Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cool media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
It could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis, and yeah, it's happening.
The past few years, I've been writing about how the
religious right has been trying to roll back trans rights,
take away gender affirming health care, and essentially remove trans
people from public life. And the day that I'm writing this,
President Trump just issued an executive order aiming to ban
(00:26):
gender affirming health care for everyone below the age of
nineteen in the United States, with promises to weaponize the
Justice Department and alter the national Health guidelines for gender
affirming care. And unfortunately this is just the start. But
this won't be a wallowing in the Doom and Gloom episode,
(00:47):
nor will I be laying out the fool proof solution
to get us out of this predicament. Instead, we'll be
hearing from two people who are trying to do something
to affect change in the physical world. Last month, Mia
and I talked with Neha and Cassie, who are organizers
and baristas with Starbucks workers Unite It, and they also
(01:11):
co facilitate that union's trans rights action committee called Track
And specifically the topic of this episode is how to
use union organizing as a way to fight for trans
rights and secure access to gender affirming healthcare, which is
unfortunately an increasingly critical issue. We've already had conservative states
(01:32):
like Tennessee pressuring private insurance companies to drop covering gender
affirming care by blocking insurers from contracting with the state's
medicaid program, basically holding it hostage, and now with the
federal government threatening gender affirming care and seemingly more and
more restrictions kind of on the horizon. Working outside the
(01:53):
state and not relying on government programs like Medicare and
Medicaid will only become more necessary, and union organizing is
one way to do that. A union contract, union infrastructure,
and the collective resources of you and your fellow union
workers can help protect trans people in the workplace and
get us the things we need. If you already have
(02:15):
a union at your workplace, you can get more involved
and fight to prioritize trans rights. And if you don't
have a union, you can work to secure access to
gender affirm and care through unionizing your workplace and having
healthcare protections as a core part of your contract. For
more on that topic, I'm going to play the conversation
between my fellow union member Mia and Neha and Cassie
(02:37):
from Starbucks Workers United, and I'll occasionally pop back in
to provide some context. Here's Cassie.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
When you fight for a collective bargaining agreement, a contract
between union workers and their employer, you can fight for
gender affirming care to be included in the healthcare that's provided,
and make sure that that healthcare is affordable and actually
usable by the people working there, and that their wages
are adequate to cover out of pocket expenses, including travel
(03:07):
expenses if you live in a state that's coming under threat.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
But it is not just healthcare that is under threat
right now. Just days into office, Trump already started to
roll back Biden era federal discrimination protections. Last Monday, the
Trump aadmin sent a memo ordering a freeze to all
federal grants, loans, and aid, requiring a sort of audit
(03:31):
to ensure the recipients of those funds use the money
in a way that quote conforms to the administration priorities unquote,
and not to promote quote DEI and woke gender ideology unquote.
On Tuesday, a judge temporarily halted the order, and on Wednesday,
the White House revoked the directive. But this clearly demonstrates
(03:55):
what the new priorities are for the conservative government, and
they will most certainly try this again, probably in a
more targeted discriminatory fashion to limit the general backlash. But
even as the government starts openly allowing discrimination or even
encouraging it, discrimination protections is still something that unions can
(04:16):
write into their contract.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Having non discrimination language in a contract that covers gender
identity is a really critical way to improve not just
for yourself, but then also we talk about these things
like hiring discrimination. If you get that kind of language
in a contract at a union job, that's going to
help everyone who comes after you. Because additionally, as a union,
(04:41):
you have the mechanism of enforcement of aggrievance and an
arbitration procedure. Right, that's sort of, you know, the critical
in addition to obviously all the kind of actions you
can perform. And you know, we can talk about what
things might look like without the NLRA, but for now
we have grievance and arbitration procedures still. And even in
states where there are legal protections against employment discrimination for
(05:03):
trans people, like here in California, the bar to defending
yourself legally is obviously a lot higher, including financially than
defending yourself through a grievance procedure at a union job. Right,
a grievance procedure at a union job is way more
accessible to the average working person than hiring a lawyer
and going through a legal system that is totally stacked
(05:26):
against you and in favor of the wealthy. Having a
union to defend you, you know, with the collective resources
of your union that you're part of, and having your
shop steward or you be a shop steward and filing
those grievances yourself. It's so much more accessible for regular
workers to get enforcement when they are discriminated against. And
(05:48):
that's obviously not only relevant for trans people, but it
is certainly relevant for trans people.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Now, if you don't have union organizing experience, this could
all seem a little intimidating, even if you are already
have a pre existing union at your workplace. Mia has
done a whole bunch of episodes on unions and labor
organizing on this podcast. You could certainly look to you
for more information and a bit of encouragement. In twenty
twenty three, Neha co founded TRACK the Trans Rights Action Committee,
(06:17):
which is a subcommittee of the Starbucks union that was
started to help advocate for trans rights within the union
and share information about the challenges trans workers were experiencing.
We asked Neha about the process of getting this focus
on securing trans healthcare through your union to be something
that the union collectively fights for.
Speaker 4 (06:39):
The way that our union started focusing on trans healthcare
as one of the core issues, like we weren't organizing
around and all started with a conversation with like a
regional staffer here in Oklahoma. I have like a regular
check and call with my staffer, and this was like
two two and a half years ago, and he was
(07:01):
just like asking, you know, what's going on?
Speaker 5 (07:03):
What are you concerned about?
Speaker 4 (07:04):
And I was like, well, I'm having some issues with
like accessing healthcare. And he not heard like how difficult
it was for like trans people to access healthcare and Starbucks.
He wasn't aware of like how expensive it could be.
And as I started talking to him, he was like,
hold on, let me like set up a meeting with
(07:25):
some other people. I think they need to hear this too.
So then we have like a follow up meeting with
more like staff and other organizers. I talked about these
issues again, and one thing led to another thing, and
they ended up encouraging me to form a subcommittee with
their union for trans workers to kind of like build
(07:46):
community for us and connect us, but also hear more
stories from trans workers about the struggles that they were facing,
specifically in accessing healthcare. And so that's kind of how
TRACKS started. And it's been really moving to see how
over the past like two three years, this went from
(08:07):
like an issue that was affecting like a minority of
a minority of workers, right, Like, it's not like every
single work at Starbucks is trying to like have facial
comminization surgery or anything like that.
Speaker 5 (08:19):
Right, This issue that.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
Was affecting like a small step set of us ended
up becoming like one of the biggest issues we are
organizing around. It makes me really emotional when I think
about like how much my union coworkers and like my
comrades like actually like fucking care about trans people. Right
of kind of like how TRACKS started and how we
(08:42):
started to organize around trans healthcare specifically.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
It's been a focus for us for a long time.
Also in part because the initial you know, our public
bargaining proposals that were released early on when we first
formulated our demands included improvements to gender affirming care at Starbucks.
And part of that's because there were trans people involved
in writing those initial demands, right and you know, Nehaw
(09:12):
was involved nationally in the campaign and had the opportunity
and the encouragement to start track. You know, we have
to be part of it, I think is on some level,
you know, the most basic prerequisite for everything that came
after is because trans people have been involved with this
(09:32):
campaign from the beginning. We do have so much support
and solidarity from our coworkers and from our fellow union comrades,
regardless of whether they're SIS or trans, And I think
part of that is because we've really showed up and
done the work. This again goes to that kind of
like false narrative of there's like some kind of contention
(09:52):
between workers rights and trans rights. It's like trans people
have been super motivated to get involved in this campaign
and for the rights and benefits for every worker at Starbucks.
Other workers have seen that, seen the way we've been
involved and dedicated, and that's given them the sympathy and
solidarity to stand by us for an issue that affects us.
(10:15):
Very you know directly and somewhat narrowly compared to a
lot of the other things we're fighting for. So yeah,
on some level, I think it comes down to unions
are a place where trans people can get involved in
political life in a way that's hard to do in
other parts of American political life, and you get to
build that solidarity, and if you're there at the table,
(10:37):
you have a chance to highlight the issues that are
important to us. And if you're fighting for everyone else,
they're going to want to fight for you too.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Track's logo says trans rights are labor rights, a phrase
one of Nahe's co workers came up with to express
the idea that even if your state becomes an unsafe
place for queer and trans people, trans people will still
fight to a sure that their workplace, their store, is
a safe place for any trans person who works there.
(11:06):
As the functioning of the state and the federal government
becomes more and more alienated and distant, or in many cases,
increasingly hostile to the likes of you and me, one
of the few ways we can still exert power over
our lives is through unions. Regardless of whether you live
in Portland, Oregon or Oklahoma City, and specifically as access
(11:29):
to trans healthcare becomes more and more of a growing issue,
this is becoming more of a core issue itself that
you can organize around and can actually build a union around.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Lots of different struggles have been highlighted in our campaign.
You know, we have really made racial justice a major
priority as well. I mean, obviously economic justice is at
the core of any union struggle, but you know, we're
really invested in making sure all workers are in included
(12:00):
in this movement and their specific concerns are represented as
well as our general shared concerns. And as more and
more things get taken away at the level of federal
politics and state politics in many places, people will be
looking for recourse. It's like, how do I get back
the stability, the protections, the dignity, the power that I've lost,
(12:20):
Particularly if you know some of these folks are not
super democratically accountable. People will be looking for how they
can build power and how they can find security when
the state is not providing it and when the state's
actively undermining it. Actually, and unions are one of the
(12:41):
truly critical, irreplaceable answers for protecting yourself, for protecting the
people you work with, for protecting your community and for
taking back some of the things that they're trying to
take away from you, whether that's on the job protections,
whether that's economic equity, whether that is your access to
(13:02):
trans healthcare, whether that's protections from racism or misogynistic discrimination
in your job and harassment, all of these things. If
the state steps away, people should and will look to
labor organizing as the answer instead.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
Our ability to build power in this way is a
way that we maintain hope so that we can keep
organizing for a better future. I think one of the
best tools like these fucking fascist freaks have is making
us feel like there's no hope. It's beating us down,
it's making us feel like we have no power. It's
making us feel completely disconnected from like the government, our workplace,
(13:44):
all of these different things that like exert power over us.
And I think labor is such a direct way to
give people that power back.
Speaker 6 (13:52):
Yeah, morales a terran a struggle, and this is the
way that you can fight there. That does other things
too at the same time, which is important, And.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Do you know what else is important? Being subservient to
the capitalist impulse of pivoting to ads. Okay, we are back.
Here is more of our interview with Starbucks Workers United.
Speaker 6 (14:23):
Yeah, I'm excited to talk to you because things have
been very bad. And one of the specific ways that
they've been very bad is that there's become this framing
and this has been around for a while, but it's
getting sort of increasingly adopted in mainstream circles that trans
rights are opposed to workers' rights, and that's just nonsense.
(14:43):
So I wanted to sort of start there with a
bit of a discussion about so the ways in which
the trans struggle is a worker struggle.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
The trans community is like disproportionately like impoverished, like a
lot of us are struggling to just pay for rent,
are basic like needs, right, Yeah, I think that's framing
assumes that like all trans people are like, I don't know, rich, working,
attack or some shit like that, which just is not true.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (15:11):
The actual stats, by the way, these are running from
the US Trans Survey, which is the largest survey of
trans people in the US. Thirty four percent poverty rate
than the national number for assist people is eleven percent.
The unemployment rate is eighteen percent. The US unemployment rate
assist people is four percent, eighteen percent is nineteen thirty
six great depression levels of unemployment. Thirty percent of trans
people have experienced homelessness in their lives. The national rate
(15:33):
is about seven percent, And those numbers are actually very
misleading because it's actually much worse than that, because these
demographics skew young significantly because of both the shortness of
our life expectancy and how often we get killed. And
also there's more people who are realizing that they're trans
now than there ever has before. So those homelessness numbers,
(15:53):
we are we are racking up a rate of homelessness
that is four times higher than the regular rate, and
we're doing iticately less years than it takes the cispopulation
to rack up these levels of homelessness. So things are
extremely bad for trans people. Transfems make like sixty cents
on the dollar of like the average American worker.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
Yeah, and I think you see that in our union
we have a lot of worker leaders who are trans.
It's a noticeable obvious fact about our unions that trans
people have really been deeply involved since day one at
all levels of this union. And I think part of
that is because Starbucks has been associated as a place
(16:36):
of economic stability and opportunity for trans healthcare for a
community that has relatively few opportunities. I mean, if you're
talking about eighteen percent unemployment, then you're talking about people
who certainly are going to have difficulty getting employer provided healthcare,
let alone employer provided healthcare that's going to include gender
affirming care, right, And so Starbucks has been held up
(17:02):
as an opportunity for that for a lot of people.
It's obviously drawn a lot of us to the company.
Many of us started working there for that exact reason,
and then you know, have discovered in many cases that
it's actually not so accessible. You know, I can say
in my case, it's definitely one reason I started working
at Starbucks because I heard like, Hey, if you want
(17:24):
facial feminization surgery, go work at Starbucks. That was a
community tip. And then it turned out that I made
so little money that I qualified for Medicaid, And in California,
where I'm lucky enough to live for now, Medicaid covers
those things and is more affordable and accessible than the
Starbucks healthcare actually was, So I ended up relying on
(17:45):
Medicaid instead. And I think a lot of us have
felt and seen that dissonance between coming to this company
looking for opportunity, looking for a place that is inclusive
and will hire trans workers, it says, and a stense
offers trans healthcare, but then finding out where those gaps
are and realizing like, actually it's better for me to
(18:06):
stay on Medicaid, which is easy to do because I
make so little money at this job. It takes that
shine off. And I think, you know, our economic vulnerability
as a group is precisely what drove a lot of
us to seek improvements here. It's related to our transness, sure,
but it's also like just fundamental working class issues. We
(18:27):
need better wages, we need better healthcare. You know, that's
something everyone benefits from and everyone can relate to.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
And I mean, I can also attest to the fact
that I started at Starbucks five years ago because I
needed to have access with gender firming care. I was
coming from a situation where I came out as a teenager.
Speaker 5 (18:49):
I was disowned and kicked out on my family. I
didn't have access to college.
Speaker 4 (18:54):
I was like basically on my own right, and I
had no idea how I'm going tomatically transition, And like
older trans women in my life told me to apply
to Starbucks. And it was also like one of those
things where like, again, I live in Oklahoma. It's not
like there's a ton of employers who are like super
excited to hire trans women.
Speaker 5 (19:15):
Right.
Speaker 6 (19:16):
That's something I also want to highlight because I don't
think people understand this at all. If there's cysts is
that the level of employment discrimination is staggering. It is, however,
hard if you are a SI person you think it
is to find a job, it is like thirty times
harder if you are trans. It's unbelievably difficult. And the
promise of just like any job that will hire a
trans person is a huge deal because you know, otherwise
(19:40):
odds are you walk in the door and they take
one look at you and like, you know, you're fucked, right, And.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
I think that's how Starbucks kind of like advertises itself
too queer in trans workers, right, And I think this
is reflected in the demographic of my store. Ninety nine
percent of my coworkers are queer. A lot of us
are trans. There's like a lot of trans women who
work at my store. I actually don't even know if
we have a single straight coworker actually we have later
(20:07):
one token like diversity higher, but he literally just transfers.
I think it's all gay people, but no, like all
of us applied to Starbucks because like, what other options
do we have? Right, And again, in my case, I
applied to Starbucks because I needed access to gender firming care.
And over like the five years that I've worked here,
(20:28):
I've realized that while that benefit might look good on paper,
in practice, it's hard to actually qualify for that healthcare.
It can be completely unaffordable for a lot of us. Right,
Like last year, I made sixteen thousand dollars in total
from Starbucks, and like a disproportionate amount of that income
(20:54):
was just going towards healthcare, which doesn't even take into
an account like rent or bills.
Speaker 5 (20:59):
Or anything else. Like we're struggling to just fucking get by.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Something that Mia pointed out is that one of the
few places trans people are actually overrepresented is in union organizing.
Because trans people don't really have a safety net, fewer
of us can turn to or rely on family support,
so union organizing is one of the ways we can
directly fight for a better life.
Speaker 4 (21:25):
But the current political climate as it is, it's even scarier.
I mean, Cassie was talking about not being able to
actually access the Starbucks healthcare, and I've defined other ways
to pay for gender firm and care, but I mean,
we're looking at like a Trump administration that could possibly
be trying to make it impossible for anyone to use
(21:47):
Medicare and Medicaid to cover gender firm and care. We're
looking at state by state like healthcare vans. Right, I
think it's more important than ever to organize and focus
on trans writes and our access to healthcare, our wages,
our safety at the workplace. Where else are we going
to protect ourselves like that?
Speaker 2 (22:09):
The Starbucks union is also fighting for guaranteed scheduling and
better staffing in stores, and this relates directly to a
worker's ability to access health care and gender affirming healthcare.
Part of Starbucks healthcare being somewhat inaccessible is that employees
have to work a certain threshold of hours to qualify
for benefits, including healthcare. Failure to get enough hours of
(22:31):
work scheduled means losing access to your own health care,
and this kind of reflects a more subtle form of
employment discrimination.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
I can speak to this. I've heard this from many
other workers, it is such a struggle just to get
the minimum amount of hours to keep your benefits. I
was talking to another worker who was telling me about
how she had to like literally cry and beg her
manager to sketch her enough so she didn't lose access
(23:01):
to gender firm and care. And of course this manager
was scheduling enough hours for other workers who weren't trans women, right,
And so I've been having like protections in a contract
that guarantee a certain number of hours that are scheduling.
That kind of thing also makes it easier for us
to maintain and keep the benefits that we need.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
And obviously this benefits all workers because everyone benefits from
having enough hours to actually get the money you need
to live. The Starbucks union started the official bargaining process
with the company last April, and they were supposed to
have their final bargaining session last December, based on a
shared expectation that the contract would be closed and ratified
(23:46):
by the end of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 4 (23:49):
So after nine months of bargaining, it's December or expecting
to finish up contract bargaining, and after like a few
months of like delaying and not really giving us a
counter on wages or benefits. Starbucks like finally gave us
a counter proposal, I mean like counter proposal. It was
(24:09):
literally like a page and their counter proposal was basically
no changes to benefits whatsoever and a one point five
percent raise if non union stores received a raise that
was less than that. For context, one point five percent
(24:30):
for most of us is thirty cents. So yeah, after
nine months, that was the best they could do. So
it wasn't really a serious like counter proposal, I mean, frankly,
it was a fucking insult.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
So with less than a week's notice, they organized the
biggest ULP strike in the union's history, resulting in five
thousand baristas at over three hundred stores across the country
going on strike on Christmas Eve. Now, this is not
the kind of open ended, ongoing strike that you're probably
more familiar with. A ULP strike refers to a short
(25:07):
term strike action directly tied to an unfair labor practice,
which is any act by an employer that violates a
worker's legal rights, and unlike ongoing strikes, ULP strikes can
happen anytime, not just during contract bargaining. In fact, the
Starbucks union has utilized ULP strikes the past few years
(25:28):
to address unfair labor practices. Part of the shared agreement
to finish the contract before the year's end was to
also resolve outstanding unfair labor practices by the end of
twenty twenty four, which did not happen and thus the strikes.
And this was a super tight turnaround to organize strikes
of this scale. By having a representative or delegate from
(25:52):
each store in the union present at bargaining, which is
hundreds of workers, that provides a direct link to every
store in the campaign. This was how the union was
able to pull off a mass mobilization on an extremely
tight turnaround. So when it's time to vote to go
on strike, there's already workers across hundreds of stores around
the country ready to organize their co workers and get
(26:14):
the word out. Contacts with union advocacy groups and a
network of allies ranging from campus activists to LGBTQ organizations
can also help spread the word about these strikes, raise awareness,
and pull more numbers onto the picket line. On more
of a big picture note, once you get these sorts
of structures and networks from union organizing, you also gain
(26:37):
the actual capacity to deploy them quickly in a way
that actually lets you do rapid responses to changing situations,
and that capacity is something that transadvocacy just hasn't really
had in a long time.
Speaker 4 (26:49):
These sites are directly connected to the broader political situation
in America right. I think that a big issue that
can organizing has right now is that there's not a
lot of on the ground reaching out, connecting to mobilizing
people who are impacted by these policies that are like
(27:12):
negatively impacting trans people. And so I think the kind
of organizing that unions are doing right that we've been
doing this entire time, right where we're speaking to people directly,
where we're getting them organized, getting them involved, is really
a helpful starting point for like turning discontent and turning
(27:35):
anxiety and fear around issues into like actual action. I
think it's like super essential that we have this contract.
Now we're heading into twenty twenty five, We're heading into
a frankly pretty fucking scary time for trans people. We
need a contract that protects trans healthcare. We need a
(27:56):
contract that guarantees better wages. We mean a contract of
only for the protections that it guarantees workers in terms
of like safety at work and type of terms of
making sure that they're not being taken advantage of at work.
Right Well, Starbucks offered us again was an insul It
wasn't a real counter proposal.
Speaker 5 (28:16):
We're more ready than ever to.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
Like finish his contract and to have something, but like,
we need movement from Starbucks. We need a serious counter proposal.
Thirty cents and no changes to benefits isn't going to
fucking do it.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
We're going to go on another ad break and return
to finish up our interview with Starbucks Workers United. Okay,
we're back. I'm now gonna throw to MIA or a
(28:52):
discussion on how union organizing can help strengthen trends. Advocacy
in general.
Speaker 6 (28:57):
We're in this kind of crisis period of I don't
know what you call the national trans movements, just the
extent that it exists, where the advocacy orgs and legal
strategies they've been pursuing are not working. We're losing in
the courts all the time. Their electoral strategy of kind
of bearrying themselves to the Biden administration has failed, and
I think this is a moment where we need a
(29:19):
new plan. And this is as good of a plan
as I've ever seen, and I think one of the
things that we're going to see, we're going to need
to see and we're literally we're just going to have
to do over the next few years, I mean ideally
over the next couple of months, because we don't have
we don't have much time until these people take power.
Is more sort of you know, not just intra union
(29:41):
coordination of organizing a trans workers, but it is organizing
trans workers across different unions and trying to figure out
how we leverage our power, like more broadly to you know,
protect ourselves and to fight for our rights and fight
to be free.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Yeah, I think that's something we're still building our capacity
for that in this union, but we definitely do have
relationships with other trans union activists and organizers. We're affiliated
to Workers United, which is affiliated to SCIU, So obviously
that's kind of the most direct and easiest way for
us to get in touch with other trans folks that
(30:19):
are in the labor movement, get support, get feedback, get ideas,
and share in turn what's been working for us. But
it is a capacity we want to build out even
further because we are going to need that solidarity between
and among labor unions in order to form a coherent response.
I mean, as you're saying, the response hasn't been working.
(30:42):
The kind of problem solving we're seeing from a lot
of politicians basically amounts to sidestepping the issue, pretending it
doesn't exist. You know, maybe not throwing trans people under
the bus explicitly by actively supporting our elimination from public life,
but certainly not standing up and defending us. And unions
(31:02):
are one of the only ways that working people can
come together in large groups and pool resources for political activity.
And we know there are a lot of problems with
how many unions currently do that. But for those of
us who are very committed to struggle for equality, that's
not going to compromise and throw some group under the bus.
(31:25):
We understand that we have to get involved and be
part of labor in order to improve how labor does
politics in this country. If we want people to stand
up and defend trans rights and defend trans healthcare, and
defend our ability to exist in public life, then we
(31:46):
have to, like we have to be the ones to
do it. We just we have to do it, And
getting involved in your union is one of the only
accessible ways that trans people are going to be able
to build that kind of political capacity and find allies.
Speaker 6 (32:02):
We have an opportunity here because you know, to do
a version of Jijik's mistranslation of Antonio Gramsci, it's like,
you know, the old trans movement is dying in the
New World's like struggles to be born. Now is a
time of monsters. But I think this means that you know, you, like,
literally the people listening to this show, the people on
this now, we are going to be the people who
(32:23):
define what the trans movement is going to be going forward, right,
and we have to because we have no other choice.
But this also means that, you know, we are going
to be the ones who get to set the tone
of what we're doing, get to like strategically decide on
how we're going to do this. And I think we
have advantages too in the sense that there are ways
in which our economic marginalization is sort of helpful in that,
(32:46):
you know, if you look at the sort of independent
unions that have been forming recently, right, even more so
than in conventional unions, unbelievable numbers of those people are trans,
right because you know, okay, you're dealing with the population
where it's very easy to get salts. It's very easy
to send people in the unionized stores because no one
has jobs anyways, and so the you know, the risk
of you losing it is like lower because you're already
taking a low wage job, et cetera, et cetera. And
(33:08):
I think I think there's there's things about these movements
and the way that we're embedding ourselves in also sort
of new movements, like the start unionization thing is not
that old, right, I think we're well positioned on the
sort of front of a bunch of different changes that
are happening in both union organizing and in how the
(33:29):
American working class works to build something together that can
actually go back on the offensive for the first time
in like a decade.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
Right. And I think we're at a moment where we
actually have to fight for ourselves, right. Yeah, Again, we're
at a point where no one else is going to
fight for us. We have to be willing to take
that step and fight for ourselves advocate for ourselves.
Speaker 5 (33:55):
At this moment, it's up to trans.
Speaker 4 (33:56):
People to get involved, especially with the labor movement, and
there's so much opportunity to advocate for trans rights, to
like build up the transliberation movement in a way that
hasn't been done before. I think it's so essential for
us to not feel hopeless and see the potential here
and get involved. I'm not necessarily telling people that, like
(34:21):
you should go apply to a Starbucks and like convince
them to unionize, but also like I'm not not saying that.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
You know, trans people are getting that opportunity to actually
drive our own liberation, and there's just so few places
in society where we get that. That's been one of
the most exciting things about being part of this union
for me. And yes, you should consider going to work
(34:48):
at Starbucks and unionizing it. And certainly, you know, to
directly plug a little bit. If there are Buristas in
your audience, they absolutely should go to our website. I
think there will be a link like in the description
of the episode or something. Go visit our union's website,
get in touch with an organizer, and start organizing. I
(35:09):
know it can like sound daunting in theory, like what
does it mean to start organizing my workplace? But there
is a template, there's a plan. You know, We've done
this a bunch, We've done it at over five hundred
stores at least five hundred and twelve at this point nationwide,
which is pretty incredible, especially to have done all that
without yet having even secured our contract. So we have
(35:31):
a good template for how to win. And if you
just get in touch, then people will reach out to
help you. And that does include professional staff, but it
also includes people like us who are workers that will
be peer to peer, worker to worker organizers, because that's
what this campaign has been built on from the beginning,
is workers organizing each other. So yeah, I mean, there's
(35:54):
really truly never been a time that's better than now
and also never been more essential. It's never been more
needed than now. So this is the time. And if
you're not a barista or you can't become a barista,
then we still really need people to sign a solidarity
pledge with our union and get involved that way as allies,
(36:14):
as supporters. You know, community support is always critical to
union struggles. We are bargaining our contract with Starbucks right now,
and community support is a huge part of what's going
to get us, you know, the contract that does deliver
the kind of protections and benefits we're looking for, that
does set a precedent for what trans inclusive union organizing
(36:37):
and union bargaining can look like in this country. It's
kind of a terrifying responsibility sometimes. But the thing about
this union is because it is one of the exciting
bright spots in American labor right now. I do think
a lot of people are looking to us to figure out, well,
what are they doing, what's working, what's going well? And
(36:58):
I certainly think, you know, the results we get for
trans workers in our union have some precedent setting importance.
So it is really critical, even if you're not in
this union, even if you don't work at Starbucks, to
support this struggle because it will have ripple effects. There
will be ramifications for American labor and for the struggle
(37:22):
for transliberation as a consequence of how things turn out
with us. So yeah, we could really use your support.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
Earlier this episode, we talked about hope, and as important
and as useful as that can be, it is also
super crucial that people know how they're actually able to
organize and actually try to get things done. After this
last election, I'm sure many of you, like myself, were
flooded with posts and performative calls to action. Now is
(37:51):
the time to organize your community, but never with any
real information on what that actually means or how to
go about it. But something like the Starbucks union is
actually a very direct way to do that, especially if
you're a barista.
Speaker 4 (38:07):
I think I have to emphasize how achievable that is,
Like it is possible five hundred plus stores across the
nation have done it in this political environment. Right, I'm
going to shout out one of my coworkers. She transferred
to another store in Oklahoma, and I was jokingly telling her.
I was like, well, you're allowed to transfer as long as,
(38:28):
like you, you ununonize your store immediately, and she was
like okay, And she did it, like within like a
week of being there. She'd like talked one on one
with everyone at that store, people who were all already
wanting better wages, better healthcare, better staffing, and through these conversations,
(38:51):
she organized that store. And that is so fucking amazing
to me, and it makes me feel so I don't know,
I don't want to sound like patronizing or whatever, and
it makes me so proud to see that, right, to
see that she's been able to see how our store
has organized, how we've spoken to people, how we've reached
out to like her co workers, and she's been able
(39:12):
to take that and replicate that so easily, get so quickly.
Like when I say with them like a week or
two of transferring to the store, I am not exaggerating,
she was fucking on.
Speaker 5 (39:24):
Top of it. If we can do this in fucking.
Speaker 4 (39:27):
Goddamn Oklahoma, we can do this anywhere, right, It is possible.
You can do it if you can have a conversation
with your coworker, if you can have a conversation with
multiple coworkers, if you can develop relationships with them friendships,
if you can establish that you have like a common issue. Right,
if you can make it clear that like the struggles
(39:50):
we're facing at our workplaces have a solution, you can
do this. All you have to do is actually fucking
take that step to make it happ.
Speaker 6 (40:01):
Every single union that has ever been formed was maybe
by people exactly like you. You the listener listening to
this right now, Right, you are exactly the person who
has organized every union that anyone has ever done. Right,
It's it's not something that's like the domain of pure
professional organizers.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
You can do this too, Yeah, you really can, and
I mean, you know, at my store, I was the
only transperson at my store, and despite being a transsexual communist,
I was able to organize a successful election at a
store that includes, you know, half of people being Trump voters.
Like the idea that you have to hide or diminish yourself,
(40:41):
or that because you know your trans or otherwise marginalized,
that it's impossible for you to build that solidarity with
your coworkers and come together for your common issues, It's
just not true. People understand their own economic liberation, even
if they don't fully just yet. There's always an intuitive
(41:02):
level you understand you're getting screwed over. You can tell
that the system is not set up fairly and it's
not set up for you to succeed as a working person,
And with the right conversations, with the right information, with
the right relationships and solidarity that you build with someone else,
people can be brought to understand what the solution is
(41:22):
and that the situation you currently live under with shareholders
and capitalists stealing all of this value from you is unacceptable,
and that there is a way to fight to get
back what you've earned with your labor. So for those
of you who are listening. You don't have to hide
who you are politically or personally to do that work
(41:44):
to bring people along. And in fact, if we do
hide who we are, then we're not really going to
be getting people all the way to where they need
to go. You know, we're not going to build a
movement of people committed to liberation by side stepping issues
and hiding piece of who we are and saying that, oh, well,
you know, transliberation is not really important. That's not how
(42:06):
we're going to build like a durable coalition. I think
this is a problem that politicians in our country keep making.
It's a mistake they keep making of thinking they can
ignore or downplay certain issues tensions within their coalitions to
keep those coalitions together. But when you ignore it you
don't address it, it just blows up later in the end. Anyway, Yeah,
(42:28):
get involved that you really have nothing to lose and
nothing you know, accept your change not to be I
mean I just realized halfway through. I was like, well,
I might as well finish the quote.
Speaker 4 (42:40):
So Okay, we're like such a scary point for trans people,
and I know that that's terrifying, that that's also an
opportunity to pivot and to like actually make meaningful change.
Right again, I cannot emphasize enough we create our own
(43:01):
hope for a better future.
Speaker 5 (43:03):
It has to be on us, right.
Speaker 4 (43:05):
We can't just, I don't know, depend on other people
to do this work for us. We have to show
up and do this work. And I don't know, Personally speaking,
I am fucking tired of liberals who want to just
ignore trans people and pretend we don't exist. As Like,
I don't know, our TVs are flooded with anti trans as.
(43:27):
I'm tired of depending on people who aren't advocating for me, right,
I'd rather fight for myself through my union.
Speaker 6 (43:35):
So yeah, I think that's a good place to close on.
Is in some sense a cold world that has left
us with no one to fight for ourselves but ourselves.
But if we fucking do it, we can win, and
we can drag everyone else along with us.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
On that note, I'm going to close out the show
here with a few plugs for Starbucks Workers United. You
can find their website at Sbworkers United dot org and
SB Workers United on social media. I'll have a link
to their website to end their solidarity pledge in the
description below. See you on the other side.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
It could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
You listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
You can now find sources for it could Happen Here,
listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.