April 2, 2024 • 37 mins
Mia talks with John, Jehad, and Rosa, candidates of Shift Change’s slate for National Nurses United's Council of Presidents about healthcare work, Palestine solidarity organizing, and what brought them together to challenge their union’s leadership
https://www.shiftchangennu.org/
Council of Presidents statement on interview:
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Also media, Welcome to Jack it Apping here, a podcast
about things falling apart and putting it back together again.
We're going fasten this intro because we have a lot
of stuff to get to and the thing that we
have a lot of stuff to get to about is
the election for candidates for the Council of Presidents for
National Nurses United. And in order to talk about that,
(00:24):
I guess the reason we're talking about that, I you know, okay,
I I should should have ran this one through in
my head before we started this. But yeah, I'm here
today with John, Jahead and Rosa to talk about Yeah,
there's slate movement thing I don't know called Shift Change
and why they're running, how they met, et cetera, et cetera,
(00:47):
and yeah, some other stuff about the union. So all
three of you, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Thank you, thank you, thank you for having us.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Yeah. So, I guess the place we should start for
this for so, we talked to Shift Change last year,
but I think for people who don't remember that or
you know, I mean, it's been god, I don't know,
I don't know how long I've lost track of time.
Can you explain a bit about what you're running for,
and I mean specifically what it is, sort of how
(01:18):
it works.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
I'll just start real quick, like in cases it's not clear.
We're all members of a large national nurses union called
National Nurses United, and so we're from individual parts of
that union, which is kind of an umbrella over California
Nurses Association and National Nurses Organizing Committee, which I'm a
part of, Brazil as a part of Minnesota Nurses Association,
(01:42):
which jahead, is a part of NAISNA, which is New
York State nurs Association, which Sanya Greena is a part of.
And then we also have Michigan Nurses Association and the
DC Nurses Association and our group Shift Change is like
a caucus, which is like whenever workers instead of a
union get together because they want to change how the
union works. And we're running what's something called a slate
(02:05):
where we have to have groups of people running together
for specific union offices, and so we have a lot
of people running, not just US three or US four
for the council presidents, but we also have candidates running
for the board of vice presidents and also delegates for
our convention, and hopefully that's a good basis for this
(02:25):
starting off the conversation.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yeah, so, I guess the first question I wanted to ask,
because I think this is an interesting story, is how
how did you three meet? Because this is a mostly
a very different group of people from last time.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
How did we meet? Oh? My, that is a good story.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
So if you're not aware, or if you've been living
under a rock, you know, there's a lot of violence
that's happening in the world, and specifically there's violence that's
happening in Palestine. And John, I and Jahad all met
as nurses who were looking to really be involved in
(03:09):
Palestine solidarity.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Work, and so we were met on a space.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
We connected there and you know, our politics pretty much
aligned that we believe that oppressed people should be liberated,
and that was one of the largest ways that we
met each other and we became I mean, I.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Feel like Jahad and John are part of my family. Definitely.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
We have really connected on the solidarity front for that,
but also as nurses organizing and really seeing where the
false law fault lines are within our own union.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
We haven't talked about specifically the nurses organizing has been
going on for Palestine solidarity stuff on the show before
it's really interesting.
Speaker 5 (03:55):
Even though we haven't met in person yet, we're looking
forward to meeting in April at the Labor Notes conference.
But despite the fact that we haven't met in person,
there is a lot of chemistry among the group, and
we have a lot of similar visions, and especially when
it came to organizing for Palestine. So I joined Resita
(04:19):
and John and others and Nurses for Palestine chat group
and that group is active in highlighting the suffering of
the Palestinian people and the politics behind it and how
nurses can be in the front lines not only to
take care of patients, but also for other healthcare workers
around the world. And that's a huge part of this
(04:43):
because this genocide that's going on has claimed the lives
of so many innocent civilians as well as physicians and
nurses and other healthcare workers, medics, etc. From that big
group or almost you can call it national, there are
smaller chapters now in different cities. There's Healthcare Workers for
(05:07):
Palestine twin cities where I am from, and Chicago and
San Francisco, and there's in Seattle and Boston. There's a
lot of movement among healthcare workers where they focus their
attention that you know, hospitals, health care facilities, healthcare professionals
are not a target during a military conflict, and all
(05:30):
the war crimes that are being committed need to be
answered for. So from that we kind of sprouted a
smaller group, and with the election coming up for the
National Nurses United, we thought we could take that more
of a like a grassroots movement to make a bigger change,
because we believe, you know, all these smaller changes in
(05:53):
the base should lead to a bigger change at the top,
and unions are the perfect example where we can affect change.
And you have the politicians and all the people up
in the highest echelon of powers if you will listen
and do what actually the base needs, and you know,
(06:17):
there's no better way of doing it but having your
own union representing what the nurses in the union want,
and their policies and statements should reflect what the nurses need.
And that's what we're here and that's why we call
ourselves Shift Change.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
One thing I wanted to add on to that is
that like when we first all came together, there was
a call from Palsenian trade unions to push our own
trade unions here in the US, which have historically not
really taken strong positions on things like international conflicts or
you know, what's going on in Palestine in particular. And
(06:59):
our union just adopted BDS language within the last year
in the California nurs Association National Nurses Organizing Committee, and
that took an extraordinary amount of pressure from rank and
file nurses to get the leadership to agree that this
was an important stance. We noticed that unions had just
gone through uh, you know, democratic reform processes who have
(07:21):
been taken over by rank and file workers. The UAW
with Sean Fain had adopted much more like much quickly,
much more quickly resolutions in favor of peace and ceasefire,
and you know, as workers were like against war of
all kinds. And but in particular, this is like a
(07:43):
particularly egregious situation where nurses have borne the brunts of
like all the healthcare workers who are being targeted specifically
and palisfied in Gaza. The majority of those of those
healthcare workers are nurses. Believe there's a direct connection between
you know, our work here and the support of those
(08:04):
nurses over there. And I guess then going from that
to leading towards how our building a democratic rank and
file union. Not only will it enact these be a
way for us to enact the kind of positive policy
changes we want, but it'll build a stronger union for
everybody so that we can fight the bosses at the
(08:27):
bedside making sure that our patients are taking care of
our communities. So I'll let it.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Go, you know, so that that's a bit of a
segue into the next thing I wanted to ask about,
which was, Okay, So you've talked about sort of you've
talked about how you all met through like Palcity, saldi
are you're organizing, how that's one of the important things
for why y'all are doing this. But I want to say, yeah,
so if you can go into more detail about the
(08:54):
specific things that brought you to running for.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
This, why don't you give a little bit of an
account of your story of how you first heard about
shift changes like a thing, because I think that's kind
of that I think that would be fun.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
So I first heard of shift changed last year, and
you know, I was very apprehensive.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
I was like, Oh Wow, who's this new group that's
coming in?
Speaker 4 (09:19):
And you know, I kept I was hearing from my
very own union that you know, there was a group
out there that was challenging and that maybe had gotten
some things.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Wrong, and you know, they they just you know, needed
to kind of be put aside. And so I did
join one of the calls.
Speaker 4 (09:37):
There was an outreach call to kind of figure out
whose shift change.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Is, and I thought it was pretty interesting.
Speaker 4 (09:42):
I thought, you know, here are some very motivated union
members who see that there's there's something that needs to
change within our union, which is part of what we
do as organizers. We see that there may be something
that needs to change even within our own union, and
we rank and file, or we as union members should
be able to have that voice to change it. And
(10:04):
what I was seeing was that their voice was being
really suppressed. Instead of saying, hey, how can we move
towards what you're asking and really come to a place
where we can understand where you're coming from, instead it
was no, we're not going to listen to their voices.
We're not gonna, you know, even engage with this group.
They're this rogue group out there that's like, you know,
(10:26):
causing all this ruckus, which makes me, you know, I'm
somebody who loves and gravitates towards ruckus.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
That's just my personality. So it just made me more curious.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
And then, you know, when we started organizing for you know,
the Palestine Solidarity, John came in and I was like,
oh wait, I think I know this guy, like, you know,
he's one of those shift change guys.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
And it just made me more curious.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
And you know, we've had great conversations and I really
really understand, you know, the motivation and because of some
things that have happened to me within our union that
has made me really recognize there are ways that we
can make positive changes for our union, and as organizers,
as nurses, we have to strive for those and we
(11:16):
have to have the ability to have our voices heard
and to motivate each other to make those changes. Because
if we are the union, then we should be able
to change our union towards what we want to see
out of our union. And that's probably the most important thing.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
I was going to say, Jaheed, do you want to
talk a little bit about your experience with the Minnesota
nurs Association strike in twenty twenty two and then watching
the Nurses Forward people, because I think that kind of
ties in well.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Sorry, before we do that. We have to do an
ad break before or I'm also gonna get yelled at
my bosses at break a ads. All right, well we're back,
(12:08):
We're back from ads hell.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Yeah, let's do this.
Speaker 5 (12:11):
I thought my two cents would be a good fit
after what Rusida just said. Everybody has their own unique
experience and how they became interested. I'm a member of
Minnesota Nurses Association and we went to unstrike two years
ago to request and demand better contract with the Fairview
(12:35):
system here in the Twin Cities area. Eventually there was
a contract that it was ratified. After that there was
an election, and even though I'm a member, i am
active member. I serve on some committees with M and
A and recently I joined the Government Affairs Committee, you know,
(12:58):
having been really engage used in the politics of the
union until a new slate another troublemakers, if you will,
another group of troublemakers, you know, who call themselves Nurse
Nurses Forward. They ran against the current board and actually
they won. They won in a landslide last November, and
(13:20):
that was a huge change and an inspiration for me. Really,
that rank and file nurses and they're all, you know,
nurses working the on the floors, and I know some
of them personally, and I trusted these guys knew what
they're talking about, and they they were running on a
platform that made sense where all the rank and file
(13:42):
nurses have a say and they are well informed because
there's a lot of stuff that goes behind doors that
nurses are not brevy to, and that, you know, makes
things sound a little shady sometimes where you know, unions
are say, endorsing a politician and this politician kind of
(14:03):
drops the ball or does something that's not in the
interest of the union, and yet they're still supporting them.
We need to know why and how that came to be.
So that kind of gave me an inspiration and the
moment John came and recruited me, if you will, and
I thought, sure, you know, if we can do affect
(14:26):
some change in the local level, I think it's time
to change at the national level. So we're hoping for
the best here and we're trying to do our best
to get a good result.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, And I mean
that was something I remember from last time, is this
issue of transparency, in this issue of the union acting.
I don't know if autonomously is the right word, but
the union acting just sort of doing stuff that members
were just like finding out about afterwards. Yeah, and you know,
(15:01):
I don't know, I think like that's on a kind
of basic I mean, there's there's obviously a political level
to it, but on just the sort of basic what
is a union level? You would think that your union
wouldn't be doing that, and yet Comma, I was just.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Going to comment on that.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
I think one of the biggest parallels that I've been
able to see is, you know, we spend a lot
of time of our as nurses fighting against the hospital industry.
Right it's the big Boss, as we call it. You know,
we march on the Boss, or you know, we have
you know, rallies around it, or we do petitions, and
you know, we're constantly fighting this big entity of a
hospital industry, which oftentimes keeps us in the dark about
(15:42):
policies or about changes that they're making, or you know,
various things. And I can't help but to see the
parallels between our fight with the hospital industry and then
comes our fight with our own union. So, you know,
how can we within ourion change that so that we're
not seeing both entities as the same. I don't want
(16:06):
to be in a union that I also am feeling
is the same entity that we are fighting a bedside.
So that transparency for us is extremely important, That autonomy,
that accountability is extremely important, because why should we be
having two parallel fights with our own union and with
(16:26):
the hospital industry.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
I was going to say, like that the that's what
inspired us the first time around was that it felt
like we were struggling both against Like you've got to
fight against management. Why do I have to also at
the same time turn around and fight like with union
staff about basic stuff. That's like all they have to
do is like nurses are really smart. I know it's hard,
(16:51):
Like it's a shocking idea that nurses might know a
thing or two and the idea that we that they
have to come up and focus group amongst themselves to
tell us what our values are. Right, Like, I think
I can walk around my unit and I can tell
I can find out what nurse's values are real fast.
I mean, we may not all agree on every single thing, right,
(17:13):
there's a there's a pretty wide amount of ideological like
alignment in our union. We're not all We're not all
in and locked up about everything except for how important
it is that nurses are actually leading and driving how
the union works, and so we have you know, the
(17:33):
main core thing, and I think this is what's so
important about union organizing in particular, is that you can
set aside disagreements on one thing and you focus on
the thing that's the that's your your shared material interest
regardless because we all do the same kind of work.
It's really important.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Yeah, and that's and that, yeah, but that also makes
it doubly important that the institution that you're using to
do this is actually doing the things you wanted to
do when not fighting you at every step. One of
the things that you mentioned we were talking about this
was how this kind of stuff in the union was
impacting Pausinian solidarity organizing. I was wondering if you could
(18:13):
talk a bit about that, Oh I.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
Can, I can take that out then and Jahad can
actually add into it. But so I was part of
Social Justice Committee. I was actually the chair for the
entire California for n and U. And one of the
biggest things is, you know, of course we're speaking out
for our communities, we're speaking out for oppression against oppression
(18:41):
and specifically for marginalized communities. So I thought it would
be pretty easy for us to align ourselves with our
resolutions that we had just passed. And actually October the
eighth of twenty twenty three and I.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Ran across a lot of barriers.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
I wanted our union, my union, to put out a
statement about a ceasefire and to put out a statement
about how bombing hospitals and killing our healthcare worker colleagues
was wrong. And I was constantly, you know, barriers were
put up. I was told I could not throw, I
(19:20):
could not do a vigil, I could not initiate, that
I could not speak on behalf of me being a nurse,
and so that infuriated me. I felt really really betrayed
by my union that we had just signed all these
resolutions specifically talking about aggression, talking about aparthei, and yet
(19:42):
I was being told that I could not speak up
and then I was ghosted on a few times I
would start sending emails. I was like, hey, what's you
know going on? How come I can't do this? And
there would be no answer. Or I would say, hey,
I want to do a vigil. Nope, you can't do
a vigil. Nope, there's no signs that you can use. Nope, nope, no,
And so I just kept getting all these no answers,
and a few of us got together, we got.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
A petition going, and we sent it in.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
We're like, hey, look, these are all the reasons why
we as nurses feel that we should be speaking out
against what's happening right now.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
And this is even in the early times, even.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
You know, really in you know, the end of October,
beginning of the next month, and you know, it took
them a long time to get it out, and it
was a very middle of the road statement.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
At that time, I had.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
Asked the union to sign on and endorse one of
the largest and one of the first union rallies in
support of Palestine that had been called by the Palestinian
trade unions specifically for us to rally around, and they refused,
And on that morning I submitted publicly my resignation to
(20:47):
the Racial Social Justice Committee. I felt that it was
an absolute dishonor for me to sit in that position
and to be the face of a committee that says
it stands for social justice and yet was putting up
barriers for us to speak out as nurses, and that
really was a huge deal for me. It was a
(21:08):
huge deal for many other people that saw that as
a gesture of solidarity.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
But it was more.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
It was about my ethics and it was about my
moral standing. I could not legitimately sit in that position
while my union was stifling and censoring my voice.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
It's a brief thing that you'd take a stand like that,
and it's also it's the right thing to do, and
you should never have had to do this in the
first place, like Jesus Christ. Oh, I don't know, I mean,
I don't know. It's just deeply and incredibly frustrating, like
just curing that and watching them just like ignore the
(22:02):
things that they ignore, the resolution that they just passed,
and I don't know, that's absolutely terrible of the.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Lots hipocrisy much.
Speaker 6 (22:13):
Yeah, yeah, Well, if I may add to what Mercita
just said, First of all, I have to say, Rosita
is the bravest person I know, and what her positions
and her ethics are of the highest caliber.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
So I'm honored to be running with her during this time.
You know, from example here in Minnesota, you know, nurses.
As part of the Government Affairs Committee, I was involved in.
I came kind of toward the end, so I can't
take credit for it, but it was the keeping nurses
at the bedside bill. It was, it was adopted, was
(22:52):
passed the House. Now in Minnesota we have all three
branches basically in the hands of Democrats, asked the House
and the Senate, and yet the governor vetoed it. Why
because there was pressure from corporate you know, the big
wigs told him, if you do it, we're gonna pull
(23:13):
some investment or something, or I don't know, maybe we
won't have you on the board after you retire, something
like that. So I don't know, but that kind of
triggered us. It was really a stab in the back,
if you will. But it's still you know, the union
itself could do better. It can It can be more
sensitive to its members' needs and their demands. For example,
(23:37):
we were trying to get a resolution or a statement
it was back in October about a ceasefire here through
the union, even though it's I would say, inconsequential for
them to say, but they even refused to hear the
suggestion or the movement to issue a statement. That was
the old board to the end of the reign of
(24:02):
the old board, there was more effort. I think it
was mid December and a week really watered down resolution
was adopted, calling few seas fire the new board team,
and the first or second meeting in January. In February
there was a much more robust resolution that was adapted
(24:25):
at a much higher nies against versus yes versus names
in that there was no news. Actually there were some abstentions,
like three out of fourteen, so you know there.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Is a movement.
Speaker 5 (24:43):
There's a grassroots rank and file nurses who are pushing
towards change. The same thing. I'm also not only a nurse,
but also a nursing faculty at Minnesota State University in Makaio,
and I belonged to another union, the faculty union, And
the very beginning there was just kind of deafening silence.
(25:05):
Nobody wants to hear anything. It reminded me of the
period after nine to eleven. If you speak anything against
the government or anything real critique what the government did
or didn't do, you are on the other side. You know,
remember that if you're not with us, you're against us.
Argument and it's the same thing. It's the same thing here.
(25:27):
I know, people who lost their jobs because they were
speaking out for Palestine or against the atrocities that these
radis were committing. And that's from within unions and healthcare organizations.
People who lost their livelihoods because of it, and they
are labeled as anti Semitic or anything like that. So
they were trying to kind of silence people, scare them
(25:48):
with all these labels and you know, illegitimate ways of
really conducting a civil discourse or having someone hear a
different point view. So, you know, from that sprouted this
huge movement among nurses and healthcare professionals that we want
(26:09):
this to go wider, even at the national level. During
the primaries, where a lot of organizing what's happening for
you know, uncommitted votes for the primaries for Joe Biden,
and that made them feel you know, the pressure.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
And as you can see.
Speaker 5 (26:28):
The US vetoed a ceasefire resolution I think three times
before and yet this week they allowed one to pass
because there is a lot of political pressure because they
are doing their own calculation, I understand, but it's still
there is a grassroot movement that affects this change.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
I just want to tie in like everything that we're
saying around organizing because I think so much a lot
of people come to unions with the idea that this
is how they you know, you get a chance to
build a platform to make a case for the right policies, right,
and we you know, we pushed things through legislation and
(27:08):
lobbying and then for some reason, like a governor decides
that they're not going to pass it. You know, our union,
like my part of the union, Californian Association National Nurses
Organizing Committee, this is Rosita's Part two, was at one
point powerful, like, was so organized and so powerful that
they forced the state of California, which is one of
(27:30):
the largest economies in the world, to pass a ratio
bill that was you know that the Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor,
after what was passed that you know, those little nurses,
I can't believe we were letting them do this. You know,
our union at one point was powerful enough to help
end Arnold Schwarzenegger's political career. And so when we talk
(27:51):
about getting things passed, it requires a lot of power,
and a lot of people don't understand that power means
getting people to other to commit to take collective action.
That might mean occupying a capital, that might mean doing
things that are a little bit outside the law right,
but we understand that if we don't have the power,
(28:13):
then none of these you know, i idealistic things that
we want to have see change in the world or
happen in the world can happen. And we've seen when
we're talking about this idea, if you're either with us,
against us, or against us, people who are advocating for
building that power, and that power comes through defending our contracts,
(28:33):
defending our coworkers, through grief insights, making sure that we
are taking aggressive like action when it comes to strikes,
and getting a strong contract language in the first place,
people who are advocating for that are being labeled like
the enemy. Inside a union. It's very difficult when you
put so much of your time and energy into union work,
(28:56):
which anyone who's a committed unionist can tell you of
all the countless amounts of their free time that they
spend away from their family, away from their friends, away
from their kids, doing the work of making sure that
you know the union is strong. To be kind of
accused of being not on the team right, or not
being for everyone else, not being a team player, when
(29:17):
you're always committed, you know, to building the power of
the team. I mean, this is why we're running is
because those of us who are making the case that
we need to be an organized union. We need a
union full of people who know how to how to fight,
how to push back, how to stand up for those
of us who might be weaker than others, to be
(29:40):
labeled troublemakers or pains in the ads, or they even
call us anti union or union busting, which is really
just it hurts, right, It's very stressful, but it's worth
it to us because our principles and our commitment to
our coworkers and building a workplace that's you know, a
just place, a place that takes care of all the
(30:01):
people in our communities, people who would otherwise be denied
the care that they deserve. We know that we can
only do that by being organized, building relationships, and taking
action together as a union to fight. And we know
what that looks like. We have members of Shift Change
who have been there when they've been occupying capital buildings,
(30:23):
running politicians out of office. I want our union to
be I tell everybody this, I want our union to
be strong and powerful and I want it to be
frightening to people who stand in the way of nurses
and our patients. And this is all connected. You know
what we see, you know, our government willing to let
happen to people halfway across the world. I always tell people,
(30:44):
my coworkers, you know what we let our bosses get
away with the least of us, it'll do to any
of us if they had the chance. And so all
of us come from the point of view that we
have to build our power. That power has to be
you know, honed through our fights at our work, making
sure that our working conditions are good, because we know
(31:07):
when nurses have good working conditions, patients get the care
they need. And when we're powerful and strong at the bedside,
we can be powerful and strong out in the community
where we need to take our fights, when we want
to make the world a better place for everybody. You know,
I don't think there's any coincidence that you know, Razita is,
you know, an indigenous woman. Her family's from refugees from
(31:29):
American foreign policy broad She had learned to be a
nurse in Gaza. Sanya's family is from the Dominican Republic.
Her family, like fled like a US back dictator there Trujillo,
and I don't think that there's any to me. There's no,
it's not a coincidence. So we're all here doing this
(31:51):
work of building the kind of powerful union that we
know that all of our coworkers deserve, that our communities deserve,
the whole world deserves.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Four troublemakers.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
Oh yeah, someone someone smarter than me once this one.
Speaker 5 (32:10):
Didn't someone say once that they've been called MAGA supporters
or something.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
They were telling everybody that we were, uh, you know, weird,
right wing, trumpy people. And I think that anyone who
knows any of us would know that that is absolutely
furthest in the truth. But it is what it is,
you know. They people will say whatever they have to
say to scare people away from us, because that's easier
(32:41):
than doing the right thing, which is to make sure
that our union is a bottom up uh movement led
by nurses. They're very afraid of us doing getting our
stuff together because there's you know, there's always it's easier
to get along with the boss and it is to
get along with your coworkers some time. I think anyone
will tell you that as long as that we all know,
(33:03):
people who are friends with the boss, because that's an
easy thing to be. It's hard to stick up for
people who otherwise can't stick up for themselves.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Just in the in the you know, for our elections.
Speaker 4 (33:15):
So the fact that we're even running our union doesn't
want everyone to know about elections, and the way that
it's kind of we just give you the list that
we're going to endorse, just vote for them, and no
questions asked.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
That that's just how it should be. So the fact that, you.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
Know, there's not a lot of information about the elections
that go on in the n and you what does
it mean, what does it mean to be in you know,
in a Council of Presidents?
Speaker 2 (33:40):
What does it even mean to be a delegate?
Speaker 4 (33:42):
We are often spoon fed the delegate position, just be
a delegate and then not told exactly what that means.
What does that mean for us? What does that mean
in our resolutions? What does that mean when we go
to convention? Those things should not be a mystery to us.
We shouldn't have to poke and pro to get that
information about elections. And so that's also one of the
(34:03):
things that we're trying to highlight as well. We should
be very informed. And I think that's also another parallel
between our US government who chooses, you know, they kind
of sometimes expect us not to go to the polls
because it works in their favor, to not be informed
voters because it works in their favor. So we can
(34:24):
kind of see that same parallel, and that's one of
the things that you know, I think John has made
a great way of highlighting that and has really essentially,
you know, paved the way for making that information known
as well as Zenya Zenya is can I say this,
she's a full badass because she her and John, like
I have to say, like, they are so on it
(34:46):
of getting that information out and it's extremely important because
we want our nurses to be informed. We want all
of us to be informed.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
So on that note, when is the election and if
you're in the Union, how do you vote?
Speaker 3 (35:00):
Ballots go out April fifth, we have to have you
have to have your ballot in Oakland in the office
by May. We're telling people May seventeenth, because they're going
to be counted the morning of May eighteenth. You will
get if you are a member, a due's paying member
in good standing, you will get a ballot in the mail.
(35:23):
But we are also telling people because we are finding
that there's kind of like two lists of people, you know,
in particularly our VA nurses. VA nurses are telling us
that they have not been getting bad they didn't get
ballots last election, and so we're encouraging everyone to send
emails to the election officers to get a ballot if
(35:45):
you haven't gotten one, to make sure that those lists.
There's a list of people paying dues and they faithfully
take your dues out of out of your check. And
then there's a list of people who receive ballots. You know,
definitely very now normal and cool, the sort of thing
that we expect from any sort of union, that is,
you know, buying for the nurses. And so we have
(36:08):
an election email. Can I does anyone have that offs
up their heads? I will pull it up real quick
as we were talking.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
That's fine, We'll just we'll just show notes. Yes, yeah,
it will be a description.
Speaker 5 (36:21):
And now in the meantime, you know, people can go
to our website. We have a website where you can
read about our story, our philosophy, our platform, you know,
all the things that people should know and how to
request the ballot and how to email the union and everything.
The address is shift change and and you when we're
(36:43):
dot org.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Awesome. Yeah, thank you, Thank you three so much for
coming on the show and hope, hope you beat them.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
I'm looking forward to us having a vigor call where
we can.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Yeah, I'm excited.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Thank you, thank you for having us think you appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
Yeah, and the cpdiculd happened here you too, also listen,
dear listener, can go make trouble for your bosses, your
political leaders and people in your union if they're not
doing what you want them to do?
Speaker 7 (37:18):
Heh Yeah, absolutely, it could happen here as a production
of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
For more podcasts from.
Speaker 8 (37:29):
Cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zonemedia dot 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 cool zonemedia
dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
Also media, Welcome to Jack it Apping here, a podcast
about things falling apart and putting it back together again.
We're going fasten this intro because we have a lot
of stuff to get to and the thing that we
have a lot of stuff to get to about is
the election for candidates for the Council of Presidents for
National Nurses United. And in order to talk about that,
(00:24):
I guess the reason we're talking about that, I you know, okay,
I I should should have ran this one through in
my head before we started this. But yeah, I'm here
today with John, Jahead and Rosa to talk about Yeah,
there's slate movement thing I don't know called Shift Change
and why they're running, how they met, et cetera, et cetera,
(00:47):
and yeah, some other stuff about the union. So all
three of you, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Thank you, thank you, thank you for having us.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Yeah. So, I guess the place we should start for
this for so, we talked to Shift Change last year,
but I think for people who don't remember that or
you know, I mean, it's been god, I don't know,
I don't know how long I've lost track of time.
Can you explain a bit about what you're running for,
and I mean specifically what it is, sort of how
(01:18):
it works.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
I'll just start real quick, like in cases it's not clear.
We're all members of a large national nurses union called
National Nurses United, and so we're from individual parts of
that union, which is kind of an umbrella over California
Nurses Association and National Nurses Organizing Committee, which I'm a
part of, Brazil as a part of Minnesota Nurses Association,
(01:42):
which jahead, is a part of NAISNA, which is New
York State nurs Association, which Sanya Greena is a part of.
And then we also have Michigan Nurses Association and the
DC Nurses Association and our group Shift Change is like
a caucus, which is like whenever workers instead of a
union get together because they want to change how the
union works. And we're running what's something called a slate
(02:05):
where we have to have groups of people running together
for specific union offices, and so we have a lot
of people running, not just US three or US four
for the council presidents, but we also have candidates running
for the board of vice presidents and also delegates for
our convention, and hopefully that's a good basis for this
(02:25):
starting off the conversation.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yeah, so, I guess the first question I wanted to ask,
because I think this is an interesting story, is how
how did you three meet? Because this is a mostly
a very different group of people from last time.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
How did we meet? Oh? My, that is a good story.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
So if you're not aware, or if you've been living
under a rock, you know, there's a lot of violence
that's happening in the world, and specifically there's violence that's
happening in Palestine. And John, I and Jahad all met
as nurses who were looking to really be involved in
(03:09):
Palestine solidarity.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Work, and so we were met on a space.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
We connected there and you know, our politics pretty much
aligned that we believe that oppressed people should be liberated,
and that was one of the largest ways that we
met each other and we became I mean, I.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Feel like Jahad and John are part of my family. Definitely.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
We have really connected on the solidarity front for that,
but also as nurses organizing and really seeing where the
false law fault lines are within our own union.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
We haven't talked about specifically the nurses organizing has been
going on for Palestine solidarity stuff on the show before
it's really interesting.
Speaker 5 (03:55):
Even though we haven't met in person yet, we're looking
forward to meeting in April at the Labor Notes conference.
But despite the fact that we haven't met in person,
there is a lot of chemistry among the group, and
we have a lot of similar visions, and especially when
it came to organizing for Palestine. So I joined Resita
(04:19):
and John and others and Nurses for Palestine chat group
and that group is active in highlighting the suffering of
the Palestinian people and the politics behind it and how
nurses can be in the front lines not only to
take care of patients, but also for other healthcare workers
around the world. And that's a huge part of this
(04:43):
because this genocide that's going on has claimed the lives
of so many innocent civilians as well as physicians and
nurses and other healthcare workers, medics, etc. From that big
group or almost you can call it national, there are
smaller chapters now in different cities. There's Healthcare Workers for
(05:07):
Palestine twin cities where I am from, and Chicago and
San Francisco, and there's in Seattle and Boston. There's a
lot of movement among healthcare workers where they focus their
attention that you know, hospitals, health care facilities, healthcare professionals
are not a target during a military conflict, and all
(05:30):
the war crimes that are being committed need to be
answered for. So from that we kind of sprouted a
smaller group, and with the election coming up for the
National Nurses United, we thought we could take that more
of a like a grassroots movement to make a bigger change,
because we believe, you know, all these smaller changes in
(05:53):
the base should lead to a bigger change at the top,
and unions are the perfect example where we can affect change.
And you have the politicians and all the people up
in the highest echelon of powers if you will listen
and do what actually the base needs, and you know,
(06:17):
there's no better way of doing it but having your
own union representing what the nurses in the union want,
and their policies and statements should reflect what the nurses need.
And that's what we're here and that's why we call
ourselves Shift Change.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
One thing I wanted to add on to that is
that like when we first all came together, there was
a call from Palsenian trade unions to push our own
trade unions here in the US, which have historically not
really taken strong positions on things like international conflicts or
you know, what's going on in Palestine in particular. And
(06:59):
our union just adopted BDS language within the last year
in the California nurs Association National Nurses Organizing Committee, and
that took an extraordinary amount of pressure from rank and
file nurses to get the leadership to agree that this
was an important stance. We noticed that unions had just
gone through uh, you know, democratic reform processes who have
(07:21):
been taken over by rank and file workers. The UAW
with Sean Fain had adopted much more like much quickly,
much more quickly resolutions in favor of peace and ceasefire,
and you know, as workers were like against war of
all kinds. And but in particular, this is like a
(07:43):
particularly egregious situation where nurses have borne the brunts of
like all the healthcare workers who are being targeted specifically
and palisfied in Gaza. The majority of those of those
healthcare workers are nurses. Believe there's a direct connection between
you know, our work here and the support of those
(08:04):
nurses over there. And I guess then going from that
to leading towards how our building a democratic rank and
file union. Not only will it enact these be a
way for us to enact the kind of positive policy
changes we want, but it'll build a stronger union for
everybody so that we can fight the bosses at the
(08:27):
bedside making sure that our patients are taking care of
our communities. So I'll let it.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Go, you know, so that that's a bit of a
segue into the next thing I wanted to ask about,
which was, Okay, So you've talked about sort of you've
talked about how you all met through like Palcity, saldi
are you're organizing, how that's one of the important things
for why y'all are doing this. But I want to say, yeah,
so if you can go into more detail about the
(08:54):
specific things that brought you to running for.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
This, why don't you give a little bit of an
account of your story of how you first heard about
shift changes like a thing, because I think that's kind
of that I think that would be fun.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
So I first heard of shift changed last year, and
you know, I was very apprehensive.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
I was like, Oh Wow, who's this new group that's
coming in?
Speaker 4 (09:19):
And you know, I kept I was hearing from my
very own union that you know, there was a group
out there that was challenging and that maybe had gotten
some things.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Wrong, and you know, they they just you know, needed
to kind of be put aside. And so I did
join one of the calls.
Speaker 4 (09:37):
There was an outreach call to kind of figure out
whose shift change.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Is, and I thought it was pretty interesting.
Speaker 4 (09:42):
I thought, you know, here are some very motivated union
members who see that there's there's something that needs to
change within our union, which is part of what we
do as organizers. We see that there may be something
that needs to change even within our own union, and
we rank and file, or we as union members should
be able to have that voice to change it. And
(10:04):
what I was seeing was that their voice was being
really suppressed. Instead of saying, hey, how can we move
towards what you're asking and really come to a place
where we can understand where you're coming from, instead it
was no, we're not going to listen to their voices.
We're not gonna, you know, even engage with this group.
They're this rogue group out there that's like, you know,
(10:26):
causing all this ruckus, which makes me, you know, I'm
somebody who loves and gravitates towards ruckus.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
That's just my personality. So it just made me more curious.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
And then, you know, when we started organizing for you know,
the Palestine Solidarity, John came in and I was like,
oh wait, I think I know this guy, like, you know,
he's one of those shift change guys.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
And it just made me more curious.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
And you know, we've had great conversations and I really
really understand, you know, the motivation and because of some
things that have happened to me within our union that
has made me really recognize there are ways that we
can make positive changes for our union, and as organizers,
as nurses, we have to strive for those and we
(11:16):
have to have the ability to have our voices heard
and to motivate each other to make those changes. Because
if we are the union, then we should be able
to change our union towards what we want to see
out of our union. And that's probably the most important thing.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
I was going to say, Jaheed, do you want to
talk a little bit about your experience with the Minnesota
nurs Association strike in twenty twenty two and then watching
the Nurses Forward people, because I think that kind of
ties in well.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Sorry, before we do that. We have to do an
ad break before or I'm also gonna get yelled at
my bosses at break a ads. All right, well we're back,
(12:08):
We're back from ads hell.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Yeah, let's do this.
Speaker 5 (12:11):
I thought my two cents would be a good fit
after what Rusida just said. Everybody has their own unique
experience and how they became interested. I'm a member of
Minnesota Nurses Association and we went to unstrike two years
ago to request and demand better contract with the Fairview
(12:35):
system here in the Twin Cities area. Eventually there was
a contract that it was ratified. After that there was
an election, and even though I'm a member, i am
active member. I serve on some committees with M and
A and recently I joined the Government Affairs Committee, you know,
(12:58):
having been really engage used in the politics of the
union until a new slate another troublemakers, if you will,
another group of troublemakers, you know, who call themselves Nurse
Nurses Forward. They ran against the current board and actually
they won. They won in a landslide last November, and
(13:20):
that was a huge change and an inspiration for me. Really,
that rank and file nurses and they're all, you know,
nurses working the on the floors, and I know some
of them personally, and I trusted these guys knew what
they're talking about, and they they were running on a
platform that made sense where all the rank and file
(13:42):
nurses have a say and they are well informed because
there's a lot of stuff that goes behind doors that
nurses are not brevy to, and that, you know, makes
things sound a little shady sometimes where you know, unions
are say, endorsing a politician and this politician kind of
(14:03):
drops the ball or does something that's not in the
interest of the union, and yet they're still supporting them.
We need to know why and how that came to be.
So that kind of gave me an inspiration and the
moment John came and recruited me, if you will, and
I thought, sure, you know, if we can do affect
(14:26):
some change in the local level, I think it's time
to change at the national level. So we're hoping for
the best here and we're trying to do our best
to get a good result.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, And I mean
that was something I remember from last time, is this
issue of transparency, in this issue of the union acting.
I don't know if autonomously is the right word, but
the union acting just sort of doing stuff that members
were just like finding out about afterwards. Yeah, and you know,
(15:01):
I don't know, I think like that's on a kind
of basic I mean, there's there's obviously a political level
to it, but on just the sort of basic what
is a union level? You would think that your union
wouldn't be doing that, and yet Comma, I was just.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Going to comment on that.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
I think one of the biggest parallels that I've been
able to see is, you know, we spend a lot
of time of our as nurses fighting against the hospital industry.
Right it's the big Boss, as we call it. You know,
we march on the Boss, or you know, we have
you know, rallies around it, or we do petitions, and
you know, we're constantly fighting this big entity of a
hospital industry, which oftentimes keeps us in the dark about
(15:42):
policies or about changes that they're making, or you know,
various things. And I can't help but to see the
parallels between our fight with the hospital industry and then
comes our fight with our own union. So, you know,
how can we within ourion change that so that we're
not seeing both entities as the same. I don't want
(16:06):
to be in a union that I also am feeling
is the same entity that we are fighting a bedside.
So that transparency for us is extremely important, That autonomy,
that accountability is extremely important, because why should we be
having two parallel fights with our own union and with
(16:26):
the hospital industry.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
I was going to say, like that the that's what
inspired us the first time around was that it felt
like we were struggling both against Like you've got to
fight against management. Why do I have to also at
the same time turn around and fight like with union
staff about basic stuff. That's like all they have to
do is like nurses are really smart. I know it's hard,
(16:51):
Like it's a shocking idea that nurses might know a
thing or two and the idea that we that they
have to come up and focus group amongst themselves to
tell us what our values are. Right, Like, I think
I can walk around my unit and I can tell
I can find out what nurse's values are real fast.
I mean, we may not all agree on every single thing, right,
(17:13):
there's a there's a pretty wide amount of ideological like
alignment in our union. We're not all We're not all
in and locked up about everything except for how important
it is that nurses are actually leading and driving how
the union works, and so we have you know, the
(17:33):
main core thing, and I think this is what's so
important about union organizing in particular, is that you can
set aside disagreements on one thing and you focus on
the thing that's the that's your your shared material interest
regardless because we all do the same kind of work.
It's really important.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Yeah, and that's and that, yeah, but that also makes
it doubly important that the institution that you're using to
do this is actually doing the things you wanted to
do when not fighting you at every step. One of
the things that you mentioned we were talking about this
was how this kind of stuff in the union was
impacting Pausinian solidarity organizing. I was wondering if you could
(18:13):
talk a bit about that, Oh I.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
Can, I can take that out then and Jahad can
actually add into it. But so I was part of
Social Justice Committee. I was actually the chair for the
entire California for n and U. And one of the
biggest things is, you know, of course we're speaking out
for our communities, we're speaking out for oppression against oppression
(18:41):
and specifically for marginalized communities. So I thought it would
be pretty easy for us to align ourselves with our
resolutions that we had just passed. And actually October the
eighth of twenty twenty three and I.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Ran across a lot of barriers.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
I wanted our union, my union, to put out a
statement about a ceasefire and to put out a statement
about how bombing hospitals and killing our healthcare worker colleagues
was wrong. And I was constantly, you know, barriers were
put up. I was told I could not throw, I
(19:20):
could not do a vigil, I could not initiate, that
I could not speak on behalf of me being a nurse,
and so that infuriated me. I felt really really betrayed
by my union that we had just signed all these
resolutions specifically talking about aggression, talking about aparthei, and yet
(19:42):
I was being told that I could not speak up
and then I was ghosted on a few times I
would start sending emails. I was like, hey, what's you
know going on? How come I can't do this? And
there would be no answer. Or I would say, hey,
I want to do a vigil. Nope, you can't do
a vigil. Nope, there's no signs that you can use. Nope, nope, no,
And so I just kept getting all these no answers,
and a few of us got together, we got.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
A petition going, and we sent it in.
Speaker 4 (20:04):
We're like, hey, look, these are all the reasons why
we as nurses feel that we should be speaking out
against what's happening right now.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
And this is even in the early times, even.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
You know, really in you know, the end of October,
beginning of the next month, and you know, it took
them a long time to get it out, and it
was a very middle of the road statement.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
At that time, I had.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
Asked the union to sign on and endorse one of
the largest and one of the first union rallies in
support of Palestine that had been called by the Palestinian
trade unions specifically for us to rally around, and they refused,
And on that morning I submitted publicly my resignation to
(20:47):
the Racial Social Justice Committee. I felt that it was
an absolute dishonor for me to sit in that position
and to be the face of a committee that says
it stands for social justice and yet was putting up
barriers for us to speak out as nurses, and that
really was a huge deal for me. It was a
(21:08):
huge deal for many other people that saw that as
a gesture of solidarity.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
But it was more.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
It was about my ethics and it was about my
moral standing. I could not legitimately sit in that position
while my union was stifling and censoring my voice.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
It's a brief thing that you'd take a stand like that,
and it's also it's the right thing to do, and
you should never have had to do this in the
first place, like Jesus Christ. Oh, I don't know, I mean,
I don't know. It's just deeply and incredibly frustrating, like
just curing that and watching them just like ignore the
(22:02):
things that they ignore, the resolution that they just passed,
and I don't know, that's absolutely terrible of the.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Lots hipocrisy much.
Speaker 6 (22:13):
Yeah, yeah, Well, if I may add to what Mercita
just said, First of all, I have to say, Rosita
is the bravest person I know, and what her positions
and her ethics are of the highest caliber.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
So I'm honored to be running with her during this time.
You know, from example here in Minnesota, you know, nurses.
As part of the Government Affairs Committee, I was involved in.
I came kind of toward the end, so I can't
take credit for it, but it was the keeping nurses
at the bedside bill. It was, it was adopted, was
(22:52):
passed the House. Now in Minnesota we have all three
branches basically in the hands of Democrats, asked the House
and the Senate, and yet the governor vetoed it. Why
because there was pressure from corporate you know, the big
wigs told him, if you do it, we're gonna pull
(23:13):
some investment or something, or I don't know, maybe we
won't have you on the board after you retire, something
like that. So I don't know, but that kind of
triggered us. It was really a stab in the back,
if you will. But it's still you know, the union
itself could do better. It can It can be more
sensitive to its members' needs and their demands. For example,
(23:37):
we were trying to get a resolution or a statement
it was back in October about a ceasefire here through
the union, even though it's I would say, inconsequential for
them to say, but they even refused to hear the
suggestion or the movement to issue a statement. That was
the old board to the end of the reign of
(24:02):
the old board, there was more effort. I think it
was mid December and a week really watered down resolution
was adopted, calling few seas fire the new board team,
and the first or second meeting in January. In February
there was a much more robust resolution that was adapted
(24:25):
at a much higher nies against versus yes versus names
in that there was no news. Actually there were some abstentions,
like three out of fourteen, so you know there.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Is a movement.
Speaker 5 (24:43):
There's a grassroots rank and file nurses who are pushing
towards change. The same thing. I'm also not only a nurse,
but also a nursing faculty at Minnesota State University in Makaio,
and I belonged to another union, the faculty union, And
the very beginning there was just kind of deafening silence.
(25:05):
Nobody wants to hear anything. It reminded me of the
period after nine to eleven. If you speak anything against
the government or anything real critique what the government did
or didn't do, you are on the other side. You know,
remember that if you're not with us, you're against us.
Argument and it's the same thing. It's the same thing here.
(25:27):
I know, people who lost their jobs because they were
speaking out for Palestine or against the atrocities that these
radis were committing. And that's from within unions and healthcare organizations.
People who lost their livelihoods because of it, and they
are labeled as anti Semitic or anything like that. So
they were trying to kind of silence people, scare them
(25:48):
with all these labels and you know, illegitimate ways of
really conducting a civil discourse or having someone hear a
different point view. So, you know, from that sprouted this
huge movement among nurses and healthcare professionals that we want
(26:09):
this to go wider, even at the national level. During
the primaries, where a lot of organizing what's happening for
you know, uncommitted votes for the primaries for Joe Biden,
and that made them feel you know, the pressure.
Speaker 3 (26:27):
And as you can see.
Speaker 5 (26:28):
The US vetoed a ceasefire resolution I think three times
before and yet this week they allowed one to pass
because there is a lot of political pressure because they
are doing their own calculation, I understand, but it's still
there is a grassroot movement that affects this change.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
I just want to tie in like everything that we're
saying around organizing because I think so much a lot
of people come to unions with the idea that this
is how they you know, you get a chance to
build a platform to make a case for the right policies, right,
and we you know, we pushed things through legislation and
(27:08):
lobbying and then for some reason, like a governor decides
that they're not going to pass it. You know, our union,
like my part of the union, Californian Association National Nurses
Organizing Committee, this is Rosita's Part two, was at one
point powerful, like, was so organized and so powerful that
they forced the state of California, which is one of
(27:30):
the largest economies in the world, to pass a ratio
bill that was you know that the Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor,
after what was passed that you know, those little nurses,
I can't believe we were letting them do this. You know,
our union at one point was powerful enough to help
end Arnold Schwarzenegger's political career. And so when we talk
(27:51):
about getting things passed, it requires a lot of power,
and a lot of people don't understand that power means
getting people to other to commit to take collective action.
That might mean occupying a capital, that might mean doing
things that are a little bit outside the law right,
but we understand that if we don't have the power,
(28:13):
then none of these you know, i idealistic things that
we want to have see change in the world or
happen in the world can happen. And we've seen when
we're talking about this idea, if you're either with us,
against us, or against us, people who are advocating for
building that power, and that power comes through defending our contracts,
(28:33):
defending our coworkers, through grief insights, making sure that we
are taking aggressive like action when it comes to strikes,
and getting a strong contract language in the first place,
people who are advocating for that are being labeled like
the enemy. Inside a union. It's very difficult when you
put so much of your time and energy into union work,
(28:56):
which anyone who's a committed unionist can tell you of
all the countless amounts of their free time that they
spend away from their family, away from their friends, away
from their kids, doing the work of making sure that
you know the union is strong. To be kind of
accused of being not on the team right, or not
being for everyone else, not being a team player, when
(29:17):
you're always committed, you know, to building the power of
the team. I mean, this is why we're running is
because those of us who are making the case that
we need to be an organized union. We need a
union full of people who know how to how to fight,
how to push back, how to stand up for those
of us who might be weaker than others, to be
(29:40):
labeled troublemakers or pains in the ads, or they even
call us anti union or union busting, which is really
just it hurts, right, It's very stressful, but it's worth
it to us because our principles and our commitment to
our coworkers and building a workplace that's you know, a
just place, a place that takes care of all the
(30:01):
people in our communities, people who would otherwise be denied
the care that they deserve. We know that we can
only do that by being organized, building relationships, and taking
action together as a union to fight. And we know
what that looks like. We have members of Shift Change
who have been there when they've been occupying capital buildings,
(30:23):
running politicians out of office. I want our union to
be I tell everybody this, I want our union to
be strong and powerful and I want it to be
frightening to people who stand in the way of nurses
and our patients. And this is all connected. You know
what we see, you know, our government willing to let
happen to people halfway across the world. I always tell people,
(30:44):
my coworkers, you know what we let our bosses get
away with the least of us, it'll do to any
of us if they had the chance. And so all
of us come from the point of view that we
have to build our power. That power has to be
you know, honed through our fights at our work, making
sure that our working conditions are good, because we know
(31:07):
when nurses have good working conditions, patients get the care
they need. And when we're powerful and strong at the bedside,
we can be powerful and strong out in the community
where we need to take our fights, when we want
to make the world a better place for everybody. You know,
I don't think there's any coincidence that you know, Razita is,
you know, an indigenous woman. Her family's from refugees from
(31:29):
American foreign policy broad She had learned to be a
nurse in Gaza. Sanya's family is from the Dominican Republic.
Her family, like fled like a US back dictator there Trujillo,
and I don't think that there's any to me. There's no,
it's not a coincidence. So we're all here doing this
(31:51):
work of building the kind of powerful union that we
know that all of our coworkers deserve, that our communities deserve,
the whole world deserves.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Four troublemakers.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
Oh yeah, someone someone smarter than me once this one.
Speaker 5 (32:10):
Didn't someone say once that they've been called MAGA supporters
or something.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
They were telling everybody that we were, uh, you know, weird,
right wing, trumpy people. And I think that anyone who
knows any of us would know that that is absolutely
furthest in the truth. But it is what it is,
you know. They people will say whatever they have to
say to scare people away from us, because that's easier
(32:41):
than doing the right thing, which is to make sure
that our union is a bottom up uh movement led
by nurses. They're very afraid of us doing getting our
stuff together because there's you know, there's always it's easier
to get along with the boss and it is to
get along with your coworkers some time. I think anyone
will tell you that as long as that we all know,
(33:03):
people who are friends with the boss, because that's an
easy thing to be. It's hard to stick up for
people who otherwise can't stick up for themselves.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Just in the in the you know, for our elections.
Speaker 4 (33:15):
So the fact that we're even running our union doesn't
want everyone to know about elections, and the way that
it's kind of we just give you the list that
we're going to endorse, just vote for them, and no
questions asked.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
That that's just how it should be. So the fact that, you.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
Know, there's not a lot of information about the elections
that go on in the n and you what does
it mean, what does it mean to be in you know,
in a Council of Presidents?
Speaker 2 (33:40):
What does it even mean to be a delegate?
Speaker 4 (33:42):
We are often spoon fed the delegate position, just be
a delegate and then not told exactly what that means.
What does that mean for us? What does that mean
in our resolutions? What does that mean when we go
to convention? Those things should not be a mystery to us.
We shouldn't have to poke and pro to get that
information about elections. And so that's also one of the
(34:03):
things that we're trying to highlight as well. We should
be very informed. And I think that's also another parallel
between our US government who chooses, you know, they kind
of sometimes expect us not to go to the polls
because it works in their favor, to not be informed
voters because it works in their favor. So we can
(34:24):
kind of see that same parallel, and that's one of
the things that you know, I think John has made
a great way of highlighting that and has really essentially,
you know, paved the way for making that information known
as well as Zenya Zenya is can I say this,
she's a full badass because she her and John, like
I have to say, like, they are so on it
(34:46):
of getting that information out and it's extremely important because
we want our nurses to be informed. We want all
of us to be informed.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
So on that note, when is the election and if
you're in the Union, how do you vote?
Speaker 3 (35:00):
Ballots go out April fifth, we have to have you
have to have your ballot in Oakland in the office
by May. We're telling people May seventeenth, because they're going
to be counted the morning of May eighteenth. You will
get if you are a member, a due's paying member
in good standing, you will get a ballot in the mail.
(35:23):
But we are also telling people because we are finding
that there's kind of like two lists of people, you know,
in particularly our VA nurses. VA nurses are telling us
that they have not been getting bad they didn't get
ballots last election, and so we're encouraging everyone to send
emails to the election officers to get a ballot if
(35:45):
you haven't gotten one, to make sure that those lists.
There's a list of people paying dues and they faithfully
take your dues out of out of your check. And
then there's a list of people who receive ballots. You know,
definitely very now normal and cool, the sort of thing
that we expect from any sort of union, that is,
you know, buying for the nurses. And so we have
(36:08):
an election email. Can I does anyone have that offs
up their heads? I will pull it up real quick
as we were talking.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
That's fine, We'll just we'll just show notes. Yes, yeah,
it will be a description.
Speaker 5 (36:21):
And now in the meantime, you know, people can go
to our website. We have a website where you can
read about our story, our philosophy, our platform, you know,
all the things that people should know and how to
request the ballot and how to email the union and everything.
The address is shift change and and you when we're
(36:43):
dot org.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Awesome. Yeah, thank you, Thank you three so much for
coming on the show and hope, hope you beat them.
Speaker 3 (36:53):
I'm looking forward to us having a vigor call where
we can.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Yeah, I'm excited.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
Thank you, thank you for having us think you appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
Yeah, and the cpdiculd happened here you too, also listen,
dear listener, can go make trouble for your bosses, your
political leaders and people in your union if they're not
doing what you want them to do?
Speaker 7 (37:18):
Heh Yeah, absolutely, it could happen here as a production
of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
For more podcasts from.
Speaker 8 (37:29):
Cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zonemedia dot 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 cool zonemedia
dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
It Could Happen Here News
Host
Robert Evans
Show Links
AboutPopular Podcasts
1. The Podium
The Podium: An NBC Olympic and Paralympic podcast. Join us for insider coverage during the intense competition at the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games. In the run-up to the Opening Ceremony, we’ll bring you deep into the stories and events that have you know and those you'll be hard-pressed to forget.
2. In The Village
In The Village will take you into the most exclusive areas of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games to explore the daily life of athletes, complete with all the funny, mundane and unexpected things you learn off the field of play. Join Elizabeth Beisel as she sits down with Olympians each day in Paris.
3. iHeartOlympics: The Latest
Listen to the latest news from the 2024 Olympics.