It Could Happen Here - The UAW Staff Purge

Episode Date: September 16, 2024

Mia talks with Alex Chan, an organizer for the UAW, about the union's attempts to break her staff union and how it hurts both UAW organizers and the workers they organize. Follow the UAW on socials: @UAWstaffunitedSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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we have done so many Union episodes that I lost count a year ago, two years ago, I don't even even i lost count at the dawn of time of how many of these we've done but something i think some of you probably know this but a lot of you don't is that many unions have their own unions for the people who to do staff work and to do sort of a number of other things and sometimes unions bust their own unions and this unbelievably sucks and to talk about an instance of this happening that is happening right now i am talking with alex chan who is an organizer for the uaw who is i don't know what technical term is i'm going to describe it non-legally bindingly as being purged for doing organizing. But yeah, Alex, welcome to the show.

Hi, it's nice to be here. I think being purged is a great way to describe it. Yeah, the tentative title for this is the UAW staff purge. So it's not great. So why don't we start off? I've given a very, very brief sort of description of what a staff union is. But can you talk a bit more broadly about what a staff union is, what it does, and why you all are sort of trying to organize one? Of course. So in terms of staff unions, yeah, it's definitely an interesting phenomenon for people who are less familiar with the labor movement. But when unions have a lot of staff, sometimes those staff also need a union to make sure that they're treated fairly in the workplace. Coincidentally, this year, there have been a lot of incidents that have shown why of Region 9A of the UAW. UAW is split into a lot of geographic regions and 9A covers New York and New England, including Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut,

New Hampshire, Vermont, not New York State. New York State is covered by Region 9. state uh new york state is covered by region nine so we are a bunch of temporary organizers and local staff that are uh organizing for a lot of things among them wages workload job security health care and so on so forth very normal things that you would actually see in a lot of the contracts that we help fight for in the shops that we work for and organize and the units that we help support. So UAW Staff United, otherwise known as Yuzu, like the fruit. Oh, that's fun. No, it's cute, right? We really love the Yuzu imagery a lot. We were formed in 2023, first went public in the spring. I joined the unit in the summer, but I was just kind of peripherally around and organizing

with a lot of these folks before. They went public in the spring, got recognized slowly, and then slowly came to the bargaining table in August. And so at this point, we have been at the bargaining table for over a year and we still do not have a contract. Normally in most shops that you would see organizing, that would be cause for escalation. And so that is actually part of what we are doing here. After hitting one full year bargaining, we are still very stuck on items such as wages, job security, all the very normal things that we can see in units that we help support and bargain for. And so the situation that we're facing is slightly more complicated

because of many other internal things. Like for example, UAW has another staff union. It is called Staff Council, and that covers more regions of the UAW rather than 9A. It also includes people who are our direct supervisors. On paper, those people are called lead organizers, and they do make low six figures. And yes, they are our direct supervisors. So they are a managerial union. And they are what some people may call a business union, you know, works closely with management to secure a good deal, that kind of thing. It's never

really been known to agitate in a contract. And that is partially one reason why Yuzu was formed because we knew that some agitation needed to happen in order to secure actually good treatment for people in our position, our position, meaning temp and local staff. Now I keep saying temp staff, right? Is that the next question? Yeah. Yeah. I am so good. I'm one step ahead. Yeah. I want to talk about both a, the way your contracts work and B, what the thing you're actually doing is? Because I'm not sure people are 100% familiar with what specifically you do and what a sort of like staff union organizer does and the difference between you

and the people that are sort of the organizer layer above you is. Yeah, absolutely. So that has to go a little bit into how we are hired. And that's why I kept saying temp staff and local staff. Our unit is formed somewhat on our pay structure. And so temp organizers are hired by the international or the region. And local staff are hired by the locals, which is kind of a subunit of the regions and how different unions are organized. There could be multiple units in one local. A local may hire a staffer, but that staffer could be subsidized by the international. And that is kind of what our unit formation is like, where funding comes from the international. And this layer of people does the most in new organizing so supporting new shops that form new campaigns that are organizing new unions that are just forming and need to secure an election

or a first contract some of our colleagues go a little bit further into the stage because of their local staff status where they're supporting contract renewals or bargaining around the second stage. But a lot of these has to do with on the ground, worker to worker, peer to peer organizing, supporting them in many different ways, including data work, including just resources like when you think of how the parent union might be supporting a new shop we are kind of the resources that are supporting the new shop that can help direct institutional knowledge that can help direct logistical or legal information like how or what is necessary for an election or a petition, that kind of stuff. And yeah, it's a lot of different tasks. And that's why for a lot of us, our job description is, I'm doing air quotes here, a flexible 40-hour work week.

Jesus Christ. And of course, that usually means a lot more than that when campaigns ramp up. And so, you know, there are a lot of different models on how to combat that, but I'll get into that a bit later. So going back to the difference between us and perhaps our direct supervisors, our direct supervisors may be tasked with monitoring the status of a lot of different campaigns at the same time. And we might be assigned to one or two or three at a time to work very very directly with the organizers and the new workers of course this looks slightly different across different locals our different campaigns can be adjusted depending on the shop's needs but our supervisors who are the leads will be handling a lot of different campaigns at the

same time and just like kind of overseeing that progress and giving the okay for the next stage or or what so whatsoever so i wanted to go back a little bit to why uh we are called temp organizers yeah this is nuts i what on earth i was so angry when I first read about this. I was like, what? So do you know what a temp organizer is? Yeah, this is actually weird. So I have friends who are staff organizers for other unions, and it doesn't work like this.

So yeah, I'm going to let you explain it because... I mean, do let me know about those in another segment. But for temp organizers in UAW, this is a holdover from the kind of older model of organizing where theoretically a worker might come off the shop floor for six months, nine months to do union work and then go back to the shop floor when that concludes so that the job would remain open for them. So temporary, like the nature is temporary. Someone is coming off to do union work and then, you know, sometimes it's even part-time, right? Sometimes it's even part-time and the worker never stops working at their original job. But nowadays,

the model doesn't look like that anymore, right? Because especially in, say, higher ed shops, people graduate out of their graduate union jobs. People may not have their reappointment if they are an adjunct or contract faculty. And then a lot of our unit members, Yuzu meaning, a lot of our Yuzu members come out of a shop that is UAW, whether that means they're legal services or museum workers or higher ed, but it is less common nowadays to have a job to return to. However, the model remains the same in that the temporary organizer job has three-month renewals and a three-year cap. Every three months, our contract is renewed. And if we hit three years on this job, we are no longer hired. Theoretically, you could be hired to another job

internally, but there is no pipeline. There is no internal movement that way. You would have to apply to the job like a regular other job that is a more full-term job. Or you just kind of age out the system and you're just no longer an organizer, you no longer have a job. And so this has manifested in a lot of different ways that a lot of my colleagues that have gotten tired or burnt out and have decided to leave before their three years or leave at their three years of their own will. There are folks that have left way earlier than their three years as well to pursue other opportunities. Yuzu at any given time has about 40 to 50 members, and that is our 9A unit again. One thing that we have come to find out is that in the last five years of this temp organizer model, only three people

who have hit their three-year cap have managed to attain full-term jobs in the UAW afterward. And then there's me, who, again, within the last five years is the only person to have been not renewed before their three-year term, very unceremoniously, as well as in the middle of very active campaigns. That brings us to another piece of context. And the reason why I keep saying five years is because in 2018, there was a first iteration of the Yuzu. There was a first attempt to forming this staff union of temp and local staff. Of course, it was created by different people, but what happened then, especially under the administrative caucus when it was before the reform leadership stepped in, is that everyone was just fired. Jesus. Yeah. Everyone was just let go.

And there are people still around organizing these days in other positions or in other workplaces Jesus. Yeah. is a very retaliatory practice used in UAW in the past, or we thought was in the past, because we were so excited to have this reform leadership come in. And now we are finding out that it is still a tool that is consistent. And so when we are excited that there is democratic reform, especially with one member one vote which was extremely extremely exciting to see we also need to point out that there are a lot of different places here that still need to change especially in how the union treats its own staff yeah and unfortunately we need to go to ads but we'll be come back I want to circle back around and talk a bit more about the ways that the UAW is acting like a fairly conventional boss trying to break a union. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires.

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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, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. into the world of Latin culture, musica, peliculas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game.

If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities, artists, and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled with chisme laughs

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One of the most exciting things about having your first real job is that first real paycheck. You're probably thinking, yay, I can finally buy a new phone. But you also have a lot of questions like, how should I be investing this money? I mean, how much do I save? And what about my 401k? Well, we're talking with finance expert Vivian Tu, aka Your Rich BFF, to break it all down. I always get roasted on the internet when I say this out loud, but I'm like, every single year you need to be asking for a raise of somewhere between 10 to 15%. I'm not saying you're going to get 15% every single year, but if you ask for 10 to 15 and you end up getting eight, that is actually a true raise.

Listen to this week's episode of Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. True Rays. Listen to this week's episode of Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives.

I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head. Search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it.

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. for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me in 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. 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. And we are back. So there's something really interesting. I mean, I say interesting. There's

something sort of terrible about the way that the UAW is relying on effectively a casualized workforce. Because you're dealing with these constant renewals, which are an incredible sort of pressure leverage because it means you don't have job security. It honestly feels like the way Amazon works where they're just like intentionally, instead of trying to retain people, they're just trying to churn through as many organizers as possible because the like the more seniority people have and the more experience they have the harder it is to like just completely underpay them yeah the key word in here is flexibility yeah and it seems like also on an institutional level a terrible idea because you know you're training a bunch of organizers and then the moment that they're you know the moment they have a bunch of experience you're just casting them into the wind and then hiring the less experienced person that's like you bring up a great point actually something that i

want to touch on is in bargaining we have asked for training and we have not been met with a satisfactory answer people are not trained oh my god before they take on this position but yes you're absolutely correct. With the institutional knowledge aspect, the campaigns that I'm working on, the organizing committees are real pissed that I have been suddenly disappeared. And I want to highlight something

that one organizer brought up is that for all the talk of us being one big union, how we are the union, how we have a democratic say in this process, it's very weird that someone higher up in the union can just make one of our members disappear. And that is in reference to my

unceremonious departure, of course. And the points that we as Yuzu really want to highlight and emphasize is that we really want to just hold UAW to the values that it has espoused. Ending tiers, just hold UAW to the values that it has espoused. Ending tiers, job security for workers, fair wages. Like I said, in bargaining, we had asked for training, and that has not gone very well. UAW is refusing to bargain over free speech and continuity of representation, which refers to the hypothetical scenario

if Region 9A were to be absorbed somewhere else, the right for users to still exist and they refuse to bargain over that we are stuck in wages at somewhere around three percent per year of four years yeah it's not great uh and uh yeah there's been a lot of chaos behind the scenes that it is implied to be a bad thing to let the members know about the members that we work with and organize with but to a certain point things boil over yeah and especially in the case where i am suddenly not renewed it is really important in our view that our members know what is happening yeah that the members know what this is about because they get the news landed on them

after our social media posts come out because I am told not to inform the organizers myself. And so the organizers had to hear about it from my supervisors about a week later with no details. My non-renewal was without cause, without justification, without reason. They did not give me an answer to my face. And then as Yuzu kept pushing, higher-ups kept flip-flopping on who to blame and what the actual cause was. people are angry about this in the first place. Yeah. As if this was a normal situation that people would just get fired any other day with a month's notice. And they're like, we gave her a month's notice. Which also, like, I feel like, like, what was the last time any of these people were

on a shop floor? Like, do you know how disruptive it is? Like, if someone had pulled, like, so we had, when we were organizing our union, we had, we've had a number of, like of great Writers Guild staffers. And if someone had just pulled our staffer out in the middle of the drive, all of us would have been unbelievably pissed. And it would have done incredible amounts of damage to the organizing. Because union organizing, as you are well aware, and I think as the audience should be increasingly aware, is built on personal relations. You can't just yank someone out and then not allow them to even know what's happening.

That's incredibly disruptive. It pisses people off. yank someone out and then not allow them to even know what's happening like that's that's incredibly disruptive it pisses people off yeah it's been very enraging for a lot of our members and so i've been extremely grateful for the support that i received whether it be on social media or by our email campaign to uh management and what i've seen from this is that management was really taken by surprise that there was a reaction at all. Kind of unfortunately for them, there are a lot of shops and a lot of units that I have supported and organized with and have relationships with. And even for the shops that I don't have relationships with, Yuzu members are working in those shops. relationships with yuzu members are working in those shops and there is a common understanding that it'd be really weird for a staffer to be randomly pulled out during a very active campaign

i've had a rough couple months of going at it because i think there have been some really unhealthy dynamics in the workplace with supervision that was unjust and punishment that was unjust for my attempt to advocate for different units and attempt to advocate for organizing. And I think that is why we have reached the conclusion that retaliation, retribution must be involved somehow. On paper, this was a very oddly handled situation i was notified by email on 3 30 p.m on a friday before labor day weekend jesus christ i was not informed by a meeting not informed by a call my supervisor didn't pick up my calls until two and a half hours later oh my god in the meantime where they were actually informing my co-workers that i had been terminated and then

came back to me saying that they were busy jesus which no no firing happens like that i'm sorry but like yeah there's no conceivable way where the hr email happens and then my supervisor is busy telling my co-workers uh that i've been let go, which, you know, we are interpreting as intimidation because why else would this be happening? Yeah. Like even corporate best layoffs don't work like that. Like you at least get a meeting. No, I didn't. I didn't get a meeting until the Tuesday after to talk about transitioning my work and they had no plan to transition my work so currently no one is handling the work that i was responsible for which is they just screwed your units like that's quite dangerous for a campaign in higher ed as the semester ramps up yeah yeah oh god oh yeah and of course the hr

email was signed in solidarity and had no name. I didn't want to bring up that point. There is evidence, yes. It's extraordinarily funny if you actually look at it. But yeah, just even if we didn't have the context of what has happened to me in the workplace in the last six months, even just on paper, looking at how this non-renewal was handled it was handled atrociously yeah and so there is not much else we can draw

from it other than the fact that i was someone they wanted to get rid of expeditiously but just didn't anticipate that people would be mad about it which is you to me, a sense that people up there handling it are a little out of touch. Like, yeah, they haven't experienced what it's like to have this happen, to have a staffer randomly yanked out during the middle of a really active campaign. Yeah, we need to go to ads again, but we will. We will be back soon. And whatever fun services we're about to have, unionize them and then also unionize your staff. and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities,

artists, and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators, sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled with chisme laughs and all the vibes that you love. Each week, we'll explore everything from music and pop culture to deeper topics like identity, community, and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun, el té caliente, and life stories.

Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field,

and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse 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. Hey, I'm Gianna Pardenti. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, the early career podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. One of the most exciting things about having your first real job is that first real paycheck. You're probably thinking, yay, I can finally buy a new phone. But you also have a lot of questions like, how should I be investing this money?

I mean, how much do I save? And what about my 401k? Well, we're talking with finance expert Vivian Tu, aka Your Rich BFF, to break it all down. I always get roasted on the internet when I say this out loud, but I'm like, every single year you need to be asking for a raise of somewhere between 10 to 15%. I'm not saying you're going to get 15% every single year, but if you ask for 10 to 15 and you end up getting eight, that is actually a true raise. Listen to this week's episode of Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I found out that was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot.

Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. 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 in a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating then 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. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life.

Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We are back. So this is something we've been talking about in terms of sort of your specific situation and how it's the terrible impact it's had on both you personally and the organizing that's going on um and i wanted to come around to talking a bit about the impact that this structure and the impact that getting denied benefits and stuff like that the impact that this has in general on on the way that organizing new shops works yeah i think that the impact this has very concretely is that it does not let us do good work it makes us as organizers scared every three months that we have to have another plan it makes us have to prepare a plan every time that rolls around and then you know that takes

our focus off of the organizing that we could be doing i mentioned earlier about workload organizers get burnt out extremely easily because there are no guardrails in place and then there are plenty plenty of other circumstances that make it very difficult within this workplace to for example we don't have just cause we don't have grievance procedures. Jesus Christ. And it makes a very damaging environment, especially when you consider that the members have to bargain for their own contracts. And then they look at us and they're like, wait a minute, why are your contracts that bad? Yeah. It doesn't inspire trust. It doesn't inspire faith in how this union would organize for its workers if the staff are insecure constantly and we're not

asking for the moon and the stars and mars which is unfortunately what the uaw lawyer accused us of doing so in a bargaining session we are asking for very simple guardrails on job security on workload on health care that could help cover our dependence on wages that are not stagnant um you know they're not even giving us cola which is the phrase for cost of living adjustment jesus christ a lot of us live in new york city and then there's folks in boston and uh hell even the the transport costs have been a bit of a sticking point where we're like, can we please just get an MTA card or the equivalent? But overall, this structure does not inspire faith in terms of how our contracts are actually negotiated and who is responsible for these contracts. and who is responsible for these contracts.

It is very difficult to hear from the UAW lawyer that we are reaching for Mars when we are asking for things that are very present in our standard contracts that our members receive. You know, we have taken language from the contracts that our members have and tried to apply them for our own situation. And we've been told that they're too extra. And then, you know, this has been kind of an odd year for union staff.

I wanted to highlight that NEA earlier this year, National Education Association, their staff were locked out during bargaining. 1199 SCIU also just formed their staff union. And during the drive, they had one of the organizers fired. Yep. 32BJ SCIU just announced their union. formed their staff union and during the drive they had one of the organizers fired yep 32 bj at ciu just announced their union and again during their drive one of their organizers they've posted this on social media one of the organizers had a miscarriage and then asked for help was put on a performance improvement plan and then fired after a month and you know there are these really uncomfortable trends of this mistreatment happening because priorities might be elsewhere

or there is an assumption that we are more expendable maybe we are cannon fodder but that really really is not what is supposed supposed to happen in places that are advocating for fair labor standards. And I am glad that we're hearing more stories about this. I'm horrified at the stories that are coming out about this. But I hope there are more that are formed because a lot of these things are very extreme. Yeah, and it's impacting not just the organizers. I think one of the reasons why unionization rates are declining is like, well, yeah, okay, you guys keep firing all of your organizers. Like, yeah, of course, we're not getting shops formed.

And I want to say one other thing about just specifically the mood and the stars thing is it's like, okay, this is not to say that this kind of stuff will be okay at a smaller union. But this is not like we've had a lot of independent unions on this show and those are people you know who have formed their own union completely independently and the money they've collected is stuff that's come from them like putting out their head on the street right i mean you know some of these unions have like a thousand dollars of assets this is the uaw the uaw has hundreds of millions of dollars they They have unbelievable amounts of money. And earlier this year, they were just bragging about how they are putting so many more millions

into new organizing. Yeah, and it's like, well, okay, if you're going to put all this money into organizing, and again, they probably should be doing more because what is the point of sitting on this much money, right? It's like you're behaving like a financial institution and not a and not a

union but like you have the money to actually like cultivate and develop effective union organizers you have the money to meet like pretty mild contracts that are like like your contract is probably significantly cheaper than like the contract that they're negotiating right like this is just this is nonsense like we we know you have this kind of money also because you're paying your like managerial staffers six figures so clearly you can do this and you're simply not and i think that should outrage everyone uh i think that's exactly the response of a lot of our members because knowing that a lot of our temp organizers and staff organizers are people that are most passionately devoting themselves to the labor movement and, you know, are met with such unstable job conditions is truly horrifying.

Because this is not a path to careerism. Like, as a temp organizer, there's not much upward mobility here. Let me be very clear. There's not much upward mobility. It me be very clear there's not much upward mobility it's not like this is a cushy job yeah there is no real way for me to just like sit back and relax on piles of bureaucratic money or something like that and that reminds me of how i shout out to our korean comrades that i've met at labor notes um where i explained to them what a temporary organizer's job is like and how many people we handle and how temporary our status is. I was talking to some of our equivalents

in the auto industry as well, the union workers there, and they were pretty horrified yeah at the workload at the insecurity at the just again lack of equivalency and again i'm not trying to claim that korea's labor organizing world is perfect like absolutely nobody is yeah but the shocker to them is like well why are you doing this why do you why are you working in this job they have asked me this to my face why are you working in this job? They have asked me this to my face. Why are you working in this job? What is possibly good enough for that for you? And unfortunately, a lot of it is optimism of the will. And I think that's a lot of what's keeping us going. And so my last day is supposedly September 28th, but hopefully this month there have been fantastic outpourings of support and

we are also picketing the political leadership conference on the friday the 13th oh scary and i think that is going to really align with how yuzu has needed to escalate i think this is again just a boiling point and it has shown how all of this culminates in a very unfair labor standard and practice of which we have filed a few charges. But there's a lot more that needs to be done. And even if I don't get reinstated, I think that Yuzu is a great example of how there's still more change that needs to happen within UAW. Yeah, 100%. I want to close by talking about through line through a lot of these episodes

that we've done. We've talked with a lot of people who work for Planned Parenthood. We've talked for a lot of people who work for NGOs. And this is the same behavior that they do, where quite frankly, what they are doing is exploiting the labor

of people who believe in the cause. And because people are willing to you know because because people believe in what they're doing because the work that they're doing is vital and necessary these ngos and these unions think that they can just continuously exploit the people who work for them and this damages the workers this damages the people who they're nominally trying to help and this damages the entire. Because when you're sort of churning through organizers, and when you're sort of fundamentally betraying the missions that you're supposed to be doing in order to just do more exploitation, this significantly damages literally the entire

organizing project that we're all fighting for. So Alex, thank you so much for coming and talking and talking to us about this. And where can people go to support you and support Yuzu? Our accounts are UAW Staff United on Instagram and Twitter. Please follow for more. Check out the adorable Yuzu lemon logos that we have everywhere. If you're in New York or Boston, those are our major hubs. So keep an eye out for future actions. Awesome.

Thank you again for coming on the show. If you are a union staffer, because I know a number of you are listening to this. If you're in the UAW, raise hell, and if you're not in the UAW and you don't have your own staff union, consider it. Thank you for having me.

Thank you. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen Here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions.

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