on Medicaid, which is easy to do because I
Speaker 3: make so little money at this job. It takes that
Speaker 3: shine off. And I think, you know, our economic vulnerability
Speaker 3: as a group is precisely what drove a lot of
Speaker 3: us to seek improvements here. It's related to our transness, sure,
Speaker 3: but it's also like just fundamental working class issues. We
Speaker 3: need better wages, we need better healthcare. You know, that's
Speaker 3: something everyone benefits from and everyone can relate to.
Speaker 4: And I mean, I can also attest to the fact
Speaker 4: that I started at Starbucks five years ago because I
Speaker 4: needed to have access with gender firming care. I was
Speaker 4: coming from a situation where I came out as a teenager.
Speaker 5: I was disowned and kicked out on my family. I
Speaker 5: didn't have access to college.
Speaker 4: I was like basically on my own right, and I
Speaker 4: had no idea how I'm going tomatically transition, And like
Speaker 4: older trans women in my life told me to apply
Speaker 4: to Starbucks. And it was also like one of those
Speaker 4: things where like, again, I live in Oklahoma. It's not
Speaker 4: like there's a ton of employers who are like super
Speaker 4: excited to hire trans women.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 6: That's something I also want to highlight because I don't
Speaker 6: think people understand this at all. If there's cysts is
Speaker 6: that the level of employment discrimination is staggering. It is, however,
Speaker 6: hard if you are a SI person you think it
Speaker 6: is to find a job, it is like thirty times
Speaker 6: harder if you are trans. It's unbelievably difficult. And the
Speaker 6: promise of just like any job that will hire a
Speaker 6: trans person is a huge deal because you know, otherwise
Speaker 6: odds are you walk in the door and they take
Speaker 6: one look at you and like, you know, you're fucked, right, And.
Speaker 4: I think that's how Starbucks kind of like advertises itself
Speaker 4: too queer in trans workers, right, And I think this
Speaker 4: is reflected in the demographic of my store. Ninety nine
Speaker 4: percent of my coworkers are queer. A lot of us
Speaker 4: are trans. There's like a lot of trans women who
Speaker 4: work at my store. I actually don't even know if
Speaker 4: we have a single straight coworker actually we have later
Speaker 4: one token like diversity higher, but he literally just transfers.
Speaker 4: I think it's all gay people, but no, like all
Speaker 4: of us applied to Starbucks because like, what other options
Speaker 4: do we have? Right, And again, in my case, I
Speaker 4: applied to Starbucks because I needed access to gender firming care.
Speaker 4: And over like the five years that I've worked here,
Speaker 4: I've realized that while that benefit might look good on paper,
Speaker 4: in practice, it's hard to actually qualify for that healthcare.
Speaker 4: It can be completely unaffordable for a lot of us. Right,
Speaker 4: Like last year, I made sixteen thousand dollars in total
Speaker 4: from Starbucks, and like a disproportionate amount of that income
Speaker 4: was just going towards healthcare, which doesn't even take into
Speaker 4: an account like rent or bills.
Speaker 5: Or anything else. Like we're struggling to just fucking get by.
Speaker 2: Something that Mia pointed out is that one of the
Speaker 2: few places trans people are actually overrepresented is in union organizing.
Speaker 2: Because trans people don't really have a safety net, fewer
Speaker 2: of us can turn to or rely on family support,
Speaker 2: so union organizing is one of the ways we can
Speaker 2: directly fight for a better life.
Speaker 4: But the current political climate as it is, it's even scarier.
Speaker 4: I mean, Cassie was talking about not being able to
Speaker 4: actually access the Starbucks healthcare, and I've defined other ways
Speaker 4: to pay for gender firm and care, but I mean,
Speaker 4: we're looking at like a Trump administration that could possibly
Speaker 4: be trying to make it impossible for anyone to use
Speaker 4: Medicare and Medicaid to cover gender firm and care. We're
Speaker 4: looking at state by state like healthcare vans. Right, I
Speaker 4: think it's more important than ever to organize and focus
Speaker 4: on trans writes and our access to healthcare, our wages,
Speaker 4: our safety at the workplace. Where else are we going
Speaker 4: to protect ourselves like that?
Speaker 2: The Starbucks union is also fighting for guaranteed scheduling and
Speaker 2: better staffing in stores, and this relates directly to a
Speaker 2: worker's ability to access health care and gender affirming healthcare.
Speaker 2: Part of Starbucks healthcare being somewhat inaccessible is that employees
Speaker 2: have to work a certain threshold of hours to qualify
Speaker 2: for benefits, including healthcare. Failure to get enough hours of
Speaker 2: work scheduled means losing access to your own health care,
Speaker 2: and this kind of reflects a more subtle form of
Speaker 2: employment discrimination.
Speaker 4: I can speak to this. I've heard this from many
Speaker 4: other workers, it is such a struggle just to get
Speaker 4: the minimum amount of hours to keep your benefits. I
Speaker 4: was talking to another worker who was telling me about
Speaker 4: how she had to like literally cry and beg her
Speaker 4: manager to sketch her enough so she didn't lose access
Speaker 4: to gender firm and care. And of course this manager
Speaker 4: was scheduling enough hours for other workers who weren't trans women, right,
Speaker 4: And so I've been having like protections in a contract
Speaker 4: that guarantee a certain number of hours that are scheduling.
Speaker 4: That kind of thing also makes it easier for us
Speaker 4: to maintain and keep the benefits that we need.
Speaker 2: And obviously this benefits all workers because everyone benefits from
Speaker 2: having enough hours to actually get the money you need
Speaker 2: to live. The Starbucks union started the official bargaining process
Speaker 2: with the company last April, and they were supposed to
Speaker 2: have their final bargaining session last December, based on a
Speaker 2: shared expectation that the contract would be closed and ratified
Speaker 2: by the end of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 4: So after nine months of bargaining, it's December or expecting
Speaker 4: to finish up contract bargaining, and after like a few
Speaker 4: months of like delaying and not really giving us a
Speaker 4: counter on wages or benefits. Starbucks like finally gave us
Speaker 4: a counter proposal, I mean like counter proposal. It was
Speaker 4: literally like a page and their counter proposal was basically
Speaker 4: no changes to benefits whatsoever and a one point five
Speaker 4: percent raise if non union stores received a raise that
Speaker 4: was less than that. For context, one point five percent
Speaker 4: for most of us is thirty cents. So yeah, after
Speaker 4: nine months, that was the best they could do. So
Speaker 4: it wasn't really a serious like counter proposal, I mean, frankly,
Speaker 4: it was a fucking insult.
Speaker 2: So with less than a week's notice, they organized the
Speaker 2: biggest ULP strike in the union's history, resulting in five
Speaker 2: thousand baristas at over three hundred stores across the country
Speaker 2: going on strike on Christmas Eve. Now, this is not
Speaker 2: the kind of open ended, ongoing strike that you're probably
Speaker 2: more familiar with. A ULP strike refers to a short
Speaker 2: term strike action directly tied to an unfair labor practice,
Speaker 2: which is any act by an employer that violates a
Speaker 2: worker's legal rights, and unlike ongoing strikes, ULP strikes can
Speaker 2: happen anytime, not just during contract bargaining. In fact, the
Speaker 2: Starbucks union has utilized ULP strikes the past few years
Speaker 2: to address unfair labor practices. Part of the shared agreement
Speaker 2: to finish the contract before the year's end was to
Speaker 2: also resolve outstanding unfair labor practices by the end of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four, which did not happen and thus the strikes.
Speaker 2: And this was a super tight turnaround to organize strikes
Speaker 2: of this scale. By having a representative or delegate from
Speaker 2: each store in the union present at bargaining, which is
Speaker 2: hundreds of workers, that provides a direct link to every
Speaker 2: store in the campaign. This was how the union was
Speaker 2: able to pull off a mass mobilization on an extremely
Speaker 2: tight turnaround. So when it's time to vote to go
Speaker 2: on strike, there's already workers across hundreds of stores around
Speaker 2: the country ready to organize their co workers and get
Speaker 2: the word out. Contacts with union advocacy groups and a
Speaker 2: network of allies ranging from campus activists to LGBTQ organizations
Speaker 2: can also help spread the word about these strikes, raise awareness,
Speaker 2: and pull more numbers onto the picket line. On more
Speaker 2: of a big picture note, once you get these sorts
Speaker 2: of structures and networks from union organizing, you also gain
Speaker 2: the actual capacity to deploy them quickly in a way
Speaker 2: that actually lets you do rapid responses to changing situations,
Speaker 2: and that capacity is something that transadvocacy just hasn't really
Speaker 2: had in a long time.
Speaker 4: These sites are directly connected to the broader political situation
Speaker 4: in America right. I think that a big issue that
Speaker 4: can organizing has right now is that there's not a
Speaker 4: lot of on the ground reaching out, connecting to mobilizing
Speaker 4: people who are impacted by these policies that are like
Speaker 4: negatively impacting trans people. And so I think the kind
Speaker 4: of organizing that unions are doing right that we've been
Speaker 4: doing this entire time, right where we're speaking to people directly,
Speaker 4: where we're getting them organized, getting them involved, is really
Speaker 4: a helpful starting point for like turning discontent and turning
Speaker 4: anxiety and fear around issues into like actual action. I
Speaker 4: think it's like super essential that we have this contract.
Speaker 4: Now we're heading into twenty twenty five, We're heading into
Speaker 4: a frankly pretty fucking scary time for trans people. We
Speaker 4: need a contract that protects trans healthcare. We need a
Speaker 4: contract that guarantees better wages. We mean a contract of
Speaker 4: only for the protections that it guarantees workers in terms
Speaker 4: of like safety at work and type of terms of
Speaker 4: making sure that they're not being taken advantage of at work.
Speaker 4: Right Well, Starbucks offered us again was an insul It
Speaker 4: wasn't a real counter proposal.
Speaker 5: We're more ready than ever to.
Speaker 4: Like finish his contract and to have something, but like,
Speaker 4: we need movement from Starbucks. We need a serious counter proposal.
Speaker 4: Thirty cents and no changes to benefits isn't going to
Speaker 4: fucking do it.
Speaker 2: We're going to go on another ad break and return
Speaker 2: to finish up our interview with Starbucks Workers United. Okay,
Speaker 2: we're back. I'm now gonna throw to MIA or a
Speaker 2: discussion on how union organizing can help strengthen trends. Advocacy
Speaker 2: in general.
Speaker 6: We're in this kind of crisis period of I don't
Speaker 6: know what you call the national trans movements, just the
Speaker 6: extent that it exists, where the advocacy orgs and legal
Speaker 6: strategies they've been pursuing are not working. We're losing in
Speaker 6: the courts all the time. Their electoral strategy of kind
Speaker 6: of bearrying themselves to the Biden administration has failed, and
Speaker 6: I think this is a moment where we need a
Speaker 6: new plan. And this is as good of a plan
Speaker 6: as I've ever seen, and I think one of the
Speaker 6: things that we're going to see, we're going to need
Speaker 6: to see and we're literally we're just going to have
Speaker 6: to do over the next few years, I mean ideally
Speaker 6: over the next couple of months, because we don't have
Speaker 6: we don't have much time until these people take power.
Speaker 6: Is more sort of you know, not just intra union
Speaker 6: coordination of organizing a trans workers, but it is organizing
Speaker 6: trans workers across different unions and trying to figure out
Speaker 6: how we leverage our power, like more broadly to you know,
Speaker 6: protect ourselves and to fight for our rights and fight
Speaker 6: to be free.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's something we're still building our capacity
Speaker 3: for that in this union, but we definitely do have
Speaker 3: relationships with other trans union activists and organizers. We're affiliated
Speaker 3: to Workers United, which is affiliated to SCIU, So obviously
Speaker 3: that's kind of the most direct and easiest way for
Speaker 3: us to get in touch with other trans folks that
Speaker 3: are in the labor movement, get support, get feedback, get ideas,
Speaker 3: and share in turn what's been working for us. But
Speaker 3: it is a capacity we want to build out even
Speaker 3: further because we are going to need that solidarity between
Speaker 3: and among labor unions in order to form a coherent response.
Speaker 3: I mean, as you're saying, the response hasn't been working.
Speaker 3: The kind of problem solving we're seeing from a lot
Speaker 3: of politicians basically amounts to sidestepping the issue, pretending it
Speaker 3: doesn't exist. You know, maybe not throwing trans people under
Speaker 3: the bus explicitly by actively supporting our elimination from public life,
Speaker 3: but certainly not standing up and defending us. And unions
Speaker 3: are one of the only ways that working people can
Speaker 3: come together in large groups and pool resources for political activity.
Speaker 3: And we know there are a lot of problems with
Speaker 3: how many unions currently do that. But for those of
Speaker 3: us who are very committed to struggle for equality, that's
Speaker 3: not going to compromise and throw some group under the bus.
Speaker 3: We understand that we have to get involved and be
Speaker 3: part of labor in order to improve how labor does
Speaker 3: politics in this country. If we want people to stand
Speaker 3: up and defend trans rights and defend trans healthcare, and
Speaker 3: defend our ability to exist in public life, then we
Speaker 3: have to, like we have to be the ones to
Speaker 3: do it. We just we have to do it, And
Speaker 3: getting involved in your union is one of the only
Speaker 3: accessible ways that trans people are going to be able
Speaker 3: to build that kind of political capacity and find allies.
Speaker 6: We have an opportunity here because you know, to do
Speaker 6: a version of Jijik's mistranslation of Antonio Gramsci, it's like,
Speaker 6: you know, the old trans movement is dying in the
Speaker 6: New World's like struggles to be born. Now is a
Speaker 6: time of monsters. But I think this means that you know, you, like,
Speaker 6: literally the people listening to this show, the people on
Speaker 6: this now, we are going to be the people who
Speaker 6: define what the trans movement is going to be going forward, right,
Speaker 6: and we have to because we have no other choice.
Speaker 6: But this also means that, you know, we are going
Speaker 6: to be the ones who get to set the tone
Speaker 6: of what we're doing, get to like strategically decide on
Speaker 6: how we're going to do this. And I think we
Speaker 6: have advantages too in the sense that there are ways
Speaker 6: in which our economic marginalization is sort of helpful in that,
Speaker 6: you know, if you look at the sort of independent
Speaker 6: unions that have been forming recently, right, even more so
Speaker 6: than in conventional unions, unbelievable numbers of those people are trans,
Speaker 6: right because you know, okay, you're dealing with the population
Speaker 6: where it's very easy to get salts. It's very easy
Speaker 6: to send people in the unionized stores because no one
Speaker 6: has jobs anyways, and so the you know, the risk
Speaker 6: of you losing it is like lower because you're already
Speaker 6: taking a low wage job, et cetera, et cetera. And
Speaker 6: I think I think there's there's things about these movements
Speaker 6: and the way that we're embedding ourselves in also sort
Speaker 6: of new movements, like the start unionization thing is not
Speaker 6: that old, right, I think we're well positioned on the
Speaker 6: sort of front of a bunch of different changes that
Speaker 6: are happening in both union organizing and in how the
Speaker 6: American working class works to build something together that can
Speaker 6: actually go back on the offensive for the first time
Speaker 6: in like a decade.
Speaker 4: Right. And I think we're at a moment where we
Speaker 4: actually have to fight for ourselves, right. Yeah, Again, we're
Speaker 4: at a point where no one else is going to
Speaker 4: fight for us. We have to be willing to take
Speaker 4: that step and fight for ourselves advocate for ourselves.
Speaker 5: At this moment, it's up to trans.
Speaker 4: People to get involved, especially with the labor movement, and
Speaker 4: there's so much opportunity to advocate for trans rights, to
Speaker 4: like build up the transliberation movement in a way that
Speaker 4: hasn't been done before. I think it's so essential for
Speaker 4: us to not feel hopeless and see the potential here
Speaker 4: and get involved. I'm not necessarily telling people that, like
Speaker 4: you should go apply to a Starbucks and like convince
Speaker 4: them to unionize, but also like I'm not not saying that.
Speaker 3: You know, trans people are getting that opportunity to actually
Speaker 3: drive our own liberation, and there's just so few places
Speaker 3: in society where we get that. That's been one of
Speaker 3: the most exciting things about being part of this union
Speaker 3: for me. And yes, you should consider going to work
Speaker 3: at Starbucks and unionizing it. And certainly, you know, to
Speaker 3: directly plug a little bit. If there are Buristas in
Speaker 3: your audience, they absolutely should go to our website. I
Speaker 3: think there will be a link like in the description
Speaker 3: of the episode or something. Go visit our union's website,
Speaker 3: get in touch with an organizer, and start organizing. I
Speaker 3: know it can like sound daunting in theory, like what
Speaker 3: does it mean to start organizing my workplace? But there
Speaker 3: is a template, there's a plan. You know, We've done
Speaker 3: this a bunch, We've done it at over five hundred
Speaker 3: stores at least five hundred and twelve at this point nationwide,
Speaker 3: which is pretty incredible, especially to have done all that
Speaker 3: without yet having even secured our contract. So we have
Speaker 3: a good template for how to win. And if you
Speaker 3: just get in touch, then people will reach out to
Speaker 3: help you. And that does include professional staff, but it
Speaker 3: also includes people like us who are workers that will
Speaker 3: be peer to peer, worker to worker organizers, because that's
Speaker 3: what this campaign has been built on from the beginning,
Speaker 3: is workers organizing each other. So yeah, I mean, there's
Speaker 3: really truly never been a time that's better than now
Speaker 3: and also never been more essential. It's never been more
Speaker 3: needed than now. So this is the time. And if
Speaker 3: you're not a barista or you can't become a barista,
Speaker 3: then we still really need people to sign a solidarity
Speaker 3: pledge with our union and get involved that way as allies,
Speaker 3: as supporters. You know, community support is always critical to
Speaker 3: union struggles. We are bargaining our contract with Starbucks right now,
Speaker 3: and community support is a huge part of what's going
Speaker 3: to get us, you know, the contract that does deliver
Speaker 3: the kind of protections and benefits we're looking for, that
Speaker 3: does set a precedent for what trans inclusive union organizing
Speaker 3: and union bargaining can look like in this country. It's
Speaker 3: kind of a terrifying responsibility sometimes. But the thing about
Speaker 3: this union is because it is one of the exciting
Speaker 3: bright spots in American labor right now. I do think
Speaker 3: a lot of people are looking to us to figure out, well,
Speaker 3: what are they doing, what's working, what's going well? And
Speaker 3: I certainly think, you know, the results we get for
Speaker 3: trans workers in our union have some precedent setting importance.
Speaker 3: So it is really critical, even if you're not in
Speaker 3: this union, even if you don't work at Starbucks, to
Speaker 3: support this struggle because it will have ripple effects. There
Speaker 3: will be ramifications for American labor and for the struggle
Speaker 3: for transliberation as a consequence of how things turn out
Speaker 3: with us. So yeah, we could really use your support.
Speaker 2: Earlier this episode, we talked about hope, and as important
Speaker 2: and as useful as that can be, it is also
Speaker 2: super crucial that people know how they're actually able to
Speaker 2: organize and actually try to get things done. After this
Speaker 2: last election, I'm sure many of you, like myself, were
Speaker 2: flooded with posts and performative calls to action. Now is
Speaker 2: the time to organize your community, but never with any
Speaker 2: real information on what that actually means or how to
Speaker 2: go about it. But something like the Starbucks union is
Speaker 2: actually a very direct way to do that, especially if
Speaker 2: you're a barista.
Speaker 4: I think I have to emphasize how achievable that is,
Speaker 4: Like it is possible five hundred plus stores across the
Speaker 4: nation have done it in this political environment. Right, I'm
Speaker 4: going to shout out one of my coworkers. She transferred
Speaker 4: to another store in Oklahoma, and I was jokingly telling her.
Speaker 4: I was like, well, you're allowed to transfer as long as,
Speaker 4: like you, you ununonize your store immediately, and she was
Speaker 4: like okay, And she did it, like within like a
Speaker 4: week of being there. She'd like talked one on one
Speaker 4: with everyone at that store, people who were all already
Speaker 4: wanting better wages, better healthcare, better staffing, and through these conversations,
Speaker 4: she organized that store. And that is so fucking amazing
Speaker 4: to me, and it makes me feel so I don't know,
Speaker 4: I don't want to sound like patronizing or whatever, and
Speaker 4: it makes me so proud to see that, right, to
Speaker 4: see that she's been able to see how our store
Speaker 4: has organized, how we've spoken to people, how we've reached
Speaker 4: out to like her co workers, and she's been able
Speaker 4: to take that and replicate that so easily, get so quickly.
Speaker 4: Like when I say with them like a week or
Speaker 4: two of transferring to the store, I am not exaggerating,
Speaker 4: she was fucking on.
Speaker 5: Top of it. If we can do this in fucking.
Speaker 4: Goddamn Oklahoma, we can do this anywhere, right, It is possible.
Speaker 4: You can do it if you can have a conversation
Speaker 4: with your coworker, if you can have a conversation with
Speaker 4: multiple coworkers, if you can develop relationships with them friendships,
Speaker 4: if you can establish that you have like a common issue. Right,
Speaker 4: if you can make it clear that like the struggles
Speaker 4: we're facing at our workplaces have a solution, you can
Speaker 4: do this. All you have to do is actually fucking
Speaker 4: take that step to make it happ.
Speaker 6: Every single union that has ever been formed was maybe
Speaker 6: by people exactly like you. You the listener listening to
Speaker 6: this right now, Right, you are exactly the person who
Speaker 6: has organized every union that anyone has ever done. Right,
Speaker 6: It's it's not something that's like the domain of pure
Speaker 6: professional organizers.
Speaker 3: You can do this too, Yeah, you really can, and
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, at my store, I was the
Speaker 3: only transperson at my store, and despite being a transsexual communist,
Speaker 3: I was able to organize a successful election at a
Speaker 3: store that includes, you know, half of people being Trump voters.
Speaker 3: Like the idea that you have to hide or diminish yourself,
Speaker 3: or that because you know your trans or otherwise marginalized,
Speaker 3: that it's impossible for you to build that solidarity with
Speaker 3: your coworkers and come together for your common issues, It's
Speaker 3: just not true. People understand their own economic liberation, even
Speaker 3: if they don't fully just yet. There's always an intuitive
Speaker 3: level you understand you're getting screwed over. You can tell
Speaker 3: that the system is not set up fairly and it's
Speaker 3: not set up for you to succeed as a working person,
Speaker 3: And with the right conversations, with the right information, with
Speaker 3: the right relationships and solidarity that you build with someone else,
Speaker 3: people can be brought to understand what the solution is
Speaker 3: and that the situation you currently live under with shareholders
Speaker 3: and capitalists stealing all of this value from you is unacceptable,
Speaker 3: and that there is a way to fight to get
Speaker 3: back what you've earned with your labor. So for those
Speaker 3: of you who are listening. You don't have to hide
Speaker 3: who you are politically or personally to do that work
Speaker 3: to bring people along. And in fact, if we do
Speaker 3: hide who we are, then we're not really going to
Speaker 3: be getting people all the way to where they need
Speaker 3: to go. You know, we're not going to build a
Speaker 3: movement of people committed to liberation by side stepping issues
Speaker 3: and hiding piece of who we are and saying that, oh, well,
Speaker 3: you know, transliberation is not really important. That's not how
Speaker 3: we're going to build like a durable coalition. I think
Speaker 3: this is a problem that politicians in our country keep making.
Speaker 3: It's a mistake they keep making of thinking they can
Speaker 3: ignore or downplay certain issues tensions within their coalitions to
Speaker 3: keep those coalitions together. But when you ignore it you
Speaker 3: don't address it, it just blows up later in the end. Anyway, Yeah,
Speaker 3: get involved that you really have nothing to lose and
Speaker 3: nothing you know, accept your change not to be I
Speaker 3: mean I just realized halfway through. I was like, well,
Speaker 3: I might as well finish the quote.
Speaker 4: So Okay, we're like such a scary point for trans people,
Speaker 4: and I know that that's terrifying, that that's also an
Speaker 4: opportunity to pivot and to like actually make meaningful change.
Speaker 4: Right again, I cannot emphasize enough we create our own
Speaker 4: hope for a better future.
Speaker 5: It has to be on us, right.
Speaker 4: We can't just, I don't know, depend on other people
Speaker 4: to do this work for us. We have to show
Speaker 4: up and do this work. And I don't know, Personally speaking,
Speaker 4: I am fucking tired of liberals who want to just
Speaker 4: ignore trans people and pretend we don't exist. As Like,
Speaker 4: I don't know, our TVs are flooded with anti trans as.
Speaker 4: I'm tired of depending on people who aren't advocating for me, right,
Speaker 4: I'd rather fight for myself through my union.
Speaker 6: So yeah, I think that's a good place to close on.
Speaker 6: Is in some sense a cold world that has left
Speaker 6: us with no one to fight for ourselves but ourselves.
Speaker 6: But if we fucking do it, we can win, and
Speaker 6: we can drag everyone else along with us.
Speaker 2: On that note, I'm going to close out the show
Speaker 2: here with a few plugs for Starbucks Workers United. You
Speaker 2: can find their website at Sbworkers United dot org and
Speaker 2: SB Workers United on social media. I'll have a link
Speaker 2: to their website to end their solidarity pledge in the
Speaker 2: description below. See you on the other side.
Speaker 1: It could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Speaker 1: Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever.
Speaker 2: You listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1: You can now find sources for it could Happen Here,
Speaker 1: listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.