It Could Happen Here - The Union Election That Could Change Everything, Part 1

Episode Date: March 23, 2023

Raina, Eric, and John from Shift Change, the first slate of rank and file workers ever to run for National Nurses United's Council of Presidents, tell the story of how being isolated, lied to, and forced to take deals seemingly cut by union staff behind their backs led them to make history and fight to change the largest nurses union in the US. https://www.gofundme.com/f/shift-change-cna-nnoc-slate-2023-campaign?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_campaign=p_cf+share-flow-1  https://shiftchange2022.my.canva.site/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadowbride. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of fright. An anthology podcast of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal 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 tech's elite and how they've 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

brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. 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. 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 It Could Happen Here,

the show about things falling apart and how to put them back together again. I'm your host, Mia Wong, and today we have a really exciting episode. We're gonna be talking to a group of workers from the California Nurses Association, which is specifically their national organizing committee, which is, I think, better known to most people as NNU or National Nurses United. And these people are part of a shift of workers who was, for the first time, running a rank-and-file slate for the Council

of Presidents, which is sort of, they're a body that combines the positions of vice president, president of the union. They're called shift change. And so, Eric, do you want to introduce yourself? All right. My name is Eric Cook. I've been a nurse for 32 years. I currently work in the cardiac telemetry floor, and I became a nurse after being a Navy corpsman in the first Gulf War and just continued in healthcare from there. I was originally in LVN and then became a registered nurse. And I've been on the past three negotiating teams for AltaBait Summit Hospital. And I've seen a lot of changes in the attitude and movement of the union in the past 12 years. So I'm hoping with John and Raina and

Mark to make a change for our union and our members for the better. Yeah, glad you could be here to join us. Thank you. Yeah, Raina, do you want to introduce yourself? Hi there. I'm Raina Lindsey. I have been a California nurse for over 13 years. And out of those 13 years, eight of them, I've been in AltaBates Medical Center, which

was my first union as an RN. And also, I'm sorry. And also I work in ICU and I've been there for about seven years. And I worked with Eric a year prior to that. So the reason why I became a nurse is a long story, but the bridge version is at the beginning, I wanted to be a lawyer. So when I went to college, kind of thought I was dyslexic. So that kind of backed out. And then I also was a teen mom, which that's something that a lot of people do not know about me. And during that whole process, I wanted to find something that I could be an advocate for people and also know the political side of it. So nursing became the best benefit. One thing I love about nursing is you can learn everything about the world and know about people without going anywhere. So that was the thrill. And then also being an advocate for the patients I take care for.

In addition to that, you know, knowing my peers and knowing that we all have the similar struggles when it comes to the systems that we work for, it doesn't matter which employer you work for. And so being in the union, it gives you that issues which Eric and I and John all been experiencing where things do need to change. And being part of shift change is part where we have to change our leadership and be more transparent between the union, the employer, and the people in general. Hell yeah. And yeah, John, do you want to introduce yourself? Yeah, sure. I'm John Hieronymus. I'm a PACU recovery nurse at University of Chicago. Before that, I was in the medical ICU for six and a half years.

I was in the medical ICU for six and a half years. And then before that, I was like a associate's degree, RN working at the emergency room at Holy Cross Hospital. And I also started, which is funny to me, as an LPN, which is the same thing as an LVN that Eric did. And I was a CNA before that. I decided to become a nurse way back in the day when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do after dropping out of high school. And I was thinking about, man, maybe I should become like a history teacher. And I was like,

oh, why would I want to go back to this place? I hate so much. I dropped out of it. And I personally got like incredibly sick with something called ulcerative colitis. And I got a bunch of surgeries done and got some really amazing experience being taken care of by nurses. And it became really immediately obvious to me. Like I also like Raina wanted to help people. And also I thought that nursing was like a way where even like for, you know, individuals, I could change someone's day just a little bit for the better. But also like maybe change some bigger things. And so I thought nursing was just like a really great way to do that. Also, I was really fortunate to be raised by an amazing nurse.

My mom was a nurse and she was always like, she's like one of those people who's my hero. And a lot of other nurses in my family, both men and women, including someone who is like a Kentucky frontier nurse is like the first group of nurse practitioner, nurse midwives back back in the like the 1940s back in Kentucky so um I got a lot of nurses in my family and I'm just like incredibly um proud to be like pairing on all the stuff that they have been doing for all their years as like nurses so and like meeting the folks out in California like Raina and Eric it just makes me feel so and like meeting the folks out in california like reina and eric it just makes me feel so good like we're doing really important stuff um in terms of both our daily practice of

being a nurse um but also like the that we can have like this bigger impact on how things are happening in our profession in the healthcare, and just the broader world. Yeah. Yeah, we've talked like a decent amount on this show now about sort of the labor issues that have been facing nurses, both actually here and in the UK, and I think a little bit in a couple of other countries. Yeah, I was wondering what were the sort of specific things that y'all were dealing with, both just in the profession and then also in the union that got y'all together to run this slate? Okay, so one of the things that caused us to actually meet by coincidence was

one of my coworkers, Torald Odal, who's a Norwegian nurse who's been a nurse here in America for over 30 years. She contacted Labor Notes and realizing something was wrong in our union, she started talking with specifically Sarah Hughes at Labor Notes. And through Labor Notes and Sarah, we were able to connect with John in Chicago. And it was amazing that what we discovered is that our problems here in California were mimicking what they've experienced in Chicago. what they've experienced in Chicago. And through Sarah finding out from other diverse communities of nurses in Texas, Florida, North Carolina, New York, and Minnesota, that the same things are happening there under our same union. And our complaint was through our union was that we felt we were being siloed.

And of course, when I say siloed is, actually in our negotiations, we had 17 facilities negotiating. But we were told that we were not allowed to communicate with each other. What? That it was forbidden by the federal mediator. What? Yes, yes, I know. That was my reaction initially too. There were two other negotiators on the team. It was highly suspicious because the union wanted to put all new nurses onto the negotiating team. And that was a little bit of a red flag. There were so many red flags through this negotiations. I swear I could almost see Lennon's tomb. That's how many red flags there were. It was amazing to us is that they said the mediator forbade us from talking

to each other because that was part of the agreement to have the federal mediator forbade us from talking to each other because that was part of the agreement to have the federal mediator. The three of us that had previous experience with negotiating just knew that was the wrong thing. And it took over at least about seven months before we started breaking through to other tables and communicating with them on text and having our own Zoom conversations with them to convince them that, no, this is a lie. We are allowed to talk to each other. And we ended up finding out that we were kind of being railroaded into what we considered an agreement that was less than

satisfactory for the workers, for the nurses who have suffered during the pandemic. We could have gotten probably one of the greatest contracts that any nursing body had ever received. We had the industry by the throat. We suffered so much. John, everybody throughout the country, all the nurses suffered, everybody suffered. But everybody that was at that bedside during the pandemic, it was a horrific experience. It's great when you take care of people and you heal them. Yes, that's a great thing, but the stress and the unending anxiety that you felt. changes you at a point when we had so much power. And thank heavens for Sarah to put us into contact with all these other nurses to realize that it wasn't just the Sutter division of the California Nurses Association that was running things amok. It was actually, it seemed to be a perceived playbook plan of what they were doing throughout

the country. And I think nobody perceives themselves as doing evil or anything like that. I think they always think that they're doing it for the better interest of everybody. But that's what's important about a rank and file movement is that every nurse, every person in the union is important and deserves a voice. And we don't need to be gaslit. We don't need to be mistreated by the union that we pay to represent us. the union that we pay to represent us. We need to be marching on the boss. We could have had an unending euphoria for nurses with a contract. We could have had great staffing. We could have had better pay. We could have had everything that we wanted to make our work lives to be the best they could be. And it seemed our union already had a pre-planned agreement with the corporation. Now they deny that, but it's kind of hard to believe when they

had the same agreement that they were supposedly negotiating in silos, that they weren't communicating, each table was supposedly negotiating their own, but it was the same thing they wanted at every table. And not all the tables were equal. It was very sad for us. Like I said, this is the third negotiating team I was on. The first negotiating team I was on, we lasted over two years negotiating, and we went through nine strikes and threatened a tenth until we got an agreement. So our hospital, obviously, it's Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley. Our sister hospital is Summit Hospital in Oakland. And we have affiliated with us is the Herrick Campus, which is the psychiatric facility. And we have struggled so much through this pandemic.

And it was amazing to us that we came up with less than what we should have gotten. I will tell you that thanks to Sarah and meeting all these other nurses, we were able to come back and I think through fear and intimidation, our union was forced to back us and we were able to get economically what we wanted. But like the rest of the country as nurses, we wanted better staffing. We needed more bodies at the bedside. We're overworked, we're fatigued. Raina worked in the ICU and they had their own COVID unit there. I don't think there was enough Tums and Rolaids to go around for all of those nurses. The anxiety and the heart in your throat. And of course, John himself, I don't want to his personal business, but his experience, he has long COVID. business but you know his experience he has long covet so we we as nurses have suffered quite a bit and we expected a lot more from our union yeah and i mean even just on a very basic level like no matter what you go through you have the right for your union not to lie to you

that's it that seems like a very elementary sort of thing that's a really elementary thing mia but like it's really um it's really scary um how comfortable some of the people who are paid their wages out of our dues are with lying to us i think that's a thing that like um you know like we, one of the things we're specifically fighting for is like transparency and accountability, especially for our staff. Um, and you know, when I, you know, Eric mentioned that I had had long COVID, I'm finally getting, I'm been to the point where I'm like as recovered as I probably ever will be. And which is great, you know, being recovered from long COVID is so much better than having long COVID.

But, you know, I was always like someone that they came to to ask for help with like political sorts of issues inside the union where they would come to me for Medicare for all, or, you know, speaking around things like ratios, that sort of stuff. Or they would send me off to when the Chicago teachers went on strike in 2019. I was sent to speak on behalf of our union for them. And, you know, just doing the work of, I'm kind of a, I'm a bit of an agitator and then COVID hit and it was just a really surreal

experience. And my area of the hospital is one of those places where they basically did everything they could to minimize the amount of surgeries we were doing initially when the lockdowns were happening for the first six months of pandemic. And then, but they were moving us into, because we are all former ICU nurses, so I would do my shift, a few shifts up in the medical ICU. Then we made a special clean ICU because we were still getting traumas. University of Chicago apparently sees more penetrating gunshot and stab wounds than any other hospital in the United States. 30% of our traumas are, um, are from some sort of, uh, violence, um, which is substantially higher than anywhere else in the U S. Um, and then I got sick, right? And

so to me, the union was like a thing that was like, man, this is nice to have. I had never worked in a union hospital before. Getting union raises was like a big step up in my life, you know? stands for um and i didn't really think of it as someone that needed the union right to do the things that unions really kind of like it's the bread and butter of unions which is like coming in and like helping you when you need help as an individual worker and um you know when you're not in the middle of like a contract negotiation and i got sick with long covid and lost we had negotiated this great you know like covid sick pay policy and management just took that away without like for me without really giving any notice or you know explanation why and you sit there trying to get like the help that you need from your unions like um i'm trying to explain why the help that you need from your union it's like um i'm trying to explain why it is that like this is a problem for me to our labor rep who's like our they call

them business agents labor reps whatever they're people who basically are paid out of our dues to kind of help us in theory like stay organized and be pushing management to do, you know, to follow the contract. And, uh, it got to the point where like my partner, uh, who's like,

is like literally screaming at the labor rebel. I'm on the phone with the labor rep and she's, you know, just like, what the fuck is your union even doing? Like, why are they not making sure that you're taking care of? And it was like,

this really like come to Jesus moment where you're like, oh yeah, like this union shit isn't just like, you know, platitudes about like, we need a ratio bill in Illinois or, you know, Medicare for all or Bernie Sanders.

It's like, oh, this shit is actually like about my material wellbeing. And like my family still hasn't recovered from all that because they only you know after an enormous amount of pressure was put on staff they finally started looking into it and we got you know payouts for not just me but for 10 other nurses who had had their covid pay like uh cut uh you know like really in ways. And it really opened my eyes as to like what a union should be doing. And it really opened my eyes that maybe there's a problem with how staff

interact with us as workers, because like there should be, you know, we try and like, say like, you know, there's a service union, service or service unionism. And then there's rank and file unionism. And we have this weird situation on union where they tell us we're a rank and file democratic union, except the, the staff kind of treat us like, you know, it's a business union. So we get told one thing, but then we see another thing.

And like, not that I think that like uh it's you know the whole point of a union is you kind of pull together to take care of people who can't necessarily take care of themselves in that moment and like it just took an enormous amount of effort on my family's part to like get that moving and it just seemed incredibly it was very eye-opening for me as a you know my experience here in chicago no that that's really bleak i mean that that's another thing that you would you know you would expect a union like to just be on top of not not even just a sort of oh well you asked them and they started doing it like you would think that, hey, the people who got COVID doing this job not getting paid what they're supposed to be getting paid would be like a priority and not something you have to fight them over. That is.

Ooh, that is incredibly grim. I don't know. 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. 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 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 Thank you. 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. 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. well i have a story for you so my first year working at out to baits i before that i was working in smaller hospitals and they gave you certain packages about your benefits so when it was time for me to get my benefits i couldn't get my benefits at all because during that time they were doing it at the yearly so i said is there any way possible at least to get my benefits, I couldn't get my benefits at all because during that time they were doing it at the yearly. So I said, is there any way possible at least to get something? Because mind you, they are paying for my benefits. I'm not paying for anything for it, that there should be a reason because if I had any medical issues, what would happen? And basically the union was

very lackluster about it. Now, of course, I went to the manager, went to human resources. Basically, they basically told me where there's eighteen hundred nurses and, you know, what we're going to do about this issue. And pretty much it was. It's pretty much disappeared about it. There was nothing I could do. So for that whole year. He has pretty much disappeared about it. There was nothing I could do. So for that whole year. So I worked in have any health issues where we didn't require any help and it wasn't an emergency. But when I started noticing there were other nurses, RTs that were experiencing the same thing, because a lot of us got hired within that timeframe, they weren't telling us these issues and we would end up getting these things sooner. And it's all about the transparency. It's all about our value.

And then over the years, people always complain. I'm paying these dues. Why are they not helping? Why not supportive? And when I was actually hired, they were quick to give you the paperwork to tell you how to pay this off so they could take money off your dues quicker than what about the history about the union? Why is the history is why is the union important and what you can do if there's a grievance? There was none of that. And to this day, it's still the same thing, because I precept new grads and I tell them about, you know, part of the union. What do you got? Oh, I didn't get a booklet or oh, I didn't hear anything about it, but I got this paper here to so they could take out my dues. That's what pisses me off, if anything, is that part. is that part. So, and then all this stuff dealing with what Eric has told you, what we've been doing with the strikes and the negotiations. Me personally, we should have done negotiations within the first year of the pandemic. And I think we got everything, but they were quick to say, no, we're going to get all these facilities all together at one so we can all negotiate.

And then the gag order happened, the slam of the gag order. And I'm like, there is a lot of collusion going on. And that shit needs to stop. So, I mean, things that they don't really tell us, which I think is really a thing that we want to resolve, is they don't really inform you of what your union rights are. You kind of get the initial, like here's your wine garden rights, which means that you have a right to like representation whenever you're being disciplined.

But aside from that, there's very little discussion inside of our union facilities in particular about the kinds of things that we have as like union members, what our rights are what are our rights within the union um how the union works so many of my co-workers don't like a big part of our work is just explaining that there's an election happening and um so you would hear that an election had happened maybe and you know you would be like well who voted i don't know like and um you'd get these like you know all of the the communication from about the election to

us as the people who are like the you know the opposition has all been in these very like plain uh plain envelopes that don't look like anything like it could be like just an anonymous bill you wouldn't know um or junk mail and so like you know as a union member you have uh something called a right to represent uh representation so in every uh union uh every union employee and elected officer is considered a fiduciary, has a fiduciary obligation to look out for your financial interests. And if they don't do that, it's called a failure to represent. Our union in particular spends, brags internally about never having a, they call them unfair labor practice. Like if a nurse or any worker in any union decides that their union

you know did not represent them their financial interests they can file something called an unfair labor practice claim for failure to represent our union is like they've never had an unfair labor practice claim stick uh we foiled one of their unfairly or practice claims and somehow it got like withdrawn, like in this really like sketchy way. And it was like just a random one that we picked to just see what happened. And so then it got like assigned, like a special like liaison, like, uh,

afterwards, like they're like, Oh, we weren't supposed to do that. Like when we contacted the department of labor, um, we're going gonna look at that again and figure out what's going on with this um and it also turns out when we started

doing research which i think every union member listening to this should know every union has to file paperwork um they're legal there's legally mandated uh reporting so there's things called lm2s and 990s that you can get from the office of labor management you google them and they'll figure you can search for your own union um and you get to see the union finances and we found out that there's like 42 million dollars that our union is teaching a bank account uh and this goes to uh there was a article it was in was in Jacobin I'm not sure about like the financialization of unions and for like 42 million dollars what is that

and you know unions will brag oh we've got a 42 million dollar war chest but like what are we spending that 42 million dollars on is it to like fight arbitrations and constantly be making like our like working conditions better and taking fights to the bosses and it's like, no,

actually what they're doing is they're spending that money on settling unfair labor practice claims. So they don't actually officially stick. So the war chest isn't even against, you know, isn't to go to war against our, you know, supposed, you know, I mean, to go to war against management, it's to go to war against kind of us. When you think about it, it's just, it's just so wild. When you start digging into this stuff, it's just crazy. Eric, you want to tell them about the office at Oakland? Yeah. So obviously we're in the heart of the empire. You know,

I live just a few miles from the CNA headquarters and I've been there many times prior to the pandemic. You know, I live just a few miles from the CNA headquarters, and I've been there many times prior to the pandemic. You know, and I have taken part in lobbying in Washington, D.C. on behalf of the union. You know, nurses from all across the country that are in the union go to D.C. go to DC and we lobby for, you know, not only for single payer and Medicare for all, but, you know, individual bills that will benefit nurses across the country, whether they're in the union or not. And, you know, I'm very familiar with it. I've lobbied in Sacramento and I've been to the NNU convention in Minnesota. So I've met a lot of nurses across our union. In fact, when you do that, that's about the only time you get to reach out and see other union members. One of the things I will tell you that John and I and the person that's not on the

call right now is Mark Goodick. He is an American citizen now, but he was a Canadian nurse before. And he is right now working on our campaign video to introduce us to a broader audience. And that's why he's not on the call tonight. That's why he's not on the call tonight. We should be intermingling and talking with other nurses across the country. I should not be siloed here in Oakland and not knowing what a nurse is doing in Texas. That's true. Yeah. We need to be, part of our pledgeges that we need to join hands across this country.

Every nurse needs to see. We need to digitalize our contract. We need to see University of Chicago's contract digitalized. We need to be sharing our contract so we know what good things that maybe they got in Texas need to be sharing our contracts so we know what good things that maybe they got in Texas or what good things they got at the University of Chicago or what good things we have in our contract. We need to see that nurses can say, hey, I want that language. We need to be sharing that. I don't know why it's not happening or why it's just at the upper tiers of union management that they see these things, but we need to be joined together. No more siloing nurses.

You know, Alta Bates to nurses, stay in your lane. Kaiser nurses, stay in your lane. University of Chicago, stay in your lane. No, no, no, no. We need to be one fighting body for the betterment of nurses. It's amazing when you find out that we have a beautiful building that the union purchased in downtown Oakland. They only occupy a few floors of it and they rent out the rest. And you know what? It occupy a few floors of it and they rent out the rest. And you know what?

It is a fabulous building and it would be great for it to be a headquarters where we're not just fighting and lobbying for democratic politicians, but we're actually fighting for nurses at the bedside. fighting for nurses at the bedside. And that's what our whole mission is that we're going to be running for is for the council of presidents. We need to take the macro focus down to what is happening at the bedside for every nurse across the country and make the change for the better for them. And that's the big difference here. I'm all for an activist union. And I think we have been. The union is active in climate change and how the environment affects the community. These things are important. But it's more important that we take care of the nurses at the bedside

and offer opportunities for those nurses who want to be involved to make the community better. We need to have those resources available for them. And if we make nurses' lives at the bedside better, we're going to have more nurses available to make the community better. available to make the community better. And that's what we need to be working on. It is going to be a fight. I can't be more honest than to tell you, we are David versus Goliath. We are four nurses who really have no big national exposure. But the most important thing we have is that we're bedside nurses and we know what's important for bedside nurses. I do want to say, there's four of us who are running for the council presidents, the for the council presidents but we would not be even talking to you if we didn't have like at least 100 nurses all over like the hospitals that we're based in like doing the

work of building our campaign so i do want to point out that like because like our slate is like three white guys and it's Raina and Raina is like, and we, we want to make sure that we're not, that it's, we made a choice. The choice that we made was not, you know, us coming together as four individuals being like, we should fix the union by ourselves. It was this, we keep mentioning labor notes. There's a healthcare worker chat with a fair number of nurses in our union.

And we noticed that there was an election coming up. And this is also the time when both Alta Bates was having their issues. very popular staffer who like without any, without any input from the local nurses or elected local nurse leadership. And we got together and we all were like, what are we going to do? This is crazy. And we had people like, we were like, well, who would do like, we have this opportunity. And if we run as a slate, we can do things like get access to, we can send emails out to other nurses and break down those silos, connect nurses from across the country. And we're like, well, if we don't do anything,

we're kind of stuck in this kind of like square one of, you know, a few small hospitals talking to each other. Not small, but you know, a few hospitals talking to each other um not small but you know a few hospitals talking to each other still struggling against like these kind of silos that have been constructed for us by staff and we had a vote and there was you know over 20 nurses all together raised their hands and were like we could do this with an imperfect group of people that we recognize isn't like the fully representative of everyone in the

union, but are fully committed to democratizing the union. Um, or we could sit and wait and, um, a nurse who had been in the union for a very long time and she's now retired said, if you all don't take this chance, you don't know what could happen. And, you know, three years from now, union could be completely different. And so, uh two-thirds of everyone in that call said it's time to go and we don't care we would rather that you run and take that swing and maybe get big for all of us so a big part of what we're doing is got like i've got a meeting with you know cook county nurses on thursday and they're all basically going to come to me and tell me all the shit that i need to do for them not the other way around when you're the rank and file leadership you know it's like taking that pyramid

and you invert it right the people who are matter the most are the regular bedside nurses and all we can do as like people who step up into that role is we take that we take that heat and put ourselves out there so that we can enact what our co-workers are asking us for i literally have co-workers walking up to me completely unsolicited i'm a very like i'm not walking around telling i like i told a few people up front in the beginning because i was like all right you're about to see my face on some flyers let me tell you why um but uh i now have co-workers coming to me and they're like john you've got to tell me what the fuck's going on because uh i heard a little bit about it and i need to help you i'm just like okay it's very it's like i it heard a little bit about it and I need to help you. And I'm just like, okay.

It's very, it's like, it's a little bit like a drug, but I have to be careful because like, I can't let this whole thing, like none of this, we all have to stay humble as we're doing this because. All four of us, John, all four of us were volunteering to help other people to run. Exactly. We were like, okay okay we're here uh you know john mark reina myself we're we're here to help you guys who's running now we're gonna help you we're gonna help you and and then it's like they're crickets you know and it's like and it goes to show exactly what happened it goes to show it goes to show how

impoverished the internal democracy of our union is that people who are leaders already did not feel comfortable or prepared to take on that kind of leadership role you know these are nurses who have been in our union for decades who are

taking fights to their bosses all the time already. And they did not feel that they knew enough about the union because there's an intentional, I believe like obscuring of how the union works. And that's like how you end up with a situation where people are like, well, I guess we're just kicking the door down for all these people who we know will

be doing it better when we get it situated so that they can do it better welcome i'm dan thrill won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by I Heart 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 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. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audio books 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.

Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how Tex Elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. turn 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, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. It's amazing, though, to tell us that an American history class or you have civics class,

you learn about the US government, right? You know how it functions, how it runs. But when it comes to our union, we were all asking each other, you know, we were putting pieces together. Oh, wait, I know the council presidents. Yeah. Well, how does this person fit into it? How does the board fit into this? Well, how does the election run? How is it done? We had to search out the answers. We had to call all sorts of people and we were only getting bits and pieces. There should be a clear outline of how you run a democracy and a union. I mean, it shouldn't even be that difficult. Obviously, there'd be specific rules for the union, but they shouldn't be occluded. They should be, you know, they shouldn't be occulted from the, from the members. We should clearly know how you step forward to be a, a more of a contributing member to the union to run and to serve the others in the union. And that was an amazing thing that we're finding out amongst each other. It's like,

wow, how does our union run? I mean, why is it difficult to find out these things? And I mean, I don't think it's insurmountable for us. I don't think that should disqualify us. I don't think if we can step in and do health care in a pandemic, we can very easily learn how the union functions in a quick little tutorial. I don't think that's going to be a big deal for us. that's going to be a big deal for us. But yeah, it's pretty amazing. If we're talking about democracy in a union, how is it that it takes... I mean, to find the bylaws, we can all tell you it took a tremendous amount of effort to find the bylaws that are used and run by.

Hold on, hold on. Let me tell a story about the bylaws. So we have a nurse in Chicago who decided to make a pain of themselves about how to get the bylaws so we have a nurse in chicago who decided to make a pain of themselves about how to get the bylaws and instead they went to the union you're like i want to see the bylaws i want to see the bylaws and they were just like you know like and they give him the runaround um and eventually they gave him he got a personally delivered uh envelope that was like a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy of the bylaws um and it's funny because the legally the bylaws are also to be filed with the federal government and like from our pressure and organizing to figure out how our union worked

they had to publish the newest set of bylaws and on the federal reporting websites um i was in uh oakland in 2019 for the global nurse assembly and there was an after party and it was a bunch of staffers and like you know some nurses and you know just chit-chatting and i was like man be really good i told the story about you know like uh the you know the nurse who tried to get the by finally got a copy of the bylaws to you know some of these one of these staff, man, it'd be really great if we could figure out how to enhance for how the union works. And just was like, good luck with that. And they just disappeared. What?

I'm not, yeah. Jeez. Because what we're finding is that any staff that help nurses learn how the union works, find themselves out of a job. Like that's what's really, that's what really sketches everyone out is when like people, I mean, you all can tell,

tell the story about the, the, the staffer who like got run, run, ran a foul. So, uh, I will tell you that there are a lot of great labor reps. Yes, there are good staffers.

A lot of really great people out there. But to tell you that they would communicate with us, because obviously I told you I've done all these other actions, so I know a lot of people, and they have my personal number you know, when we're in other cities, you know, you text each other and, hey, we're at this place now. Where do we meet you, etc. in the union saying, you know, you guys need to stand tall. Uh, there are a lot of us supporting you. Uh, we can't come out and publicly support you because we'll get fired. So, yeah. So we were getting these texts from the labor reps saying what they're doing to you is wrong. And they were, you know, we actually got together and we, we wanted to go out on strike in October. And we were getting this runaround from a group of this, I thought it was just an inner cabal. Little did I know that it probably extends throughout the organization. But that they were telling us that there was no need for a strike.

And it seemed they were trying to just pressure us into taking a pretty low ball contract. And so we're getting push. The good labor reps are texting us like, stick it, stick to it, stick to it. And we actually got a postcard campaign and we actually drove up to the executive director's house in Sacramento, knocked on her door and delivered 500 and some postcards that we organized on our own. It wasn't a union driven, it was just nurses, union nurses driven. And we delivered postcards saying, we want to go out on strike. And the union, of course, still fought us on it, but we were allowed to go out on strike.

And there's a video of us confronting the executive director at our strike line, asking her why we were gagged, why the mediator gagged us. And she clearly didn't know what was going on. She said, the mediator wouldn't gag you. Why would they gag you? So she didn't even know what was going on at our table. We were contacted and we were told, oh, my God, they're running around like chickens with their heads cut off because they're petrified that they might lose their jobs that they've been exposed to what they've been doing to you and so one of the labor reps that used to work for us uh she used to be at our hospital and then she uh moved along and

she was at uh sutter solano and uh her her nurses, hey, did you see this video of this speech Eric made on this, you know, at the strike line? And it was a speech where I kind of excoriated the union about why they would gag us, that that wasn't, you know, we needed to be united and we didn't need a union, you know, working behind our back. They needed to stand with us. And so she says, well, let's see. So she was looking at the video on her union cell phone and with the negotiators, nurse negotiators at her hospital, Sutter Solano, who were also in negotiations with us that we weren't supposed to talk to because, you know, the mediator forbade us. So she's showing the video and they thought because she was formerly at our hospital, that she was our inside scoop for

all this information. I can, I can swear to God and take a lie detector test. I had one exchange with her during the 21 months that we were negotiating. It was at a joint bargaining council meeting on Zoom where the union kept muting us on Zoom and preventing us from writing in the chat because we were saying, we want to go out on strike. We want to go out on strike. And next thing you know, we would find out we couldn't type in the chat. So I texted her and says, can you see this? I'm trying to write in the

chat and I'm forbidden from writing in the chat. They, they muted me. They, they, I can't type in. And she goes, I'm feel for you, buddy. I feel for you. That was my only exchange with her that caused her. And the fact that her nurses asked her to look at this video with them, that's what cost her her job. Jeez. It was, it was clearly guilt by association. And the charges were outrageous for her. We had labor reps leave because they just felt that they couldn't live with themselves with're here to work for the nurses. They're here to work for the most progressive union in the country. And it was a fraud. That's been like a big, like consistent problem is that we know that they are busting their own, like the staff are supposed to have a union. The staff have their own contract and that's a normal thing inside unions, right? Yeah. The staff have their own contract and that's a normal thing inside unions,

right? Yeah. You know, to keep, you know, we believe in or that every worker who, you know, works for wages should be in a union.

And we have seen time and again that like the, like the contract that they've busted their own unions. So like that they've, there was a slate that was run of nurses in in um are not nurses of the the staffers i think it was in 2021 where they were like trying to get something together uh to change you know things inside you know how they relate to their management and um and several of those uh staffers were basically illegally fired jesus so this is like i mean and i know you keep saying jesus a lot but like there's a reason mia you know me i wouldn't be running into this sort of situation if it wasn't like so like out of uh out of this world

the stories that we hear and they're the same this is what's disturbing is it and it's because the union is bait like i was just talking to a lawyer today she was looking over the bylaws of our union and she's like this is set up like a local like it's one big local union it's got like a tiny little committee of people who are making the decisions that affect or we believe that it's mostly the director non-nurse director staff that make the decisions but these four people kind of rubber stamp them and that they make decisions for 150 you know thousand some odd nurses um and it's so centralized, you know, this, one of the things is, uh, describe is like, it's almost irresponsible because, you know,

we live in, you know, you know, crazy times and all it takes is one wrong election or bad, uh, decision in Supreme court. And it would literally, our union could be dissolved with like, court and it would literally our union could be dissolved with like you know if they just arrested you know a handful of people and uh and froze our bank accounts and a big part of our goal is to help disperse those resources out and to foster more local leadership so that in the event that you know something you know like that terrible happens like that we're not caught without anything because the way it's situated now is we have this massive concentration of uh of all of the decision making and resources in a very small group of hands and most of these people are uh are not have never been nurses

or if they've been nurses they've've been, you know, out of practice for so long that they wouldn't know how, I mean, maybe they can put band-aids on. I don't need to like, I don't want to disparage anybody. You know, a nurse is a nurse. I know nurses, you know, you learn it and you learn a lot of things. It's really important, great skill, but there's something to be in practice. If I, you know, I can walk back into my, skill but there's something to be in practice if i you know i can walk back into my the medical icu i used to work in you know now it's going on like five years and be the same nurse that i was when i was at the peak of my practice there and there's

a real key thing to i think we're all committed none of us are doing this because we want to be the face of California Nurses Association, National Nurses United for the next 20, like 30 years. We're doing this because we feel that there's a real value to there being a continual turnover in leadership, new ideas, people bringing in new energy. people bringing in new energy. We think that nurses should have the opportunity to work release time so that they could see how the union works as staffers from the inside and then go back to the regular jobs. We're doing everything we can to like, I, I like my job. I think my job is great.

I don't want to leave my job, doing what we can to bring our, our mentality as those bedside nurses to the sensibility of running the union because nursing does give you a lot of really powerful tools as like, you have to be able to listen to people. We're not listening a lot tonight, but you know, we've got to talk and get the word out. Being able to kind of see the a big thing we see is like you know you have a lot of people who will tell you things and then they act in a different way and that's a big part of um nursing practice is being able to understand what people's real deal is and uh you know it's kind of that's one of the things where it's real frustrating is like, we know when people are lying to us.

Like, I know we all know when like the staff are lying to us. Nurses do have bullshit detectors, that's for sure. You know, I slept through the class in nursing school where they teach you how to grow eyes in the back of your head. The class I slept through where they teach you to get a third arm. the class I slept through where they teach you to get a third arm and I really regret sleeping through the class where they teach you how nurse mitosis like being able to asexually reproduce an extra nurse um but I definitely didn't sleep through the class where I can learn where I can see when someone is saying one thing and then but it's like but they're fucking lying to me yeah and that's like a that's like a a constant theme and And that's like a, that's like a, a constant theme.

And that's one of the things that's driving a lot of our organizing is that a lot of people are tired of just being lied to by people who were paying their paychecks. And it's like, and it's like, they think that we, I mean, we have staff informants,

right? We know people inside staff who are allied with us. We know how they talk about us when we're not there they talk about us like we can't figure this shit out and it's like motherfucker i know how to keep a person alive who's like who shouldn't be alive like i know how to walk a family through like you know multiple family members with conflicting opinions through like an end-of-life discussion and along with a doctor who can't really make up his mind, like you don't think it,

while I've got, you know, like multiple pressers and like continuous dialysis, you don't think I can't figure out like when you are like telling us one thing and then another thing's happening, we know why they're canceling meetings right now. They don't want us talking to each other. We get that. And this is kind of like,

it's almost like a feminist practice of women talking to each other makes men nervous, right? And it's like nurses talking to each other makes management nervous and it sure as hell is making our union nervous. We want our union to be encouraging nurses talking to each other and not discouraging it. nervous and it sure as hell is making our union nervous we want our union to be encouraging nurses

talking to each other not like discouraging it and anytime someone is discouraging people from talking to each other who have similar concerns that is an immediate you know like eric was saying the red flags it's like this is the kind of thing that like this it's like an almost an abusive relationship you know i would not be running if it wasn't this intense of a problem. This has been It Could Happen Here. Join us tomorrow for part two of the interview, where Shift Change discusses more of their vision for what the union could be. In the meantime, you can find us on Twitter and Instagram at HappenHerePod,

and you can find Cool Zone Media the same place as at Cool Zone Media. We've also posted a link in the description to Shift Change's GoFundMe if you want to help support their campaign. 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 find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at CoolZoneMedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow.

Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of right. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of right. An anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal 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 Tex Elite or wherever you get your podcasts. unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else

you get your podcasts from. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex positive and deeply entertaining podcast Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. 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. 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. 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.