It Could Happen Here - Bringing Radical Politics to Organized Labor with the Vermont AFL-CIO

Episode Date: October 1, 2021

The Vermont AFL-CIO has been doing some pretty rad shit. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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It's a podcast about how things are kind of falling apart, but maybe they don't need to, or at least not as much as they have been. I'm Robert Evans. With me as often is my co-host Garrison Davis. Garrison, say something inciting to the audience. I'm on my second cup of coffee. Yeah, because it is the early morning for you, by which I mean 2.11 in the afternoon. Also with us today, our guest for this episode is David Van Dusen. David, you are the president of the State Labor Council for the Vermont AFL-CIO.

And there's a bunch of stuff that's interesting about your organization. We'll dig into it in more detail in a second. But first, I just want to say hello and thank you for being on the show. Pleasure to be here with you, Robert. Now, David, the big thing, I mean, the Vermont AFL-CIO has been in the news a couple of times recently. The most recent one is y'all issued a statement making you, the coverage I've seen has said, the first labor organization in the u.s to like support gun rights i mean like as is stated in a lot of the stuff

you've put out like blair mountain there's a long history of labor organizations making use of the second amendment but um i certainly haven't heard of a labor organization stating it the way you did which is basically the case you've made is because far right fascist organizations are so heavily armed and all of the gun control policies being heavily debated, at least among liberals, are likely to ignore those people while restricting the ability of working class and particularly marginalized people to arm themselves. You do not support those regulations because you support the rights of those groups to be able to defend themselves from fascists. That more or less correct? Well, look, we believe in the right of a people to defend themselves.

But our policies, including that one, are not adopted by the elected leadership, including myself. They're adopted by our members. We believe very firmly in democracy, participatory democracy. So with issues like this, we're happy to bring it to our convention, which we recently did, and facilitate a full debate on the issue. So that's exactly what we did. We talked about it. Our rank and file members talked about it. They made amendments. They debated passionately different sides of the issue in a respectful way, in a productive way. A number of amendments were made. They were adopted. And then ultimately, the resolution was passed with over a two-thirds

majority of our rank and file delegates in favor. So that's where we are right now. Yeah, I've read a bit about this, including, you know, there's been some critiques from a representative from the AFT, which is the local teachers union. But there was also a member of the Vermont AFL-CIO who essentially stated like, hey, I didn't actually agree with this amendment, but or with this resolution, but it was made democratically. And like, I support the process by which it was done, which is one of the things I think is so interesting here that this isn't like um um a kind of a group of activists at the top making declaration declarations this is an organization that is really um dedicated

itself increasingly to i think a kind of progressivism that we we haven't really seen in an organized way in a lot of the american labor movement until recently? Well, when you're talking about democracy with labor, I mean, we could be just as well talking about democracy in society as such. The fact is, is that organized labor today is not particularly democratic, and we're looking to change that. And our world is not particularly democratic. Now, the vision that we hold, our slate, our progressive slate called United, is one where we increase the means for direct participatory democracy, both within labor and within our society. So, of course, we're going to go to our members and our rank and file and ask them to debate the issues of our day and ultimately to make a decision on these major political and social issues. This was one. We, again, we do believe that people need to have a right, the working class needs to have a right to defend itself. And we can't bury our head in the sand. Anybody

that's even followed a little bit of the news lately will know that between November 2020, will know that between November 2020 up until late January 2021, we were one general shy of a coup in this country. In the upside down world that we're now living in, it was because of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the head of the CIA not supporting a coup that a neo-fascist coup didn't totally unfold, materialize in a more mature form. Let that sink in for a minute. Our democracy or the vestiges of the democracy we have in the United States right now is precarious. Just because they've been there for 200 years doesn't mean they're going to be there tomorrow. The new playbook from an increasingly far-right Republican Party is to limit as much as they possibly could of people's right to vote and to participate in the political process. We see this happening in Texas. We see this happening in Georgia. We see this happening in Florida.

We see this happening in red, I shouldn't say red, but I should say Republican states all throughout the U.S. say red, but I should say Republican states all throughout the U.S. So these are dangerous, dangerous times, right? So dangerous that our top generals were trying to decide what their position would be and make plans in case a coup, a full-on coup, not just a hint of a coup, came into being within the last year of our republic. Now, given those realities and given the rise of the far right, given that our former president, Donald Trump, told the neo-fascist Proud Boys to stand, what did he say? Stand back and stand by. Yeah, that's right. And now at least they claim to have 40,000 members around the United States and they are armed. You know, we can't just rest in our laurels and pretend that the state as such is going to keep us safe. So it seems prudent

and reasonable for us to have taken the action to say we defend our constitutional right to bear arms as intended to defend our communities, to defend our unions, to defend the working class. And one of the things that because we were just talking about the coup that very nearly got pulled off your organization, at least in I believe it was right after the election in 2020 issued a statement that if the president illegally attempted to stay in power, the former president, you would participate in an attempt to help organize a general strike. Now, that's something we talk about a lot on this show. We're big believers in the potential of a general strike. We're also big believers that the kind of general strike that we need to, I don't know, potentially get climate justice and a number of other major things is an undertaking on

par with the space race. You know, you're talking about an enormous task. I'm really interested in picking your brain on when we talk about a national general strike, what is the kind of infrastructure that's actually necessary to make something like that feasible? Because there's a lot of talk on like Twitter and Facebook of like, let's just do a general strike on this day in October. I six months doesn't go by as president of the AFL-CIO of Vermont,

where I don't know if a leftist group of some kind contacted me to endorse their general strike. The whole country is going to shut down on date acts, and it's yet to happen, at least in our country. So that's a great question. A couple things. When we voted, and again, this wasn't a decision of myself and the leadership, this was a decision we went back to the rank and file with to one of our conventions,

87% of our delegates after our long debate voted to authorize the elected executive board to call for a general strike in the event of a coup, in the event that there wasn't a transfer of power on January 20th, as the Constitution requires. It was our feeling that in that very specific space and time, in that very specific political climate, we would be able to call for such a strike. And with a serious amount of work and a serious amount of organizing, pull that off and make that happen. And the thought was, if we could do it in Vermont, because the call was for a Vermont general strike, then it could spread to other states, which would be absolutely necessary if our country descended into a fascist dictatorship of some sort. But generally speaking, when we talk about climate issues, when we talk about the fact that millions of Americans don't have health care or aren't paid livable wages, all of these issues, at least these issues together, certainly warrant us looking at things like a general strike.

But it's a bit pie in the sky to think that, hey, we got 10 great issues that we want to see progress on. We're going to call for a strike and it's going to happen. The infrastructure is not there, nor is the political will within the large labor bodies at this present time. Without participation from organized labor, first of all, I don't think anything's going to happen. So you're going to have to achieve buy-in at a certain level. But even with buy-in from key leaders or even localized shop stewards, you still need to have infrastructure in place. So one of the things that lacks in the AFL-CIO as a national organization, we don't have an effective network of local union contacts in every shop, at every shift, in every factory that's represented by a union, let alone the majority of workplaces at this point that aren't unionized. at this point that aren't unionized. So what our top priority is as far as the Vermont AFL-CIA goes over the next two years is to build a network of local union contacts in every single shop,

in every single shift that we represent folks here in Vermont. So we see this as a way to increase communication. Without communication, you're not going to be able to pull off mass mobilizations. And also, you're not going to be able to conduct mass education on issues X, Y, or Z. So over a period of two years, we're looking to build this network that would function not as a one-way means of communication, but almost a two- or three-way. Imagine that this is a way for the rank and file to communicate up to the leaders. This is a way for the leadership to communicate down to the ranks. I mean, down to the lunchroom level of what it means to be in a union shop. And also, ideally, it's going to be a way for local union leaders to horizontally communicate with each other.

With such a structure in place on a grand scale, on a state scale, on a federal scale, then things like organized general strikes over political issues and social issues become feasible. And even when they're feasible, though, then we still have the political question of, you know, will they be supported by the internationals? Will they be supported by the executive board of the National AFL-CIO? And that's a huge conversation. Yeah. It's interesting to me hearing your perspective on this because my experience with kind of activism has been much more of kind of the decentralized and kind of much more recent groups, you know, since Occupy. You were dealing with these structures that in a lot of cases are, I mean, the AFL-CIO goes back

like what, like a century, right? One way or the other. Yeah. You know, I think because of kind of how, shall I say, online, a lot of the discussion about this stuff seems to be organized labor often gets left out. And one of the things that I think is most important when talking about the value that organized labor has in any kind of discussion of a general strike is what happened during the budget negotiations or whatever you want to call them in 2019, where you, you had, um, airline workers threatening a general strike that effectively brought an end to a president's saber rattling over, uh, uh, over the budget. Like it's, it's president Sarah Nelson, uh Headlines over that. And that was the right thing to do.

Absolutely. To her and would love to see her in a stronger position of leadership in the national. Welcome. I'm Danny Threl. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter. Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows presented by iHeart and Sonorum. An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters... to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time.

Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture.

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and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong though, I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. Check out betteroffline.com. It's not as democratic as it should be at most levels. What you guys have done with United is attempting to reform that within Vermont. I'm wondering first, how did that kind of come about? 2019 is when you first got put into office, when the United Slate got put into the office in Vermont. What was kind of the backstory to that? And then my second question is kind of what do you see is necessary to like what what's what's the fight as you see it to get stuff like that done on a larger scale around the country? in many different places, our starting point. So in 2017, not that long ago,

we had a convention with something like 20 or 25 delegates there. Imagine that, 20 delegates representing, at the time, 10,000. We've grown since then by 10,000 members. And that's called a democracy. So there was a problem, an existential problem. that's called a democracy. So there was a problem, an existential problem. Now I come out of AFSCME, local 2413 in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. So when I got together with a number of other leaders from different unions, different AFSCME locals, but also United Academics as part of AFT, the building trades, a number of folks, there was a general recognition at the leadership level that

something was very wrong member participation was weak as can be and things had to change and we continually as an organization you know with some exceptions hitched our wagon to the shortcomings that are the democratic party so all of these things together led to inactivity, apathy, and lack of democracy. So we started going around. We started talking with workers. We started talking with shops across the state. And one of the first things that was striking, people would say, they would know what union they're in, be it APWU or Abstein or whatever it was. But we'd say, listen, we're talking, we're thinking about running a slate, a progressive slate for office

to take the AFL-CIO in a new direction. The next thing they would say is, what's the AFL-CIO? Think about that, right? Workers involved, some of which were union stewards and they're locals, didn't even know what the AFL-CIO was. So that was our starting point.

It was an existential crisis of labor. And mind you, during these, what I would call some dark periods, we would often endorse a hundred candidates for state house, nearly all of which being Democrats. And then they would win. They would win their elections. Largely, our candidates would win, and then we'd get nothing in the statehouse, right? There'd be no labor bill. There'd be no advance in a card check, differently organized labor, and yet we'd keep repeating the same mistake year in, year out, and not figure out that something was wrong. So when we formed the

United SLEE as a coalition of a number of different unions to recognize it was time for change, we really brought the discussion to the grassroots level. We developed a 10-point program. We call it our little green book. It's now the policy and the platform of the Vermont AFL-CIO. And we ran an organized campaign based on that, right, at a very local level. And here, we did all the things that, you know, you should be doing, the phone calls, the emails, the shop visits, all of this, and created a sense of excitement going into our 2019 convention. Our 2019 convention with over, if I recall, over 105 delegates and alternates was the largest convention we had up here in something like 30 plus years. So that was an exciting atmosphere where something was going to be different and something was going to change, right? So we essentially swept those elections.

We won all the seats except for one. We had a follow-up convention in two, I'm sorry, election in 2020, where we won every single seat. And then the last election, we won all seats except for one, where one person who's a good person for the building trades ran, but was not part of our state. So the real question is what have we done in the interim?

How are we changing that direction? And how are we changing, trying to seek to change the capacity of labor? And what lessons does it add to the national agreement, I would suppose? So on that front, one of the first things we did is we took money out of our lobbying operation and put it to an organizing department whereby we would hire, and we have hired on-call organizers to assist our affiliates in either new organizing or internal organizing, therefore delivering an actual benefit to our affiliate unions. Now, mind you, we represent just about every sector of

workers all across the state, but forever, they very rarely got a concrete, measurable acts of solidarity from the Federationeration as such, right? Because a lot of too many of the resources were put in the lobby. And we also took a critical eye towards the Democratic Party. And recently, we've instead endorsed the Social Democratic Vermont Progressive Party slates in their runs for statehouse and statewide office in many cases. So we've done a few things differently. We're continuing to do things differently. We've expanded the size of our executive board. So we elect more leaders now. We've more than doubled the size of the delegates afforded to each local. So we could have more rank and file voices present when we're meeting

at a convention. And we've taken a strong social justice position where we think that organized labor must work very closely in an alliance, form alliances with groups like Migrant Justice or Black Perspective or environmental organizations like 350.org. And we've done those things, worked on their issues where we have common interests, and we've asked them to support us on our issues where they may have some common interests. So those are things that are very different that the national AFL-CIO is not doing. Other state labor federations largely aren't doing them enough. And we're hoping now to build that out, and we're engaging conversations seeking to form a national progressive caucus within the national AFL-CIO. And I think that's so important when you talk about

kind of on the national level for progressives, number one, to not continually kind of reflexively support the Democratic Party when the Democratic Party is failing progressives, which, you know, we have a perfect case study right now in Congress with the reconciliation bill. It often does seem like such an insurmountable task just because the inability, like a bill, the $3.5 trillion infrastructure bill is so widely supported by Americans, but it just keeps coming down to this tiny number of folks with, you know, financial interests and donors who are who are pushing against something that's widely supported. And I feel optimistic when I look at state organizations

like what y'all are doing and the fact that I can see something building. But I also it does it is such a titanic task to imagine translating that on a national scale in a way that actually gets us the things that we really can't wait for when you're talking about some of this infrastructure stuff, when you're talking about healthcare,

when you're talking about climate justice. I do feel the clock ticking. And I'm wondering what you see as the hope on the national scale for actually putting some muscle behind the progressive movement. Well, look, it's not just the issues of the infrastructure bill and the budget bill. It's also the PRO Act, right, the bill that is languished in the Senate. And let's not lose track of the fact that those efforts are all stalling and likely, very likely to fail.

And I hope they don't because of Democrats, because the Democratic Party is not united. They ran on a platform saying they were going to do X, Y and Z. And now when they're in a position to carry it out, they are not going to do it. And Joe Manchin, as far as I'm concerned, I call him a class traitor, but I don't think he's ever was part of the working class. He claims to support the PRO Act, but in the same breath, he won't get rid of the filibuster. So, I mean, that's absolute bullshit as far as I'm concerned. So how do we change that? Well, the National AFL-CIO puts millions and millions and millions of dollars into elections. We have gotten so many of these people elected and back them in Arizona and West Virginia, you name it.

And then we get nothing back. organizing department or a recrafted organizing department and actually assign real on the ground organizers in every single state in the country to help our affiliates, to help our state federations and their affiliates to internally organize, to build the kind of network I was talking about before, and to be active and build alliances with social justice groups, our power would be amplified five million fold. This is the way we do it. Politicians aren't going to do what's right because it's right. Politicians are going to do what's right when they feel so much pressure that they have to do it. Now, the victories that we saw for working people during the Great Depression under FDR, that wasn't just because FDR thought, you know, this is the right thing to do.

It's because people were going on strike, because people were organized, because they were scared of revolutionary change in this country. So turn to meaningful true major reforms as a way to blunt that perceived threat that they have. And that's what we got to get back to. Our power is never going

to grow from people who are wearing ties in Washington. Our power is going to grow based on our solidarity on the shop floor and in our communities. So that's the direction we got to go. And we got to do that rapidly, very rapidly. Welcome, I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern day horror stories

inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit. The podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Blacklit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works

while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Black Lit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Black Lit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons hit play

on the sex positive and deeply entertaining podcast sniffies cruising confessions join hosts gabe gonzalez and chris patterson rosso as they explore queer sex cruising relationships and culture in the new iheart podcast sniffies cruising confessions sniffies cruising confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. The 2025 iHeart Podcast Awards are coming. This is the chance to nominate your podcast for the industry's biggest award.

Submit your podcast for nomination now at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. But hurry, submissions close on December 8th. Hey, you've been doing all that talking. It's time to get rewarded for it. Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. It's been clear to me for quite a while, both that the reason workers gain so much in the wake of the Great Depression and the only kind of hope we have for doing that now is they have to be scared, you know, to an extent. They have to be scared of what's arrayed against them, both in its organization and in its ability to disrupt things. And I'm wondering what you think people listening, people who maybe are not involved in organized labor, like what do you think people can do to further those ends? Like this is like when we start talking about national level AFL-CIO politics, that's not something I think most people listening feel like they have any kind of ability to influence.

What do you think they can influence? What do you think people can be doing to build that kind of capacity? Well, you got to be active and you got to engage in the political and social movements, but also most folks, you know, they're going to have a job of some kind and a lot of folks aren't getting treated the way they should in their job. I don't care if you work in a coffee shop in a restaurant or in a gas station or in manufacturing, and you could start by organizing with your coworkers to form a union today.

You know, you could reach out to a local union to ask for help, or you could do it on your own, frankly. But if we're not organized as working people, and we are the 99%, we are most of the world. If we're not organized amongst ourselves, we're not going to be able to become that expression of power that we need to be in order to create the change. If we're just a collection of individuals, then the ruling class, the wealthy, the powerful, the elite, they're going to have all their ducks in a row to keep us divided and to keep their foot on the pedal of the status quo. So we need to come together. We need to organize it. The natural place to organize is in the workplace, in my opinion.

Yeah. I mean, it is the natural place to organize. It's also become an increasingly difficult place to organize. We all watch what Amazon did in Bessemer this year, you know, and that fight is still ongoing to an extent. But it is a continuing challenge to actually effectively unionize in a lot of the industries where it matters most. We have some choke point industries like we talked about, aircraft employees that are heavily unionized, thankfully, and that do have a lot of power, as has been demonstrated recently when they go to the mat. been demonstrated recently when they go to the mat. But I'm interested in kind of, we've got, you know, Amazon employees is really one of the areas that I'm looking at where, my God,

if we could actually, if something significant could actually get off the ground and a significant number of those workers could get organized, it could make a real difference. But, you know, you've got effectively what are community organizations for the most part going up against, you know, Amazon at this point has more resources than most nation states. Yeah, but so do the Carnegie's and the Rockefellers and the folks like this. And it's always been hard. Too long ago in our country, maybe during our grandfather's day, there was a very good chance you'd be shot or at least beat over the head with a club from the Pinkertons if you tried to organize. Organizing has never been easy.

In countries such as Colombia today, trade unions are killed at an unbelievable clip almost on a daily basis, and yet still they organize. it i'm not suggesting to any of your listeners that any of this is easy what i am saying that it has to happen it has to happen and there's different models too like in some places uh one of the models that's been effectively used is forming worker centers right so that's not a traditional union. It's a center in a city or in a community or in a town where workers can come together and strategize, right, in a location

to strategize how to be effective as a group, as a whole, as a class on issues that are important to them, you know, be it economic, be it social, be it fighting against racism, whatever it may be. you know, be it economic, be it social, be it fighting against racism, whatever it may be. That's a model that I suggest folks could look into as an alternative way. If for whatever reason, you don't feel that the time is ripe for a union in your shop today, although it needs to be tomorrow, take a look at worker center and see if there's one in your community, get involved. If not, get together a few people and see what it would take to start one where you live. But one way or another, we have to be organized. We have to come together. We cannot just be a collection of individuals. That's a great point and useful information. I think kind of the last thing I wanted to get into was one of the things I first

learned about your organization that you issued a solidarity statement back in, I think it was 2019, with the YPG and J in Rojava. And you've issued, you know, stated your solidarity with Black Lives Matter, with the Zapatistas, currently what they're undergoing in Mexico, which is massive repression from the government yet again. And, you know, your support of Palestinian rights and against sort of the U.S. occupation, or not occupation, but a blockade of Cuba. What do you see when we're talking about this struggle, this broad struggle we've been talking about all day, what do you see as the role of internationalism

in both organizing people and organizing resistance? Well, our starting point today is capital is international. So if we're going to have a foundational challenge to the power of capital, we also have to be internationalists in our elbow. We supported the YPG and the YPJ and the newly elected government in Rojava because they are struggling for economic equity and a direct participatory democracy in that corner of the world. We see this as the most significant revolution in the world in generations. I mean, this, in our mind, is on par with the Spanish Civil War and what we saw around Barcelona and the CNT then, or the Paris Commune of 1871.

If this was happening in Europe, a day wouldn't go by where this wouldn't be front page news. But in the Western world, we often, the corporate media turns a blind eye to many of those struggles. So they're doing their part and we have to do our part in our country too. The Zapatistas are doing their part in Chiapas and in broader ways in some regards in Mexico as such. But we need to reach our hand out in encouragement and say, hey, we're here to support you. One of the things we sought to concretely do in the Vermont labor movement is in 2019, one of our central labor councils passed a resolution in support. in 2019, one of our central labor councils passed a resolution in support. We said, look, if you go over to fight and volunteer with the YPG and YPJ, because there's thousands of volunteers right

there who have volunteered to go over, if you return and you're American, we'll hook you up with a union job and we'll hook you up with three months of room and board. So you could get reacclimated. You could get back into the community and get back into the local fight through the labor movement. And we were proud to actually have an opportunity to do that for one returning American fighter. In our latest resolution in 2021, and this one was broader

because it was the whole Vermont AFL-CIO, not just the Central Labor Council. We again offered, we encourage folks to feel so inclined if they're in that place in their life to volunteer with YPG and YPJ. And if they're Americans and they come back, we're happy to hook you up. We'll do our best to get you a good union job when you return. So we felt that was a very small, least we could do kind of thing, but concrete way to provide solidarity. We all have to stand together. It's really one fight, but the place we're going to

be effective is where you live locally in your town, in your city, in your state, and in your country. Yeah, I think that's a great note to end on and a great thing that you all are doing. And I really do appreciate that. And I appreciate you, David, coming on and talking to us today. Is there anything else you wanted to get out or anything you wanted to, like any charities or mutual aid funds or whatever you wanted to push before we kind of roll out today? I'd just like to push for folks to go to work tomorrow and organize. Organize with your fellow workers and let's change the world. Solidarity. Thank you, David.

fellow workers and let's change the world. Solidarity. Thank you, David. Robert Evans here, and I wanted to ask for your help. There is a Portland area woman, Ruba Tamimi. She's an Arabic interpreter and a Palestinian liberation activist, and she is trying to save her home at the moment. She's got a GoFundMe. If you go to SaveRuba'sHouse, R-U-B-A on GoFundMe, you'll find it, SaveRuba'sHouse on GoFundMe. If you go to SaveRuba'sHouse, R-U-B-A, on GoFundMe, you'll find it. If you've got a few bucks, she could really use it. Again, SaveRuba'sHouse, R-U-B-A, at GoFundMe. Thanks. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media.

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Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Welcome to Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get real and dive straight into todo lo actual y viral. We're talking musica, los premios, el chisme, and all things trending in my cultura.

I'm bringing you all the latest happening in our entertainment world and some fun and impactful interviews with your favorite Latin artists, comedians, actors, and influencers. Each week, we get deep and raw life stories, combos on the issues that matter to us, and it's all packed with gems, fun, straight-up comedia, and that's a song that only Nuestra Gente can sprinkle. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

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