Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media. Welcome to it could Happen Here, a
Speaker 1: podcast about things falling apart and putting them back together
Speaker 1: again and occasionally discovering that there is in fact a
Speaker 1: second union. I am your host to MEO long now.
Speaker 1: A little while back, I did an interview with a
Speaker 1: group of electrolysis workers who are working for a company
Speaker 1: called Real Electrolysis, and we talked about, you know, their
Speaker 1: unionization efforts and the kind of horror show that was
Speaker 1: going on there. Now, what I didn't mention at the
Speaker 1: time was that in the process of talking to those
Speaker 1: workers and that union, I learned that there was in
Speaker 1: fact a second union that had been organized kind of
Speaker 1: unrelated to the first union at the other location. And
Speaker 1: that is who we are talking to today to get
Speaker 1: an update on what has been going on in general
Speaker 1: with the entire situation, and also to talk about their
Speaker 1: union and a thing that you will kind of commonly
Speaker 1: experience randomly unionizing places, which is that sometimes there is
Speaker 1: another organizing effort at another one of the locations, at
Speaker 1: the same place that you were organizing, and you don't
Speaker 1: know about it because everyone's keeping it secret. So yeah,
Speaker 1: to talk about this, I'm joined by Lake and Angie
Speaker 1: from Gender Affirming Care Workers Alliance. Yeah, both of you two,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Hi, thank you for having us. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm very excited to talk to you both. And
Speaker 1: I guess before we get into the initial organizing, just
Speaker 1: what was it like finding out that the other shop
Speaker 1: was also unionizing?
Speaker 2: Oh my god, it was terrifying.
Speaker 3: So, like our number one priority during our Lakewood campaign
Speaker 3: was secrecy. We absolutely knew how hostile management was towards
Speaker 3: any kind of improvement of workplace conditions. So going from
Speaker 3: almost five versus spy level of off sec to figuring
Speaker 3: out that Vancouver was also unionizing and was doing a walkout, like,
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 2: That was when we learned. Oh god, was when the
Speaker 2: day that they kind.
Speaker 3: Of imploded and we were terrified, Like we did not
Speaker 3: think there would be any way out of that for Lakewood.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a rough way to find out when yeah,
Speaker 1: the other union is like, oh god, okay, we have
Speaker 1: to do we have to do a walkout, we have
Speaker 1: to go on strike because they're firing us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it was certainly understandable. I wouldn't say
Speaker 3: we knew why the walkout was happening. When we found
Speaker 3: out that the walkout happened and that a strike was starting,
Speaker 3: our campaign kind of came to a halt. Like realizing
Speaker 3: there was another campaign happening made us had to reconsider
Speaker 3: what we were doing. Like we had our own grievances
Speaker 3: and we were really just in the process of getting
Speaker 3: people on board. We had maybe a core group of five,
Speaker 3: but we had thirteen or up to thirteen in the end,
Speaker 3: but we had like ten to twelve electrologists. Because that
Speaker 3: number was constantly changing, we had to stop and reassess.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 3: And obviously we wanted solidarity with Vancouver. We wanted to
Speaker 3: do whatever we could to support them, but we also
Speaker 3: didn't want to lose our jobs.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: One of the first things we decided that Lakewood is
Speaker 3: that we weren't going to ask anyone to lose their
Speaker 3: job in order to unionize. We weren't going to put
Speaker 3: anyone in a position where they would then become unstable.
Speaker 3: Almost every single worker at Lakewood like desperately needed this job.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, without it, we.
Speaker 3: Would risk homelessness or other things. So we kind of
Speaker 3: got stuck. I mean, it was a tough situation to
Speaker 3: be in knowing that we would have been on their
Speaker 3: side and with more information and more planning, we would
Speaker 3: have probably joined them, but we weren't there yet.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and this is I guess harshly. Also, Like
Speaker 1: you know, one of the things is difficult about doing
Speaker 1: campaigns is that sometimes like sometimes campaigns move at the
Speaker 1: speed that the workers are organizing at, and then sometimes
Speaker 1: they move at the speed of like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: the boss is firing everyone. We just have to go now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that's yeah, that's always one of the issues is
Speaker 1: like as much as you want to be setting the tempost,
Speaker 1: sometimes you're responding to like what management is doing, and
Speaker 1: that can get very rough, very quickly.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I think Vancouver did great with their circumstances. Like
Speaker 3: you said it, management set the pace and they had
Speaker 3: to respond at like when we were really trying to
Speaker 3: do the opposite. We wanted to put us put ourselves
Speaker 3: in a position where we were taking an action and
Speaker 3: management was responding, and in the end we did. We
Speaker 3: we paused when Vancouver went on strike. We tried to
Speaker 3: assess how best we could help them without just also
Speaker 3: imploding Lakewood. Part of what we realized is that management
Speaker 3: had not realized any campaign was happening at Lakewood because
Speaker 3: they were going to use us as no votes in
Speaker 3: the election.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: They wanted us to be considered one bargaining unit because
Speaker 3: they thought that we would say no and that union
Speaker 3: would lose the election.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So our spy versus spy shit was successful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we were doing well.
Speaker 2: Management deceived, Yeah, perfectly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so do you want to rewind the clock a
Speaker 1: bit and talk about sort of how organizing efforts started.
Speaker 1: It was not connected to the other campaign at all.
Speaker 3: It wasn't, but I think we were dealing with a
Speaker 3: lot of similar issues. Yeah, in our first year, as
Speaker 3: we got onboarded and saw how things were versus the
Speaker 3: position that was promised to us and sold to us, Yeah,
Speaker 3: everyone kind of started catching on to things and started
Speaker 3: like building a list of grievances. There were concerns about
Speaker 3: the lack of training and patient safety. There were concerns
Speaker 3: about the lack of time to do our job, you know,
Speaker 3: working during breaks, working during our lunches. There was really
Speaker 3: unclear and inconsistent disciplinary actions being taken left and right.
Speaker 3: Like one person would be told they could do something,
Speaker 3: another person would do that and get written up for it.
Speaker 2: It felt targeted.
Speaker 3: At some point, Lake would realize that there was no
Speaker 3: position you could be in where you where your job
Speaker 3: was safe. You could be management, you could be the
Speaker 3: owner's absolute favorite electrologists, you could be the best at
Speaker 3: your job. You could keep your head down and do
Speaker 3: absolutely nothing, and one day you would be disappeared for
Speaker 3: whatever reason if you got one. It was like a
Speaker 3: span of like two or three months where we lost
Speaker 3: maybe five employees and everyone heard a different reason if
Speaker 3: one was given.
Speaker 1: HM, which is a pretty clear sign that something is
Speaker 1: going wrong.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think I was the second employee to
Speaker 4: be disappeared at the location.
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there were two employees where we were told they resigned,
Speaker 3: And everyone very very much knew that these are employees
Speaker 3: that wouldn't have resigned. These were employees that were ready
Speaker 3: to start careers and build their life around real you.
Speaker 3: We all believed in real use mission. But Yeah, eventually
Speaker 3: we just realized it didn't matter. Yeah, there was no
Speaker 3: job stability for anyone, and that was a really big
Speaker 3: issue because that's what all of us came to this
Speaker 3: job for. We were hoping for long term careers that
Speaker 3: paid us livable wages and also were safe for us
Speaker 3: to be ourselves in. There's not a lot of jobs
Speaker 3: where trans women get to be trans women. Yep, And
Speaker 3: like this was a job that almost celebrated it.
Speaker 4: And I know, for me personally, I was really excited
Speaker 4: for the opportunity to be able to help the community.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I come from Florida, I'm born and raised unfortunately, where
Speaker 3: transitioning for a long time was kind of a pipe dream,
Speaker 3: Like it was not a realistic goal of mine until
Speaker 3: moving to Washington. And now I get to take or
Speaker 3: I used to get to take part in people's transition
Speaker 3: every day for my job.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. And that's I think like
Speaker 1: one of the kind of cruelest parts of all of this,
Speaker 1: And like what management has done is just like ripping
Speaker 1: that away from both you and from the community.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And it didn't have to be that way, No.
Speaker 1: You really didn't. Yeah, And I guess speaking of the
Speaker 1: cruelty of management, Yeah, Andy, I guess do you want
Speaker 1: to talk about when you said getting disappeared? What was
Speaker 1: going on with that?
Speaker 4: So I had brought a lot of the grievances that
Speaker 4: I was seeing and had towards the owners of the
Speaker 4: company on On Lea alongside the manager of the clinic
Speaker 4: at the time, and any time anything wrong with the
Speaker 4: business was brought up, hostilities just grew, and they kept
Speaker 4: growing the more and more that we said, Hey, you know,
Speaker 4: there's issues with the training, there's issues with the amount
Speaker 4: of time that people.
Speaker 2: Have to do your jobs.
Speaker 4: And it was honestly a really hostile environment created by Anna.
Speaker 4: And before I had gotten disappeared, I was in my
Speaker 4: educational program for electrolysis. I was in the process of
Speaker 4: completing that before my termination, and I had brought up
Speaker 4: some of my concerns because as I was learning more
Speaker 4: and more about electrolysis, I realized that so many of
Speaker 4: the things we had been taught were just wrong. Yeah,
Speaker 4: And because Anna and Leah didn't want to address it
Speaker 4: and didn't want that information being out there, I was
Speaker 4: put in the position where I either had to sign
Speaker 4: a non disclosure to forgive my student loan debt, or
Speaker 4: I could choose to just be fired and then assume
Speaker 4: the debt.
Speaker 1: Jesus, I mean they did. They just literally forced you
Speaker 1: out of the company.
Speaker 2: Correct, it was an involuntary resignation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is only voluntary and like the strict Hobbesy
Speaker 1: in sense where like Hobbes considers that if someone has
Speaker 1: a gun at your head and tells you to do
Speaker 1: something and you do it, you still voluntarily made the decision.
Speaker 1: And I don't know about you, I don't hold to
Speaker 1: the strict Hobsy and interpretation of voluntary.
Speaker 2: I don't think I agree with that.
Speaker 1: I think that if you were coerced into a decision,
Speaker 1: it's not voluntary. I don't know, Like, oh god, obviously.
Speaker 1: I think the other part of this that's just really
Speaker 1: grotesque is what you were talking about in terms of
Speaker 1: just the education being wrong, because this is something that's
Speaker 1: really common in trance healthcare, where like there should Yeah,
Speaker 1: there is just a bunch of stuff the medical professionals
Speaker 1: are being taught that was developed from something someone figured
Speaker 1: out kind of in the eighties and has never been
Speaker 1: updated in the course of like the last twenty five
Speaker 1: years of the development of science, and then just also
Speaker 1: the development of there being more and more trans people
Speaker 1: who have been, you know, just like experiencing treatment. And
Speaker 1: it's frustrating, I think because you really rarely ever get
Speaker 1: a scenario where there are trans people who actually are
Speaker 1: in a position sufficient enough in any kind of medical
Speaker 1: institution to even like get to talk about it, And
Speaker 1: the fact that their response was to just like disappear
Speaker 1: you and force you out of the company is really bleak.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And on that note, I would say most of the
Speaker 4: employees received about two weeks training before working on patients.
Speaker 1: Oh boy.
Speaker 4: That and the educational program that I went through was
Speaker 4: four months. So if you kind of compare the timelines
Speaker 4: there of yeah, how we were trained in the job
Speaker 4: versus the education that I got, it just wasn't enough.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Not only was it not enough, but anyone who voiced
Speaker 3: that it wasn't enough put their job at risk. I
Speaker 3: mean there's more than one Lakewood worker that went to
Speaker 3: management saying, hey, I don't feel well trained enough, I
Speaker 3: don't feel informed enough, And they were met with well
Speaker 3: more than one situation in which they were like directly
Speaker 3: asked like do you feel comfortable working on patients? Do
Speaker 3: you think you're capable of this job? With the implication
Speaker 3: or the direct verbal statement being if you don't, maybe
Speaker 3: you should find somewhere else to work. Yeah, but all
Speaker 3: of us signed up for this job with the agreement,
Speaker 3: like we signed these loan agreements with the idea that
Speaker 3: we'd be going to this in depth training. Like the
Speaker 3: owners themselves during my interview process at least talked up
Speaker 3: sat Master's constantly, like this is the place to go
Speaker 3: to learn about how to provide you, like Tralla's is
Speaker 3: for transgender clients specifically. And then I worked there for
Speaker 3: sixteen months and never saw any training after my first
Speaker 3: few weeks, Like, yeah, I think the entire sixteen months
Speaker 3: there after my first month, my sessions were only observed
Speaker 3: three times. Jesus only three times. And I was not
Speaker 3: an either trolysis provider before this. This was my entry
Speaker 3: into it. Their training was the only training I got. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And the only reason my sessions started being shadowed at
Speaker 3: all is because providers themselves started asking for auditing sessions.
Speaker 4: There is an instance that I would like to bring up.
Speaker 4: I was overseeing the training of new hire and during
Speaker 4: this training period I had a patient on my books
Speaker 4: who had requested to never be on my books again,
Speaker 4: which you know, totally fine, totally valid, But the fact
Speaker 4: that they were put on my books, yeah, after requesting
Speaker 4: not to see me again, was an issue.
Speaker 2: It's not totally fine or totally valid. To do that.
Speaker 4: That's not fine on management's part. And so as I
Speaker 4: am training this new hire and we're going into this session,
Speaker 4: the patient wasn't comfortable with me being there in the
Speaker 4: room to provide training to the new hire. So I
Speaker 4: had to leave the new hire alone with that patient
Speaker 4: Jesus because they weren't comfortable with me being there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is a just absolutely unacceptable way for any
Speaker 1: of this to be running, especially with a delicate healthcare
Speaker 1: thing that can cause inturgud people. Exactly, if we can
Speaker 1: back up for a second, can you explain a little
Speaker 1: bit for people who didn't listen to the first episode
Speaker 1: of people who don't remember about the absolutely why old
Speaker 1: I guess nominally student loan like indent your program thing
Speaker 1: that was. That's the key component of this whole of
Speaker 1: this whole story.
Speaker 3: So just about every worker until like some of the
Speaker 3: most recent workers got a job at real U Electrolysis
Speaker 3: with the understanding that we would be hired and trained
Speaker 3: and receives pay while being trained by real you, but
Speaker 3: that at some point they would send us to zapp
Speaker 3: Masters in Centralia for an electrolysis training program and to
Speaker 3: get us licensed via Oregon State Washington doesn't have electrolysis
Speaker 3: licensure requirements. You could buy a machine and start providing.
Speaker 3: You shouldn't, but you could.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So the idea was that they would pay for our
Speaker 3: zap master's training, they would pay for our machine, they
Speaker 3: would pay us while we were learning this job and
Speaker 3: starting with them, and they totally all of out at
Speaker 3: around nineteen thousand, five hundred dollars plus interest. So nineteen
Speaker 3: to twenty one thousand is the number the gets thrown around.
Speaker 3: They would pay for that and forgive it if we
Speaker 3: agreed to work for them for four years after they
Speaker 3: license us. So this four year timer doesn't even start
Speaker 3: until we're finished with school and get our license in Oregon. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it included a clause where not only do we have
Speaker 3: to work for them for four years, but we can't
Speaker 3: work for other electrolysis clinics.
Speaker 4: Which these kinds of employment agreements are literally called trap agreements.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: If that kind of cluesy into anything, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like it's an indentured service degree. That's like
Speaker 1: and that's like, oh God.
Speaker 3: Hindsight is twenty twenty Jesus crushed. A lot of us
Speaker 3: had the foresight to know it wasn't a good situation,
Speaker 3: but we were coming from situation.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think a way to think about this also
Speaker 1: is just that like, you know, there's two parts of
Speaker 1: this that are predatory. One is the recruitments that is
Speaker 1: designed is you know, based on i mean just lying
Speaker 1: to people about how this is going to go. And
Speaker 1: then there's the secondary part that's the exploitativeness of the
Speaker 1: agreement itself. And I don't know, I think we have
Speaker 1: this very very annoying tendency to look at being an
Speaker 1: inherently exploitive situation to something as you know, something that
Speaker 1: like through anioliberal personal choice you could just avoid being
Speaker 1: in these situations entirely, And that's just like not true.
Speaker 2: No, Unfortunately, if you have a regular job, you are
Speaker 2: being exploited.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And you know the fact that like going
Speaker 1: back to the sort of like hobbsy and consent thing,
Speaker 1: it's like, well, okay, like is anyone actually like you know,
Speaker 1: operating freely in a set of conditions where yeah, like
Speaker 1: if you don't take the job, your alternative is that
Speaker 1: you don't have food, and you you know, you can't
Speaker 1: pay your rent and you and you don't have a home,
Speaker 1: anymore exactly.
Speaker 4: I mean when I came to real you, I was homeless. Yeah,
Speaker 4: before being employed with them.
Speaker 2: You are not the only one. I think many of
Speaker 2: us were.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's something that I think is also really
Speaker 1: bleak about the way that this was structured, which was
Speaker 1: like one of the things that we talked about the
Speaker 1: last episode was at Anna Lantry like very specifically said
Speaker 1: that she was targeting trans people because you could just
Speaker 1: treat them a little bit nicely and they would do
Speaker 1: anything for you. And yeah, it's like, you know, this
Speaker 1: is a deliberate targeting of a population that has an
Speaker 1: unemployment rate that is what like four and a half
Speaker 1: times the general unemployment rate in the US, that is,
Speaker 1: at all times and at all places operating in like
Speaker 1: great depression levels of unemployment. And that's yeah, you know
Speaker 1: who's like homelessness rates and like rate of having been
Speaker 1: homelessness like orders of magnitude higher from the general population.
Speaker 1: And I don't know, it's extreme, only bleak that you know,
Speaker 1: the opportunity to both like help your community and also
Speaker 1: make a just absolutely seismic like class increase from like
Speaker 1: being homeless and struggling to feed yourself to like having
Speaker 1: stable employment is ultimately kind of this like debt peon
Speaker 1: ship trap.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean you put it pretty clearly.
Speaker 1: Capitalism sucks like Christ bad economic syst of good. Lord
Speaker 1: Ough agreed. So speaking of capitalism, we should probably throw
Speaker 1: to ads, and then when we come back, we could
Speaker 1: talk more about resisting capitalism, which is to say, how
Speaker 1: how the organizing got going and what's been happening since.
Speaker 2: Yeah sounds good, sounds good, and.
Speaker 1: We are back. Yeah, so let's get into a little
Speaker 1: bit more of like how the organizing process started and
Speaker 1: how it sort of went.
Speaker 3: I think Andy might be a good one to start
Speaker 3: with this, because, unbeknownst to everyone, there were three different
Speaker 3: starts through our union efforts.
Speaker 2: Andy, before you got got.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was looking into the possibility of trying to
Speaker 4: start a union at the shop. I was reaching out
Speaker 4: to different union organizations, and I was also looking at
Speaker 4: what government agencies that I could be reaching out to
Speaker 4: about some of the things that we were experiencing at
Speaker 4: our workplace.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So that would have been around November of last year.
Speaker 4: Was around November.
Speaker 3: And then Andy disappeared that there is a string of firings,
Speaker 3: and I would say our efforts started again around January
Speaker 3: of this year kind of just started with one of
Speaker 3: our workers chatting with their patients. The trans community is
Speaker 3: also pretty involved in organizing mutually unions. So like when
Speaker 3: you're shooting the ship with your patient and they hear
Speaker 3: like a workplace ripe for organizing, they tell you, wait,
Speaker 3: that is.
Speaker 1: The that is that is maybe the sweetest thing I've
Speaker 1: ever heard, Like.
Speaker 2: It was pretty good. This wouldn't have happened.
Speaker 1: Trans people, truly, truly amazing.
Speaker 3: Oh really, so yeah, we had a patient who was
Speaker 3: an IWW member who told us that was, look, you
Speaker 3: gotta start.
Speaker 2: You gotta get in contact with the GNB and then
Speaker 2: start learning how to organize. So we did.
Speaker 1: That's okay, it's not quite salting because he was someone
Speaker 1: who was a patient and not like an employee. But
Speaker 1: it's like it's kind of like an accidental sulting. Oh
Speaker 1: my god.
Speaker 3: None of this would have happened without our patients. Oh,
Speaker 3: they've been supportive the entire way. When things in Vancouver
Speaker 3: started happening, we all started having patients ask or tell
Speaker 3: us that, look, I don't want to put you in
Speaker 3: an awkward position, but if y'all started unionizing, that'd be dope. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it was really nice getting a support. It sucked that
Speaker 3: we couldn't talk to them about it because, like we said,
Speaker 3: we were kind of doing spy versus s by level
Speaker 3: of we didn't want management to know, so our patients
Speaker 3: didn't know until kind of the last month, which sucked.
Speaker 3: I mean, these people that we've been seeing weekly or
Speaker 3: more often for months, weeks up to a year, it
Speaker 3: sucked not getting to tell them what was going on,
Speaker 3: knowing that they cared.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's just really stark examples of like what
Speaker 1: community actually is versus what it's sold to us as
Speaker 1: we're like, yeah, you have this thing where you know,
Speaker 1: you have genuine community with the patients that you're treating
Speaker 1: in a way that's staggeringly, unbelievably rare in any kind
Speaker 1: of trans healthcare field. And you know, and from that community,
Speaker 1: you get hey, you get hey, you should organize, and
Speaker 1: like you know, people trying to help do the organizing,
Speaker 1: and then you know, you have this sort of like
Speaker 1: the corporate version of community, which is the boss is
Speaker 1: running a terror campaign and like disappearing your trans coworkers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's pretty stark contrast. Yeah, Honestly, part of why
Speaker 3: it went on for so long. Is every red flag
Speaker 3: that management had there were at least one, if not
Speaker 3: two green flags between your coworkers and your clientele that
Speaker 3: made up for it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, going back to organizing.
Speaker 3: January, we got in contact with the Tacoma GMB for
Speaker 3: the IWW GMB is general Membership branch, so it's essentially
Speaker 3: just the local IWW to us, and we had a
Speaker 3: organizing rep who would do kind of like monthly calls
Speaker 3: with us at first, just telling us how to organize,
Speaker 3: what conversations to have, and how to get people interested.
Speaker 3: The AIOU conversation, agitate, educate, inoculate, organized, push.
Speaker 2: One of those.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, got it.
Speaker 3: Because none of us had any organizing experience. So we
Speaker 3: had all of this energy to write our conditions, but
Speaker 3: we didn't know how to do it. So we started
Speaker 3: having conversations with the IWW and just slowly started building
Speaker 3: up our group of trustworthy workers that we knew wanted this.
Speaker 2: It wasn't hard.
Speaker 3: Most of us lean left, if not radical, so finding
Speaker 3: union sympathies was not difficult. Finding the grievances was even easier.
Speaker 3: I mean these things are pretty clear in the workplace.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the bosses once again the best organizer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly What really did it for us is when
Speaker 3: paychecks started bouncing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just I just still saw I a hole
Speaker 1: on this for a second to flight that. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: what do you mean the paychecks are bouncing?
Speaker 2: What the fuck? Like Jesus Christ. Yeah, that's about how
Speaker 2: we felt.
Speaker 3: Like at the end of March they swapped us from
Speaker 3: direct posit over to paper paychecks. Our first one was
Speaker 3: in April and there was at Lakewood only one person
Speaker 3: who had it bounce. I think Vancouver also had some issues,
Speaker 3: but like we said, there was no communication between the branches,
Speaker 3: so we didn't know what they were dealing with. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and management kind of did their best to keep the
Speaker 3: locations separate, Like Lakewood was told things about Vancouver to
Speaker 3: of view them negatively, and the same with Vancouver.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which again is this real sort of image of
Speaker 1: like what the world's ruled by bosses is, which is like, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're deliberately trying to isolate people from their community and
Speaker 1: liberally trying to separate people and instill sort of like
Speaker 1: fear and hatred against each other. And then you get
Speaker 1: put in this position where it's like it becomes difficult
Speaker 1: to actually like do the kind of like community building
Speaker 1: and the kind of like solidarity and organizing that you
Speaker 1: want to because everyone also has to like hide from
Speaker 1: this boss surveillance state.
Speaker 2: I feel pretty bad.
Speaker 3: Like all the way up until we heard about Vancouver's
Speaker 3: walk out, I kind of referenced Vancouver as like the
Speaker 3: Vancouver Colt because it sounded like everyone was really happy
Speaker 3: and fine with how things were going, and Anna and
Speaker 3: Leo were just doing what they wanted Vancouver, and everyone's
Speaker 3: fine with it, and everyone's happy with it, and it was.
Speaker 2: Okay over there.
Speaker 3: So I mean that was part of why we didn't
Speaker 3: contact them initially. We didn't know who it was safe to.
Speaker 3: Lakewood had our own experiences of like talking to a
Speaker 3: worker we thought was on our side and they immediately
Speaker 3: turned around and go talk to management.
Speaker 1: Oof.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, So yeah, communication just wasn't there between us
Speaker 3: and Vancouver. So when checks started bouncing, the total number
Speaker 3: was always unclear. The first paycheck it was just one.
Speaker 3: That second paycheck in April, it was already a few
Speaker 3: more people, Chris, so when they told the first worker,
Speaker 3: they had no idea why that check bounced. And then
Speaker 3: the next paycheck, more checks bounced. It was like immediately
Speaker 3: obvious they were being yeah, untruthful, dishonest.
Speaker 1: Like what one paycheck bouncing is already unacceptable, like the
Speaker 1: correctly the un paycheck second bounce is zero, but it's
Speaker 1: like the woman there's more than one. Suddenly it's like
Speaker 1: that it becomes a lot less likely that it's like
Speaker 1: they fucked up and more likely that like like something
Speaker 1: deliberately like malicious and messed up is happening.
Speaker 2: Here exactly each paycheck.
Speaker 3: The frequency kind of just went up, like how many
Speaker 3: people had their paychecks bounce and the way that it
Speaker 3: was handled was just rewriting them, like it was your
Speaker 3: responsibility to figure it out it had bounced, go to
Speaker 3: management and ask them to fix it. Them fixing it
Speaker 3: was either reissuing you a check or asking you to
Speaker 3: try cashing it again. Oh my god, there was one
Speaker 3: paycheck where after it had bounced for me and my partner,
Speaker 3: they did just tell us to try every day because
Speaker 3: they couldn't tell us when they would have the funds
Speaker 3: to pay us because some money comes in and out
Speaker 3: every single day.
Speaker 2: It was a pretty wild situation to be put in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like Jesus Christ, like just like absolute nightmare. Oh
Speaker 1: my god.
Speaker 3: So when checks started bouncing, it kind of clarified what
Speaker 3: we could organize around.
Speaker 2: First.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, if you're not getting paid, you don't
Speaker 3: have a job to unionize.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's like the most like nothing to lose in
Speaker 1: a world to win situation you could possibly imagine exactly
Speaker 1: like we're getting paid, we're doing real work for fake money, like.
Speaker 3: Right, So we kind of settled on that as like
Speaker 3: our first grievance and demand to organize around is we're
Speaker 3: demanding guaranteed pay.
Speaker 2: Which isn't even like it shouldn't be a demand. It's
Speaker 2: their legal responsibility so much.
Speaker 1: It's like, yes, you must form a union in order
Speaker 1: to have the right to be paid. Which I've been
Speaker 1: saying this kind of joke about what it's like being
Speaker 1: transfer a while. Where it's like to be a trans
Speaker 1: person in America is to like aspire to the status
Speaker 1: of a mere proletarian. We you only get regular exploitation
Speaker 1: instead of like the even honestly here, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we had to form a union so they would like
Speaker 1: pay us, and it's like good, like.
Speaker 2: We just wanted real jobs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, oh my god.
Speaker 3: Going back to when we started talking to the IWW
Speaker 3: in those first like initial union ish meetings. It was
Speaker 3: still just very few of us and we hadn't put
Speaker 3: words to it yet, but we kind of realized that
Speaker 3: we weren't super interested in going the route of the
Speaker 3: NLRB with a election for a union and then collective
Speaker 3: bargaining for a contract. We had contracts. We know how
Speaker 3: real you write its contracts. We weren't interested in another one.
Speaker 3: We wanted the ability to react to changes in the
Speaker 3: workplace with flexibility, which is what the IWW was offering.
Speaker 3: They focus on like solidarity unionism that doesn't use the
Speaker 3: NLRB but instead uses worker power via direct action to
Speaker 3: get management to the table and to meet your demands.
Speaker 2: Because a lot of this was rushed, we.
Speaker 3: Didn't get a chance to really get the terminology and
Speaker 3: our options. Yea, but one of the terms they used
Speaker 3: was involuntary recognition.
Speaker 1: That's fun.
Speaker 3: We were running underground until we were ready to go public.
Speaker 3: But we were fine with being a public union. We
Speaker 3: just didn't need the NLRB's backing. Yeah, we had the
Speaker 3: worker power in the workplace and we were going to
Speaker 3: do direct action to get what we wanted. So yeah,
Speaker 3: I think the word we were using was involuntary recognition.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like I love that. That's great, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So going back to March and April, knowing that
Speaker 3: we weren't interested in contracts and that we were going
Speaker 3: to go the round of direct action, we just had
Speaker 3: to choose a demand to start with.
Speaker 2: The bouncing paychecks was a pretty easy one.
Speaker 3: So we started having meet and talking about what kind
Speaker 3: of direct action we could do and what kind of
Speaker 3: escalations we could have if we were organizing around the
Speaker 3: demand for guaranteed pay and that demand essentially we were
Speaker 3: asking them to resume direct deposit or deliver our next
Speaker 3: check in the form of guaranteed funds like cash, money orders,
Speaker 3: cashier's check, something that won't balance.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we wanted our money on the day it was due.
Speaker 1: And also, like I want to say this too, that
Speaker 1: like there's like a theory version of this in Capital
Speaker 1: where Marx talks about how like labor is the only
Speaker 1: commodity that you pay for at the end and not
Speaker 1: at the beginning when you purchase it. We're like every
Speaker 1: other commodity you have to like pay for it before
Speaker 1: you get it, whereas with labor you pay for it after.
Speaker 1: But like if you tried this with any other commodity
Speaker 1: other than labor, this is a.
Speaker 2: Crime, right, I mean it's a crime for labor too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is a rid for labor. But it's like,
Speaker 1: but it's also like like if you if you do
Speaker 1: this at a grocery store, like you will be arrested, yes,
Speaker 1: And when a corporation does it, it's like, okay, if
Speaker 1: you want the law to help you for doing again
Speaker 1: the same thing that will get men with guns to
Speaker 1: take you away at a grocery store, right, you have
Speaker 1: to form a fucking union and organized. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I hate this fucking systems. It's so unbelievably exploitative, and
Speaker 1: it's so clear in these sort of moments like who
Speaker 1: is designed to protect and who was not designed to protect?
Speaker 1: Where like the punishment for the same literally the same
Speaker 1: crime is like one of you gets you arrested and
Speaker 1: the other one gets you like a union campaign.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's also something that I'd like to mention, Yeah,
Speaker 4: or those who managed to go through this app master program.
Speaker 4: One of the things that was supposed to happen was
Speaker 4: that those employees during their education, we're supposed to receive
Speaker 4: stipends to cover their living expenses. Yeah, during our schooling,
Speaker 4: many of whom which were either not working at the
Speaker 4: time or working at reduced hours, and some of them
Speaker 4: sauce stipends or partial stipends, and some of them, from
Speaker 4: what I understand, received nothing at all.
Speaker 1: Jesus.
Speaker 4: But we're still working at those reduced hours trying to
Speaker 4: support themselves while also going to school.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is again also a I guess like it's
Speaker 1: a form of wage theft. And also b it's a
Speaker 1: thing where like, like the difference between the bosses making
Speaker 1: slightly less money that year and a bunch of workers
Speaker 1: who are like mostly trans and in really horrifying like
Speaker 1: economic conditions. Not having that money is a difference between
Speaker 1: someone like maybe buying I don't even want to say
Speaker 1: buying a slightly less like fancy car because it's not
Speaker 1: even that much money for them. It's like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: like they have one day where they don't go to
Speaker 1: like an unbelievably expensive restaurant, versus like can I feed
Speaker 1: myself at night?
Speaker 3: Yeah, they get one less personal massage. Yeah, we might
Speaker 3: end up almost.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was part of the situation that was starting
Speaker 3: to really weigh on me. Near the end, because part
Speaker 3: of what I had signed up for was agreeing to
Speaker 3: work part time and do schooling part time, and it
Speaker 3: was supposed to be like anywhere from five to six
Speaker 3: days a week with the two which was going to
Speaker 3: be a bit much for me. But at some point
Speaker 3: they decided they wanted all their workers doing school full
Speaker 3: time so that they could get through it quicker. But
Speaker 3: they didn't adjust the stipend they were offering, so you
Speaker 3: were expected to stretch the shame amount of money over
Speaker 3: time where you weren't getting any income at all. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and that money was four thousand, five hundred dollars, which
Speaker 3: is not a nice for the like three months of
Speaker 3: rent and food and gas no gas because it's in Centralia.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So yeah, Like, I had had multiple conversations with them
Speaker 3: about it, and they would not give me a clear
Speaker 3: answer on whether we would be able to continue working,
Speaker 3: or if we wouldn't get to work, or what we
Speaker 3: would do about our income situation.
Speaker 4: And that's the situation that I ended up in. Was
Speaker 4: for the last two months of my schooling, I had
Speaker 4: to float myself on very little income because I had
Speaker 4: only received enough to really cover the first two months
Speaker 4: of the.
Speaker 2: School and it's going took like six to nine months
Speaker 2: if you were part time.
Speaker 4: If you were a part time it took sixt to
Speaker 4: nine months yeah, and four months if you were full time,
Speaker 4: which I was going full time.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then also like the second thing with that
Speaker 1: too is just like it's not only are you like
Speaker 1: spending time doing training for this unpaid like that's also
Speaker 1: taking in time where you can't work another job to
Speaker 1: get more income.
Speaker 3: Well, if you wanted to work at another job, you
Speaker 3: had to get their approval jeess. Trust Yeah, they made
Speaker 3: it pretty clear they wanted you committed to reel you
Speaker 3: and nothing else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's cult tactics. And then also the classic
Speaker 1: like wonderful capitalist double freedom where you have freedom from
Speaker 1: the ability to eat and then the freedom to sell yourself.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean I could always choose to go homeless
Speaker 2: and hungry.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So that the law and is magsifficent equality bans
Speaker 1: both the rich and the poor from sleeping under a bridge.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So we chose our demand and we came up with
Speaker 3: our plan. We had our actions settled, and we had
Speaker 3: a plan for if management responded, if they didn't, if
Speaker 3: they escalated, we had our options and we felt secure
Speaker 3: going in at that point. Like when we first started
Speaker 3: our actions, we only actually had five workers participating, more
Speaker 3: that were sympathetic, but all that felt that they weren't
Speaker 3: in a position to do direct action and lose their job.
Speaker 3: We saw Vancouver lose their jobs when they took action.
Speaker 3: We knew it was a very real possibility, but we started,
Speaker 3: I believe. On June twenty ninth, we delivered our demand
Speaker 3: for guaranteed pay to our manager. The IWW calls it
Speaker 3: a march on the boss. Yeah, it was like less
Speaker 3: than five minutes total. The five workers presented our demand.
Speaker 3: We gave two testimonials for like how it's been impacting
Speaker 3: us directly, and then we left.
Speaker 2: We sent a follow up.
Speaker 3: Email to the owners of the company because we had
Speaker 3: handed it to the manager and we're waiting for their response.
Speaker 2: We put it out there and we just had to wait.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the next day, the manager caught one of our
Speaker 3: workers on her own to to respond, essentially telling us
Speaker 3: they could not afford to pay us any other way,
Speaker 3: that they were paying us. They could cut us paper
Speaker 3: checks on each pay day and that was it.
Speaker 2: That wasn't one of the options we gave them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just can't get over the like, yeah, sorry.
Speaker 1: The only way I could afford to keep running my
Speaker 1: business is if I'm allowed to not pay you, and
Speaker 1: that that's the thing you have to accept, is if.
Speaker 2: I'm allowed to hand out checks that can't be cashed. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So when they told us no, we looked at our
Speaker 3: plan and we took our next action. We submitted a
Speaker 3: bunch of l and I claims for our checks that
Speaker 3: had been NSF or insufficient funds an ELANI claim. Labor
Speaker 3: in Industries is kind of like the protective body body
Speaker 3: for workers in Washington. For each check that we had
Speaker 3: received that bounced, we had a right to file a
Speaker 3: worker's rights complaint. The problem with those complaints is that
Speaker 3: they're not anonymous. Your employer gets told when one is filed,
Speaker 3: hoogled it and why they filed it. Unfortunately, that wasn't
Speaker 3: an option until we were all doing it together, unless
Speaker 3: we wanted to lose our job as one by one.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So when they told us no, we started by submitting
Speaker 3: our LLENI claims. It all happened so quick, and it
Speaker 3: was one action after another that it kind of blurs together.
Speaker 3: So I think we submitted our LNI claims when we
Speaker 3: gave them our demand. On the twenty ninth, we gave
Speaker 3: them a deadline for our next payday. So July third
Speaker 3: is when we were due to get paid again, and
Speaker 3: we said, by then, you have to agree that you're
Speaker 3: going to give us guaranteed pay or deliver guaranteed funds. Yeah,
Speaker 3: the next day they had told us no, and on
Speaker 3: Friday they delivered paychecks like any other pay day. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they didn't really acknowledge what we had asked. They didn't
Speaker 3: acknowledge that they weren't meeting our demand. They did not
Speaker 3: tell us there were any issues with these checks or
Speaker 3: that they might bounce, or that there weren't the funds.
Speaker 3: They at no point asked anyone to delay cashing their
Speaker 3: checks because they didn't have the funds, like that was
Speaker 3: part of the issue. Is like sometimes businesses run into
Speaker 3: financial issues and you have to deal with it. The
Speaker 3: way to deal with it is not by giving out
Speaker 3: bad checks and not telling your workers.
Speaker 1: For people who haven't like thought of this before, there
Speaker 1: are like actual consequences for attempting to cash a check
Speaker 1: that doesn't cash, absolutely, like that gets taken out on you.
Speaker 1: The person choose attempting to cash the check like, as
Speaker 1: well as the people upstream who are doing the bad checks.
Speaker 4: Like.
Speaker 3: We actually managed to avoid that at Lakewood for the
Speaker 3: most part, because once checks started bouncing, we were scared
Speaker 3: of that happening. Yeah, so we started cashing them at Chase,
Speaker 3: which is who really you banks with. You don't have
Speaker 3: to have an account with Chase to go get your
Speaker 3: check cash with them. You just have to pay a
Speaker 3: ten dollars fee and have forms of identification. So the
Speaker 3: people who went to Chase and had their checks bounce there,
Speaker 3: it never.
Speaker 2: Hit their account.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's good.
Speaker 3: There were never any fees or any negative marks on
Speaker 3: our accounts. For the people who couldn't do that, there were, Yeah,
Speaker 3: there were NSF fees. At least one Laquid employee now
Speaker 3: has had their account completely shut down for ninety days
Speaker 3: while it's investigated for fraud.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is horrific because it's like, Okay, the people
Speaker 1: who are committing the fraud are the bosses, but now
Speaker 1: you don't have a fucking bank account for ninety days,
Speaker 1: which is just a nightmare.
Speaker 3: Part of our hope had been that by cashing them
Speaker 3: at Chase, Chase would flag the account because like their
Speaker 3: account was with Chase, and they were consistently issuing these
Speaker 3: checks that they couldn't afford to, and we were consistently
Speaker 3: cashing them at Chase, who had to acknowledge them the
Speaker 3: funds there. Yeah, Unfortunately, they told us a couple of
Speaker 3: times that there was just nothing they could do on
Speaker 3: their end.
Speaker 1: Love, capitalist, class solidarity, great stuff.
Speaker 3: So we did our demand, we did our L and
Speaker 3: I claims, and then they delivered our paychecks as if
Speaker 3: nothing had happened. So over that weekend we finalized our
Speaker 3: plan to stage walkouts starting on Monday, from twelve to one.
Speaker 3: Workers would leave, really you to go to the local
Speaker 3: Chase and attempt to cash their checks. And we did
Speaker 3: that until each worker got paid. It normally took like
Speaker 3: fifteen to twenty minutes, and then we spent the rest
Speaker 3: of the hour, you know, doing our direct action, not
Speaker 3: returning to work. Yeah, but when it was one o'clock
Speaker 3: we returned to work, we were ready to see our patients.
Speaker 3: We all messaged our clients the night before if they
Speaker 3: were affected, and if we had the time, we offered
Speaker 3: them replacement sessions. We did our best to follow the
Speaker 3: rules as much as we could while breaking them. We
Speaker 3: were trying to send a message management we weren't trying
Speaker 3: to disrupt patient care.
Speaker 2: Yea, every step of the way. We were doing our
Speaker 2: best to disrupt actual patient care to the least amount possible.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So that went on for three days. On Monday, none
Speaker 3: of the checks cleared. On Tuesday we got six of them,
Speaker 3: and on Wednesday we got the last one. I did
Speaker 3: forget to say that was when we picked up two
Speaker 3: more workers. There were a couple workers who weren't comfortable
Speaker 3: prior to them taking part in direct action that were
Speaker 3: ready and did join the walkout with us. Management ignored
Speaker 3: the walkouts. We got absolutely no response. We sent email
Speaker 3: updates each day, this mini checks cleared, This many didn't.
Speaker 2: We're going to keep going. At any point. If they
Speaker 2: had just told us, yes, we'll give you guaranteed pay
Speaker 2: next payday, we would have stopped. Yeah they didn't.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we got paid on Wednesday. A few days
Speaker 3: went by when we still weren't hearing from them, so
Speaker 3: we escalated again.
Speaker 2: I think after that we did a stick out.
Speaker 3: So there was a day where everyone called in sick
Speaker 3: and most of the workers weren't in the office.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, which is.
Speaker 2: Pretty noticeable, especially when management doesn't come into the office
Speaker 2: and all that's left is your newbies. Yeah, we did
Speaker 2: that again. Still no response.
Speaker 3: We sent another follow up email being like, you continue
Speaker 3: to not meet our demands, We're going to continue to
Speaker 3: take action. At any point we will call a cease
Speaker 3: fire if you come to the table and either meet
Speaker 3: our demand or tell us why you can't tell us
Speaker 3: what your plan is to do to meet it in
Speaker 3: the future. And they still didn't, so we moved on
Speaker 3: to what's called the good Work strike. Every provider that
Speaker 3: was taking part, we showed up, We did our jobs,
Speaker 3: we treated our patients, we cleaned our rooms. We just
Speaker 3: didn't sign our notes because that meant that management wasn't
Speaker 3: able to bill for them, because if we weren't getting paid,
Speaker 3: neither should they.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's a version of the bus strikes, where like
Speaker 1: you just run the buses but then don't charge anyone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. That was exactly the line of thinking.
Speaker 3: There was another group of nurses in a hospital that
Speaker 3: stopped charting so that patients would be billed, but they
Speaker 3: kept performing the work. Rock And that's exactly where I
Speaker 3: got the idea from weis that we wanted to take
Speaker 3: care of, but we didn't want to give real money
Speaker 3: when they weren't meeting their obligations.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: That on for a few days, and then on our
Speaker 3: day off, we got a bunch of information. On that Thursday,
Speaker 3: it was revealed that management had been told Really was
Speaker 3: going bankrupt and would be closing.
Speaker 2: Probably the twenty fourth.
Speaker 1: Oh boy.
Speaker 3: So they learned that Thursday, and we didn't know what
Speaker 3: they would tell us if anything. And payday was Friday,
Speaker 3: so they were either going to meet or demand or
Speaker 3: not meet it again. Yeah, and so that plus the
Speaker 3: information we got on Thursday, we decided to do another
Speaker 3: stick out so that we could reassess. We wanted to
Speaker 3: see what they were actually going to do. We wanted
Speaker 3: to see if the business was going to be open,
Speaker 3: because there's just red flag after red flag. Some of
Speaker 3: us are expecting them to close up and run away
Speaker 3: at any point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean they opened on Friday, checks were delivered.
Speaker 2: Two of us received fake ones.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, let's talk about the fake checks for
Speaker 1: a second. What the fuck? I can't get over this?
Speaker 2: What listen? We like to joke that whatever you think
Speaker 2: the worst option is, really you will choose a worse one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so at least two employees.
Speaker 2: We're certain more.
Speaker 3: We're just not sure who exactly and how many. But
Speaker 3: we were given checks that we're kind of handwritten, like
Speaker 3: the only things printed on them were like the color
Speaker 3: that check paper is and one of the lines on
Speaker 3: the back where you endorse it. Everything else was hand
Speaker 3: drawn from like who was made out to how much
Speaker 3: it was the lines those.
Speaker 2: Are written on. Yeah, like it sent alarm bells ringing
Speaker 2: pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: But that's not even monopoly money, because monopoly money is printed.
Speaker 2: This is like, yeah, no, it was like a crafts project.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like they've invented a form of payment like
Speaker 1: fakers and company store money. Like it's unbelievable.
Speaker 2: So yeah, we got those and we were pretty suspicious,
Speaker 2: but we kept them to chase.
Speaker 3: Anyways, and the teller was like, look, I can't I
Speaker 3: can't even cash this to tell you that it's bounced
Speaker 3: because there's no way for me to verify it's real.
Speaker 3: The security marketings that are supposed to be on the
Speaker 3: back are not there.
Speaker 1: It's like, sorry, I have a poor fake teller. It's
Speaker 1: just like yeah, sorry, I like can't cash, Like like,
Speaker 1: just like child's drawings of money, this is not an
Speaker 1: extensible form of payment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's right. Oh no, They unfortunately couldn't really tell
Speaker 2: us what to do about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we had to reach out to our management
Speaker 3: and ownership to be like, hey, we could not cast
Speaker 3: our checks. We need real ones issued. Uh huh, let
Speaker 3: us know how you're doing that. Also, on Friday, we
Speaker 3: were out of work. We were waiting for news, and
Speaker 3: I think that's when they sent out the email about
Speaker 3: the business closing. At like one point fifty six workers
Speaker 3: got an email to their company email, which meant most
Speaker 3: of us could not access it because we don't access
Speaker 3: work emails from home. That's when they sent it out,
Speaker 3: and like thirty minutes later, they sent out a patient announcement,
Speaker 3: and that's how most of us learned. We learned as patients.
Speaker 3: First that really was closing in one week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is just horrifying stuff.
Speaker 3: That was when it really hit me. When I opened
Speaker 3: my patient portal and read the announcement, I felt like
Speaker 3: I was seeing it like all my patients were reading it,
Speaker 3: and like I was losing access to needed care out
Speaker 3: of nowhere.
Speaker 2: Heartbreaking.
Speaker 3: It was devastating, like there's no words to describe how
Speaker 3: I felt for all of my patients.
Speaker 2: Some of them knew it was coming, most of them didn't.
Speaker 2: A lot of them didn't get last sessions.
Speaker 3: I mean, when we got the notice, we as a
Speaker 3: union realized that if we worked that last week, whether.
Speaker 2: Or not we'd get paid was up in the air.
Speaker 3: I mean, if they chose not to pay us, we
Speaker 3: would have to go through bankruptcy court and get in
Speaker 3: line to get paid. So instead we decided to strike.
Speaker 3: We spent the last week that really was open on
Speaker 3: the picket line telling patients what was actually happening. We
Speaker 3: weren't boycotting. We weren't asking anyone not to go in
Speaker 3: and have their last sessions. We were encouraging that any
Speaker 3: of the providers that were left, anyone who had sessions,
Speaker 3: we wanted them to get them before they couldn't. But
Speaker 3: we also didn't want to provide free labor. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: it wasn't an easy decision. I mean, it's one that
Speaker 3: the group had to talk about and go back and
Speaker 3: forth on. I mean, none of us thought that our
Speaker 3: last sessions were going to be our last sessions. We
Speaker 3: all wanted to see our patients. One more time. We
Speaker 3: didn't want our patients' last session to be their last session. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but we also didn't want to be exploited even further.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, we made it clear what we were willing
Speaker 2: to do, and we followed through.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's really like the most here
Speaker 1: example of just the dilemma that healthcare work, and also
Speaker 1: like nonprofit work and anything where you're taking care of people,
Speaker 1: it's you're put in this dilemma where like the way
Speaker 1: that exploitation by the bosses works is like they're going
Speaker 1: to exploit you and pay you less because of your
Speaker 1: care for the work that you're doing and the people
Speaker 1: that you're helping. And this is like the most pure like, yeah,
Speaker 1: the choice you've been given by your bosses is to
Speaker 1: probably work for free to help your community and make
Speaker 1: these people a little bit more money before they fuck
Speaker 1: off or go on strike and have to deal with
Speaker 1: you know, like have to try to get your patient's
Speaker 1: treatment somehow exactly. It's horrifying.
Speaker 3: It's an impossible choice. Yeah, it sucked. None of us
Speaker 3: wanted it to go that way. It didn't have to
Speaker 3: be that way.
Speaker 4: It didn't, And I think it's really unfortunate because multiple
Speaker 4: steps along the way, they could have scaled back operations
Speaker 4: to focus on fixing the internal issues with the business.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not like they didn't have people telling them
Speaker 3: what was happening. It's just they chose to stick their
Speaker 3: head in the sand like an ostrich and keep going.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, and ultimately like, you're the people
Speaker 1: who are paying the price for their mistakes and you know,
Speaker 1: their greed and arrogance and malice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but we survived, and I know that a lot
Speaker 2: of my workers agree with me that this was an
Speaker 2: experience we would rather have than not have.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: We found a lot of solidarity and community, and I mean,
Speaker 3: we've built relationships that are going to last past this.
Speaker 3: We're hoping to move on and work together again in
Speaker 3: something better.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And my understanding is that the long term
Speaker 1: goal is to try to set up a co op
Speaker 1: to be able to do this without sort of the
Speaker 1: exploitation of the bosses.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, that is the ideal. I think every
Speaker 2: union member's dream would be a worker cooperative or somewhere
Speaker 2: where they have some form of either ownership or say
Speaker 2: in the process. We would love to create something where
Speaker 2: our patients and our workers are working in tandem together
Speaker 2: to create the care that they deserve.
Speaker 3: Like you mentioned earlier, there's just such a lack of
Speaker 3: standards of care for trans like gender firming care. We
Speaker 3: don't talk to each other enough. We don't value the
Speaker 3: patient experience enough. We figured out a lot of things
Speaker 3: in the eighties and didn't bother doing more research.
Speaker 2: We want to do that.
Speaker 3: We want to fill that hole, and we have a
Speaker 3: lot of workers that are very committed to that, that
Speaker 3: are very excited by that opportunity. It's a long term
Speaker 3: goal and the short term we're hoping to get more
Speaker 3: people educated like we were promised, and back to providing.
Speaker 3: We're hoping to find new placements for our patients that
Speaker 3: have urgent care needs, like people who have surgeries that
Speaker 3: are coming up. We're working on a database of like
Speaker 3: local electrolysis clinics, who has availability, who treats what areas,
Speaker 3: and who takes what insurance is So if we have
Speaker 3: patients that are looking for new places, they can reach
Speaker 3: out and we can point them somewhere. But we're always
Speaker 3: looking for more resources too. We're in our information gathering phase.
Speaker 3: We're trying to resource compile, just get everything we can
Speaker 3: for our workers so that we can take those next steps.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 4: And what's devastating about this all is really was one
Speaker 4: of the few places that actually took insurances. Not many
Speaker 4: electrolysis clinics do, so it can be very difficult for
Speaker 4: people to find and affoord care.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, And that's I don't know, like, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: like another one of the heart wrenching things about this
Speaker 1: is like all of the patients whose medical care is
Speaker 1: ripped away by this, and the fact that it's y'all
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how to help them and not
Speaker 1: the bosses is like such an edication of which side
Speaker 1: people are fundamentally on.
Speaker 2: I mean, how they handled the closure is a pretty
Speaker 2: clear sign of that too.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: If you cared about your patients finding new places before
Speaker 3: their services were disrupted, would have given them more than
Speaker 3: one week notice. Yeah, I mean you require two weeks
Speaker 3: notice from workers before they will you.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think our patients deserve better.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they absolutely do. And you also deserve better.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, we have better, We've made better, we're going
Speaker 2: to create better. But it would have been nice to
Speaker 2: have what we thought we were getting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, speaking of that is, are there ways for listeners
Speaker 1: to reach out and help.
Speaker 2: So right now we have a link tree.
Speaker 3: It's a little bit bare bones because this happens so
Speaker 3: much sooner than it was supposed to. Yeah, there is
Speaker 3: a go fund me that is for workers stability. Not
Speaker 3: all of us are going to qualify for unemployment, and
Speaker 3: it's going to be a while before we can find
Speaker 3: new jobs because pollsis, clinics and being transgendered just it's.
Speaker 2: A tough combination.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 3: But we also have an email for anyone who reach
Speaker 3: out to if they have questions for like if our
Speaker 3: patients are trying to contact us, or if they need
Speaker 3: somewhere new to go. If we have any electrologists in
Speaker 3: the community that have openings, we would love to know
Speaker 3: so we can send people to you.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, If anyone who has knowledge starting cooperatives, that's also
Speaker 3: a resource we are really interested in. We want to
Speaker 3: do this right and we want to talk to the
Speaker 3: people that have experience doing it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you have anything else that you want to
Speaker 1: make sure people know?
Speaker 4: So there are a couple of different electrology associations that
Speaker 4: clinics can align themselves with. One of the ones that
Speaker 4: I'm thinking of is called the American Electrology Association or Electrolysis,
Speaker 4: and they have a code of ethics and standards that
Speaker 4: they require the businesses that are partnered with them to
Speaker 4: adhere to. It's an association that you have to pay
Speaker 4: a subscription fee to, but in turn, you get resources
Speaker 4: for your business and are able to have somewhere to
Speaker 4: reach out to when you have questions about the ethics
Speaker 4: in your business or how things are being run. I
Speaker 4: think something really important to note is that really you
Speaker 4: was not partnered with any of them. And there are
Speaker 4: electrology conventions that will happen that a whole bunch of
Speaker 4: different electrologists, surgeons you know, from different places will get
Speaker 4: together to discuss the health care that they're providing. And
Speaker 4: it's from my understanding that really you did not have
Speaker 4: the best reputation in these circles.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the truth is near the end. Really
Speaker 3: you is having to form their own education program. They
Speaker 3: were forming their own school because their connection with Zapmaster
Speaker 3: and with the rest of the electrologist community was just
Speaker 3: so poor, like they couldn't maintain it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, But for the patients finding a clinic that is
Speaker 4: associated with one of those associations provides them an extra
Speaker 4: level of protection, especially since Washington State is not licensed
Speaker 4: for electrolysis.
Speaker 2: That is a really, really good point.
Speaker 3: If you are a patient and you've heard what was
Speaker 3: going on behind the scenes, it real you and you're
Speaker 3: concerned about continuing your care. One of the ways to
Speaker 3: protect yourself against the practices that you want to avoid
Speaker 3: is by finding a clinic that's associated with one of
Speaker 3: these professional institutions correct somewhere that has standards you have
Speaker 3: to meet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and I think I think that's a good
Speaker 1: place to end with. You know, the twin promises of
Speaker 1: workers being able to do their jobs and care for
Speaker 1: the communities, and communities being able to get the care
Speaker 1: that they need. How yeah, this system simply delivers neither
Speaker 1: of them. The only way out of it is to
Speaker 1: fight for a better one.
Speaker 3: We're swinging well, I can say that. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 3: our group is full of fighters.
Speaker 2: I'm hopeful.
Speaker 4: I am too, And every step of the way, every
Speaker 4: action I have taken has been from a love for
Speaker 4: my patients and the work that I do and intend
Speaker 4: to continue doing.
Speaker 3: Hell yeah, I'm pretty excited to close this chapter and
Speaker 3: start the new one.
Speaker 2: Where we can only go up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, hell yeah, hell yeah. Thank you to both so
Speaker 1: much for coming on the.
Speaker 3: Show, Thank you for having us. Hopefully this was exciting
Speaker 3: as part one.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm happy to and hopefully we get to talk
Speaker 1: to you all again when like the co Op starts
Speaker 1: should be lovely.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Part three will be about our successful co op beginnings.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, hell yeah.
Speaker 2: Looking forward to it.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah.
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