August 23, 2022 • 38 mins
Mia talks with Crystal and Elizabeth, two members of UE Local 696, about the struggle of healthcare workers at Planned Parenthood after the fall of Roe
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to it could happen here a podcast about things
falling apart and how to put them back together again. Now,
a thing that has fallen apart that we have talked
about at length before is the protection of the right
to abortions, previously enshrined in Roe v. Wade and no
longer enshrined in that. And we've come at this from
a number of angles, but one angle that we've neglected
(00:25):
so far is is the labor angle. Um. And Okay,
So for reproductive autonomy to exist, right, you need healthcare,
and healthcare, especiallyunder capitalism, requires labor. And and that labor
isn't done by you know, abstract organizations. It's done by
workers who are facing not only sort of the mall
of the death of row, but the in transient and
(00:46):
often the belligerency of the room bosses. And here to
talk with us about that is Crystal Grabowski and Elizabeth
Vella Nuevo from the wonderfully named UEI Local six nine six, um,
And I'm gonna I'm going to read a pseudo legal
disclaimer here, which is that they are not representing Planned
(01:06):
parent who they do work at Planned Parenthood. They are
not representing Planned parenthood. They're they're representing themselves as individuals
and our local union, yes, proud members of Local six
nine six, impeccably named union, purposefully named right. Well, they
were like, you have to choose a a number that
(01:28):
starts with six, and then we just looked at each
other and we had that moment where it's like yes,
and then we can add another one and it'll be
a good time, fun little threesome. He'll be safe. That's good.
So sorry, round one of pro union propaganda joining you
(01:49):
did and YouTube can be in in union Local sixty
nine or what if they told you the number can
start with four, like you know, yeah, boom. There's just
so many options. I'm sure there's other fun numbers that
besides those, but you have the entire world in front
of you. Yeah, we could have done six, you could
do like boom. Can you imagine if we did six six?
(02:15):
We could not. We had that choice and we went
with six nine six. Sexual Health Organization is to prove
that workers will always make the right decision. This is
the power of the union. We can evaluate these decisions
when when it's important and do the right there. So yeah,
(02:40):
thank thank you, thank you, to you so much for
for coming on the show. Thank you for having us.
We're both super excited. Yeah, thanks for tighting us a
slowly abortion workers So I'm gonna I'm gonna dispute heavily
with the term slowly, like y'all are the people who
make all of this possible. So yeah, yeah, And and
(03:07):
now now having said all of this, I'm about I'm
going to ask you a very depression question, which we have.
We've asked a lot of the people who've talked about
abortion access, uh like who work in abortion access stuff,
this question, But I think you two had a very
different experience of it. Um. What was it like on
the day when Roe died? Do you want to go first, Crystal? Um? Yeah.
(03:28):
I've talked about this a lot because I'm getting asked
a lot, and it's I'm happy to talk about it, um,
which is I'm actually like, it's been hard to listen
to other people talk about it because then I start
getting in my fields. But like when I'm talking about
and I'm kind of like just processing it, it's probably
healthy for me, somebody would say. But it was incredibly traumatic,
(03:51):
and it's been incredibly traumatic. Um, since the fall of
Ruby Wade and the Dobs decision. And I'm saying this, well, like, well,
knowing that we all knew it was coming, it was
it was a given, and it wasn't surprising. And there's
just something about knowing that it's been coming for months
and years that like just it just did nothing to
(04:14):
actually inform you, like what would it be like? Um,
But it was like a It was like a tidal
wave crashing and just like sweeping you away. And we're
still swept away. Um. The only language that I can
find that's appropriate is like natural disaster language, and I
just I keep repeating it and saying, like it's like
a hurricane, It's like a tidal way. But that is
(04:36):
the those are the words that are most fitting to me,
like emotionally and just in terms of like the violence
and the that is that you that people are experiencing. Um,
and just the emotional and mental and bodily harm is
equitable to a natural disaster. Yeah. And I think during
(04:57):
one of our debriefs, during a particular really difficult day,
this was pretty um Row. We were talking about how
sometimes it's really hard for us when we can see
these things coming and yet there's nothing we can really
do about it. And I know that we talked about
how it felt like we were just tied to a
train track, watching and waiting for that train to just
(05:20):
come and hit us, and then when it did, it
was just it just knocked I think the wind out
of all of us. Um, I think we all cried
for sure, that we all cried, and um, and I'm
not even like I don't know, like I feel like
I am. I'm emotional and I am a crier, but
a whole I didn't think that I would sob immediately
(05:42):
the second I saw the news. And then I always
knew we were going to get a lot more calls
because um, Elizabeth and I also answered phones in the
abortion clinic, and I was like, Okay, we're gonna get
way more calls. But like, you don't know what that
feels like or looks like or sounds like, like, what
is it I feel like to have a hundred people
calling you pretty much at the same time? What does
(06:04):
that look like? Now? I know, and it's traumatic and
it's awful, and um, it's a natural disaster, but it's
a man made disaster. Actually it's not a natural disaster.
We've there are people who have inflicted this upon us. Um,
and now we know what it feels like, and it's
sucking awful. I should have asked if I was allowed
(06:25):
to swear. Oh yeah, I swear all the time, okay,
because like I've been on podcast before where they were like, oh,
we gotta edit that out, which, well, it's a fucking nightmare. Yeah,
we work in healthcare. I think we swear more than
the average lay man because they keep saying something out. Yeah,
there's so much more to say, like yeah, please, I
don't even know where to go from there. It's just yeah,
(06:46):
it's like a never ending nightmare because like the calls
started and then it's just like just just person after
person after person. They driving driving two hours, three hours,
four hours, five hours, coming from states that are like
three states away, coming from like states in the South,
people taking planes and um, people staying in hotels and
(07:13):
we've had people pay like hundreds of dollars for an
uber MHM and UM. And then just like bringing in
the labor angle to as like unionized abortion workers, who
you know, we have been vocal and we've been rallying
and making our demands like publicly known, but we are
doing this while under staffed, like skeletal crew staffing. We
(07:36):
didn't have enough staff before row Fell and the Doobs decision,
and now we just it's bare bones and it's like
we are so we're taking on this title wave, this
like man made title wave while just giving every last
ounce of our energy. Yeah um, and doing multiple roles
(08:01):
at once. Yeah. I don't know if you are able
to tell from the fact that Crystal and I both
work directly in the clinic, but we also answer calls. Um.
When we signed up for our job, Um, we knew
that we would be doing multiple things around the clinic,
and it's just it's funny, um to not really know
(08:23):
what that means until you start doing it. So one
day you'll be holding a patient's hand while they're having
this procedure done, like giving them a little baggy in
case they feel sick. Um, you'll be talking to them
on the phone. So some there are days where I
will meet people who I've spoken to on the phone
when they called to book their appointment, and it just
(08:45):
hits me like a tidal wave because I'm like, that's
the person, Like, that's this person specifically, I remember because
I remember hearing the sound of their voice, and every
single time they call in they are sobbing. This is
a horrifying moment for them. This is a moment where
they feel like trapped, They feel like they can't share
(09:06):
with their family, with their friends. Um. Depending on what
state they're from and the legalities of that state, they
are even afraid to make these phone calls. Like some
of the first things that patients say to us when
they call it is in my is this okay? Like?
Am I allowed to call you? Um? Emanuela to talk
to you? Of my allowed to book an appointment? Um?
What's going to happen next for me? Yeah? Because we're
(09:32):
not lawyers, because we everything is so fluid right now,
we don't have answers to give them. Um we can
just say, well, you're coming to Pennsylvania and it's stillegal
in Pennsylvania. So um. And then just to like paint
the picture a little more too about like both the
skeletal staffing and the emotional turnoil and the emotional weight
(09:57):
of it. Um. So, the jobs decision happened on June,
which was a Friday, and we're in Pennsylvania, and that
evening of the evening of June a trigger man went
into effect in in Ohio. It was a it's a
fetal heartbeat bill, which is a deceptive language because it's
(10:18):
not actually a heartbeat but um, but it's a it's
technically a fetal heartbeat bill. And so people after six
weeks um could no longer access abortion services or once
any sort of like electrical impulse was detected, and everyone
had their appointments canceled. So we were actually at a protest,
like the staff was like at a protest that evening,
(10:39):
um with our with our doctors, our abortion providing doctors,
and the news came out like yeah, shout out to them,
we love them, um, And we got the news that
Ohio had just did this, and we were just like,
oh my god, tomorrow because we knew the second our
call center and our phone lines opened, everyone whose appointment
(10:59):
was canceled gonna be calling us. And then we pull
up the staff schedule and we're like standing in the
middle of the street at a protest. We pull up
the staff schedule and we're like, oh my god, there
is one person schedule to answer phones right now, and
it is an older woman who's been doing this since
like the seventies or eighties and it's like we cannot
like and we were like all as a union, like, um,
(11:22):
we turn to each other and we're like, oh my god,
this is the situation. We cannot leave her alone. Um,
we've already worked our five days, we already worked our
already five hours, but we are going to call ourselves
into work. And like we just we were like we've
notified our managers, like we're gonna come into work and
we're gonna help too, answer the phones for these canceled
(11:43):
Ohio patients. Like that was a decision that we made
to work those extra that that extra time on our
weekend off because it was a Saturday. But this ties
into what Elizabeth was saying, where, Um, when you hear
the person on the phone and then they come to you,
and like it's very emotional because like you're doing your
best as a health care worker to get them the
health service that you have been trained to provide and
(12:05):
that you know is very important. So knowing that we
were understaffed, um, knowing that we're not making that much money,
and then just being like I have to go in
and be there. I can't leave my coworker alone because
I love my coworker and we can't, and like, somebody
has to be there for these these patients when they're calling.
(12:28):
And if it's not going to be the employer and
the bosses, then it's going to be you. And and
then we we all just we did that, and then
um there was another clinic day. We a lot of
us arranged to come in for an extra work day
because we were like, we have we have to be
there for these patients. Um, so we're really giving all
(12:49):
of our energy, and it's exhausting and traumatizing. I can't
I feel like I can't say that enough. But and
we need more staff, we need better wages, we need
better working conditions because it's so it's like at the
end of some of these days, it's like, how am
(13:09):
I going to keep doing this? My body hurts, my
brain hurts. I started having like issues with my memory
where like I couldn't remember anything because my brain just
gave up on retaining information. And I'm like, I think
this is like a trauma response, like yeah, I'm overwhelmed
system shock. I think this is one of the things
(13:39):
you get with working for NGOs, which is that like
we're doing something like this is like there is work
that needs to be done, but you know, the employers
not giving you the resources that is necessary to do
it right. You have one person on a call line
like the day after a fetal heartbeat bill goes goes
into effect and and it's I don't know. It seems
(14:00):
like one of the one of the things that's that
that these NGOs do is they were you know, they
make they make a mistake or they do something deliberately
because they don't want to pay people and then they
don't want to pay another more people, and they make
you go deal with it because you know it has
to get done because these people need you and that
has to do it. Yeah, and that's so cross, it's disgusting.
(14:24):
So for me, I like to equate it as kind
of like being emotionally gasolt because the whole point of healthcare,
and I've said this to other people in different healthcare
roles that I've worked before, because as we know, health
care is chronically understaffed, like there are so many like
nursing shortages and things. UM is that healthcare is designed
(14:45):
to draw people who want to help. You have these
like very strong moral and emotional beliefs, UM, and we
are paid to care like it is our job to
care UM. And that is how they can get all
of these things out of us, is because it's very
easy to feel emotionally manipulated when somebody's like, well somebody
(15:07):
has to be there for this patient, this person, UM,
this like thing that can't wait UM and so a
lot of us UM. Even like I said before, I
worked here. At like different positions that I've held, I've
been like, I will take an extra shift because somebody
has to do it. And I love my job so much.
(15:29):
I love working in healthcare. It's something I've been very
passionate about since I was a small child. UM. So
I for years would burn myself out and be like,
I'll take the extra shift at a different position. UM.
When I used to work at a care UM. I
worked at an intermediate care facility for adults with intellectual
physical disabilities UM for a couple of years, and I
(15:51):
remember routinely working sixteen hour shifts like day in and
day out. I think there was like six seven days
a week of just doubles where I would work sixteen
hour shifts. I don't think I like slept or aid
or did anything UM. And then at one point, I
was so burnt out that I just couldn't do it anymore.
(16:11):
And I started to get frustrated with the people that
I worked with and like the patients that I cared about.
And this one particular day, I like, I noticed myself
getting incredibly annoyed with everything that was like happening, like sounds,
patients like just being themselves, Like I didn't, you know,
(16:31):
take it out on anything or anyone. I just noticed
myself getting like slightly more irritated, and then I was like,
this is not sustainable. I can't keep doing this UM.
And I compared this recent change posted the Doobs Decision
to what it was like when I also used to
work for distributing medical equipment to hospices. UM. It felt
(16:54):
like every single moment was an emergency that I just
did not have the resources to be able to UM
help with. Because on one end of the line, you
have somebody that is having this emergency, and then on
(17:16):
the other end of the line, there's another person pulling
you because they're also having an emergency, and so you
have to kind of weigh which one of these patients
like needs you the most right now, and which one
of those can you reasonably help. It's like that psychology
psychology puzzle where they're like, um, if you move the
(17:39):
thing on the try, Yeah, the trolley problem where like
one of these people will die or seven people will die,
and you have to decide which one of those you're
gonna pull. Yeah, there's only so much that we can
give as healthcare workers, as abortion workers, as reproductive health workers. UM,
(18:02):
there's only so many hours in a day. And as
much as we want to keep giving, for us to
keep pouring out of an empty cup, it's just not
sustainable for ourselves. Like I know, many of us have
lost sleep, many of us have stopped like being able
to focus on anything outside of work because as soon
as like you turn on the news or you open
(18:23):
the phone or you like open up Twitter, there's more
and more and more information because everything is consistently changing
all of the time. And like, um, Western Virginia is
currently having like there, um yeah, so that's new. And
(18:43):
we had a couple of calls come in from UM
and we had Kentucky. Yeah, so that was new. UM.
And we're just starting to like really have a good
pattern of resources for patients coming in from like Ohio,
UM and now we're like, okay, well what about Kentucky.
So we just like we feel like there's just one
(19:07):
like hole in the dam that we put our finger
on and then another one shows up that at some
point we just have to know that we've done our best, um,
and then it's okay to take a second to rest
um and do you know, go home and maybe like
watch TV or listen to a podcast. Yeah, not about abortion. Yeah,
(19:35):
forget about abortion for two seconds, and because we will
inevitably have to do it again tomorrow. This reminds me
a lot of Um, I did an interview like I
don't actually it'll be a couple of weeks, I guess
by when this comes out. With some organizers who were
like trying to do like relief and aid for the migrants.
You're getting bus to d C from Texas, I think
(19:57):
you talk to and it was like they were talking
about exactly the same thing where it's like we have
to do this, we have to do this because otherwise
no one's gonna help these people. But like at a
certain point it's like everyone has COVID, like we just
can't and it I don't know, it's I think it's
especially frustrating that this is happening because like those people
were just like they have no resources, right, it's just
a bunch of people who could drink vitual aly thing,
but like this is planned parenthood. Like they have resources
(20:21):
and they're not they're not doing this, and they're they're
doing this. I talked to a nurse who's a friend
of mine a long time ago on this show, and
he talked, you know, he was in nurseting COVID. He's
gotten COVID twice I think, and like, you know, he
was talking about how like, yeah, he he said to
be like thing I've always remember, it was like I've
seen people die because I've seen people die because of
(20:41):
staffing decisions, and it's like it's this it's this moral
blackmail thing where it's like, in order to expect this
thing needs to be done, we're not going to actually
supervisee you with enough resources to do it, and we're
going to make you responsible for the consequences of our actions.
And yeah, it's grotesque. Yeah something that um really it's
(21:04):
just kind of like part of the trauma for the workers.
And I'm honestly for the patients and for everyone in
our communities because this impact literally everyone is um just
like turning, Like we do turn people away because pregnancy
is a time sensitive issue and you know, you have
to get in in a certain number of weeks in
order to get you know, the type of procedure that
(21:25):
you want, in order to get a procedure at all.
And these are people that are often parents, the majority
of people who have abortions or parents, um, and they
have children, and they have jobs or they don't have
like PTO, and they live four hours away. So it's like,
how am I going to get to this appointment? So
there's so many people that we have to refer, so
(21:46):
it's it's so much on your soul to be on
the phones and you speak to mother after mother, like
a single mother or somebody who lost a partner or
they are you know, um, they got evicted, and you're
referring them to Detroit, which isn't also four or five
(22:10):
hours away, and just to refer people to say I
can't help you, try calling this place. And to do
that like multiple times in a row every day, and
then you're like you're working seven hour days. It is
really soul crushing because it feels like and like you
tell yourself like it's my you know, we don't have
the resources, we don't have the staff, we weren't prepared
(22:30):
for this crisis. It's not on me. But it's very
hard not to feel awful when you are turning people
away because you don't I don't know any I've probably
turned like probably over a hundred people away on the
phones and told them who to call. I don't know
if they reach those places. I don't know if they
called those places. For all I know, they continue to
(22:51):
hire risk pregnancy, and they might suffer health consequences or
things that debilitate them for the rest of their life,
things that make the children's lives worse. And I have
no have knowing. So it's just very traumatic to constantly
be hanging up on the phone with people and just
like sending them into like just a desert. I think
the hardest part two is that these phone calls aren't
(23:13):
like two seconds long. They're not two minutes when we
tell when we answer the phones. Abortion appointments take about
fifteen to twenty minutes to schedule, So this is a
half an hour that you are getting to know an individual.
A person. They tell you everything about their lives. They
tell you exactly what they're feeling, what they're afraid of,
(23:33):
what they're going through with their families, like um, what
their financial situation is like. And then at the end
when you tell them or at the beginning, which I
do often just to let them know what they're getting
themselves into. When you tell them that you're booking like
three weeks out, four weeks out, you can just hear
it in their voice that they are so scared and
(23:59):
so desperate and there's nothing you can do about it
because there's just not enough of us. There's not enough
planet days, there's not enough hours in the day to
see all of these patients. There is so much red
tape that these patients have to go through to even
get to this appointment. There's a twenty four our phone
(24:20):
consent in the state of Pennsylvania. UM. If they miss that,
they can't be seen. And these are often like um.
Depending on the time of the phone call. Some people
work multiple jobs, they're like sleep, they can't make the
phone call, they're sick, they don't have working cell phones,
(24:45):
or they're in a yeah, there in a situation where
they're like have intimate partner violence, so they can't be
on the phone for that long without risking their personal safety.
And it's just really traumatizing. And I know that it
really common on the left and with like pro abortion
people to say like you can't stop abortion, you can
(25:06):
only staff save abortion. And I I totally support the
sentiment behind that, because people are going to get abortions
no matter what. But people also need to think about
the people who give up, because I have when I
have been on the phone with someone and heard them
give up. Yeah, and it's it's it's it's traumatizing because
(25:28):
like you know that you gave them the information that
broke them where they were just like when I'm like, okay,
you have to wait four weeks, you have to drive
four hours, you have to do this, you have to
pay this, you have to do that, and then just
for them to say, I'm sorry, I don't want to
waste your time anymore. I just can't do this much
right now. It's just too much. And just to hear
they're just resignation because you know, I think I feel like,
(25:52):
you know, working in jobs, you might have heard people
just like reach that moment where they hit their point,
um whatever they're breaking point might be whatever the con
text is, whatever the topic is. But like when it's
your life and it's your health and it's your family
and they're just like, this is my breaking point and
witnessing and that that does happen. And it's a tragedy
every time that somebody abandons what they really want and
(26:13):
their health and their well being and um, and it
does happen. And that's why this is a tragedy that
needs to stop. And I don't know when it's going
to stop, because it just kind of seems like it's
going to keep happening and keep going and going and going,
in which case the trauma is going to like move.
Right now, we're like bearing the brunt of it, but
it's gonna like radiate from us in our patients and
(26:34):
we're going to see the ripple effects across the whole country,
generational trauma that's going to continue for multiple decades. Yeah. Yeah.
And it's i mean, just on a basic level, it's
not fair that even you have to deal with this
like this. This shouldn't be happening at all like that.
(26:54):
And it's it's that it's that like all of the
evil of the American settler state falling on like a
bunch of people who have nothing and then a bunch
of workers who are expected to show up and have
to deal with all of their all of their trauma
to every day and it's just like a trauma to loser. Yeah,
(27:15):
and it's like flags and um. And then we had
a union rally recently and uh, we were very open
and talking about how a lot of us work two
jobs and and we have staff members who donate plasma,
so it's like we're doing this on top of a
second job and donating are like bodily fluids. I spoke
(27:39):
at this rally and I was like, we're literally giving
our flash blood and tears to this whole thing. Um,
because it's just we love it. We love all of
our patients, We care about the work. We really want
to make sure that our patients are going to be okay.
And I think that's why we do it, and also
(28:01):
how we can justify feeling this way day day in
and day out. I wanna, I think move from this
to talking about the contract negotiation process, because like, okay,
(28:26):
it is not okay for anyone to have like a
fourteen month long contract negotiation process. It is especially not
okay for you to have to do this, so yeah,
can we can we talk about what plant like what
planned parish has been doing and would be better at
answering this because she's on our bargaining committee. I'm on
the bargaining team, yam. I've been doing this for fourteen
(28:49):
months and like just oh god, I'm so sick of
these meetings. I'm so sick of them, sick of their
talking to their lawyer. Um, it's been long been just
um really just dragging themselves. It's like carrying a dead body.
It's like like it's like come on, come on, are
(29:10):
you are you okay? We're gonna We're gonna get there,
you know, Like I'm We're just like dragging them and
they are afraid of everything. Everything is we gotta see,
we gotta check, we gotta we gotta look into it.
And then you never hear back, or maybe you hear
back like three months four months later. Um, they constantly
(29:32):
want to bring in a mediator constantly, and it's like
there's nothing to mediate, Like what are we going to immediate?
You telling us that you gotta back to us, like
what's their tom mediate there? Um? And they're like it
will move it along. And it's like yes, because they're
doing the job for you. We want you to do it.
We want you to have answers, you to figure it out.
You're the bosses, you make the money, you're the one
(29:54):
running the organization. Um. Sorry, I start getting salty the
bark team as has um. Being on the bargaining team
has really nurtured my rage. Um. It's been very exhausting.
And I know we're going to win a good contract
because we are badasses and I think we're really strong
(30:14):
union and really strong team. Um, and we need we
need a livable wage because we're we're getting pommelled. So UM,
it's been really frustrating. I guess it's like in short,
it's really drawn out, frustrating, disrespectful. I feel like my
time has been disrespected. You know, I turn up every day,
(30:37):
um for for my employer in the clinic. I'm an
excellent worker and uh and they just waste like two
three hours of my evening constantly. I could have been
on my porch drinking tea or something, I don't know,
something relaxing. Yeah. And I guess, like any other person,
(30:59):
like like every every day that they don't like sign
a contract is another day they get to get away
with not paying you, not bringing more staff, and it's
and they're constantly trying to get delay contract negotiations to
where they're like, oh, if you do this, we can
We'll give you a couple of pennies and then we
won't make any you won't be able to make any
(31:21):
economic changes until the next fiscal year. And it's like,
do you think I want to wait till next July?
I have a life plans. Yeah, I mean I think
we've talked about on the show before that like one
of the one of the most common ways that one
of the most common ways that unions fall apart, and
one of the things that corporations do and n g
o s due to crush them is by trying to
(31:42):
make sure that the first contract fails. And yeah, it's
a union busting thing. And it's grotesque, especially that it's
like okay, like with capitalist firms, like yeah, you expect
them to be union busting, right, like that that's their job.
Their job is to ruthlessly specially, but it's like this
is an NGO, Like their job is to provide health
(32:03):
care for people. They're supposed to be oppressive organization. They're
still doing this and it's I don't know, it seems
just really grim. Um it is grim and it doesn't
give a lot of hope too, I think just everyone
living in this in this country because it's like, okay,
(32:26):
so there's been a a uh, I was gonna say attack,
but like attack doesn't feel appropriate. Like they have gutted
abortion access, hurting everybody, UM, causing like violence to people.
And who do you look to? So you would think
that you would look to these progressive abortion related organizations
(32:47):
like Planned Parenthood, National Abortion Federation, UM, narrow, but all
of them have nothing to give and nothing there. They're
you You only hear bad news. You hear them shutting down,
you hear them union busting, you hear them UM requiring
(33:08):
ridiculous regulations that aren't even necessary, and it's it's just
there's no they don't do anything to inspire hope. So
it's like, well you need you know, like um prison
culture and uh Mary Mikaba says, like, you know, hope
as a discipline. So I feel like a lot of
us are always looking to like a place to exercise
or hope and you're you're not going to get that
(33:29):
here with with some of these organizations, I think you
are going to get it in I think the rebro
unions because I think there's a lot of us, and
I think there were I think that we are working
our little hearts out, and I think you're also going
to get it with some of these other organizations, like um,
the abortion like abortion funds and some of the practical
support organizations that are really like getting on the level
(33:50):
of patients who are patients for former patients and are like,
we're going to get people abortions. I think that's where
Hope is right now. Um, but not with our employer. Yeah,
I wanted to I guess there's some of your things
I wanted to ask about was sort of on a
macro level. I mean, everyone we've talked to has talked
(34:10):
about how like the ability to get an abortion is
based on like a pretty small number of people who
are like some you know, people who are abortion who
are escorts, who are who are like a lot of
time volunteers, or it's people who are like you two,
who are being like horrifically underpaid to do the actual
(34:34):
work of this. And I was wondering what you two
think that like the like the way this like I
don't know, I guess, like the way everyone has sort
of run ragged even keeping the system. How it was,
like what role that played on a sort of macro
level in terms of why ROW was like destroyed in
the first place, and what that's done to the sort
(34:56):
of the broader movement. I mean, no, they didn't do
anything to Bennett, Like like, it's just what have we seen?
What show of force or strength or commitment to abortion
access have we seen in ever? Honestly, like I can't
even think other than like some loss or some legal
(35:19):
wins we've celebrated, Like I do remember whole woman's health
be Hellerstead, Um, what was that was like a win
and we were excited and we were like, this is
good news, and that's honestly the last and that again,
that was just a court decision, so it was like
not in our hands really anyways. So I just either's
(35:40):
so little, there's so little to work with, and so
a little look at outside of I think just some
really excellent organizing from workers and practical support groups. And
I really think that our community has been fabulous this
last whole like month. All of the support that we've
(36:02):
gotten um for our like personal morale has been through
like friends or local businesses or like people who know
people who um like are there to offer us like
an ear, a hand, um, a cup of coffee. Um.
Some of our doctors bring in bagels. Uh, this is
(36:23):
like from their own pockets. Um, we'll bring in bagels.
We've had like people donate and organized to bring in
like coffee and stuff. UM. I know that Crystal was
receiving a lot of donations herself, UM that we all
use to buy ourselves, like food, drinks, stuff for people
are just like sending me money for them. Yeah, and
(36:47):
I thought that was really great. But I also noticed
that it came from outside sources and not from internal sources. Um.
These are all other people outside in our community who
understand and value the work with that we're doing, and
like actively listen for what we need and what we're
(37:08):
asking for. Um. And I think that there's a lot
to be said about that. Yeah. Honestly, the most hope
and the most support has come from just like regular people.
You don't really see it from anyone with anything any
actual money or power. And on that note, this has
(37:28):
been na could happen here You can find us on
Twitter and Instagram That Happen Here pod, and you can
find Crystal and Elizabeth Union at PPWP Union on Twitter
for part two of this interview and until then goodbye.
It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
Or more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
(37:49):
cool zone media dot com, or check us out on
the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could
Happen Here, updated monthly at cool zone media dot com
slash sources. Thanks for listening.
Welcome to it could happen here a podcast about things
falling apart and how to put them back together again. Now,
a thing that has fallen apart that we have talked
about at length before is the protection of the right
to abortions, previously enshrined in Roe v. Wade and no
longer enshrined in that. And we've come at this from
a number of angles, but one angle that we've neglected
(00:25):
so far is is the labor angle. Um. And Okay,
So for reproductive autonomy to exist, right, you need healthcare,
and healthcare, especiallyunder capitalism, requires labor. And and that labor
isn't done by you know, abstract organizations. It's done by
workers who are facing not only sort of the mall
of the death of row, but the in transient and
(00:46):
often the belligerency of the room bosses. And here to
talk with us about that is Crystal Grabowski and Elizabeth
Vella Nuevo from the wonderfully named UEI Local six nine six, um,
And I'm gonna I'm going to read a pseudo legal
disclaimer here, which is that they are not representing Planned
(01:06):
parent who they do work at Planned Parenthood. They are
not representing Planned parenthood. They're they're representing themselves as individuals
and our local union, yes, proud members of Local six
nine six, impeccably named union, purposefully named right. Well, they
were like, you have to choose a a number that
(01:28):
starts with six, and then we just looked at each
other and we had that moment where it's like yes,
and then we can add another one and it'll be
a good time, fun little threesome. He'll be safe. That's good.
So sorry, round one of pro union propaganda joining you
(01:49):
did and YouTube can be in in union Local sixty
nine or what if they told you the number can
start with four, like you know, yeah, boom. There's just
so many options. I'm sure there's other fun numbers that
besides those, but you have the entire world in front
of you. Yeah, we could have done six, you could
do like boom. Can you imagine if we did six six?
(02:15):
We could not. We had that choice and we went
with six nine six. Sexual Health Organization is to prove
that workers will always make the right decision. This is
the power of the union. We can evaluate these decisions
when when it's important and do the right there. So yeah,
(02:40):
thank thank you, thank you, to you so much for
for coming on the show. Thank you for having us.
We're both super excited. Yeah, thanks for tighting us a
slowly abortion workers So I'm gonna I'm gonna dispute heavily
with the term slowly, like y'all are the people who
make all of this possible. So yeah, yeah, And and
(03:07):
now now having said all of this, I'm about I'm
going to ask you a very depression question, which we have.
We've asked a lot of the people who've talked about
abortion access, uh like who work in abortion access stuff,
this question, But I think you two had a very
different experience of it. Um. What was it like on
the day when Roe died? Do you want to go first, Crystal? Um? Yeah.
(03:28):
I've talked about this a lot because I'm getting asked
a lot, and it's I'm happy to talk about it, um,
which is I'm actually like, it's been hard to listen
to other people talk about it because then I start
getting in my fields. But like when I'm talking about
and I'm kind of like just processing it, it's probably
healthy for me, somebody would say. But it was incredibly traumatic,
(03:51):
and it's been incredibly traumatic. Um, since the fall of
Ruby Wade and the Dobs decision. And I'm saying this, well, like, well,
knowing that we all knew it was coming, it was
it was a given, and it wasn't surprising. And there's
just something about knowing that it's been coming for months
and years that like just it just did nothing to
(04:14):
actually inform you, like what would it be like? Um,
But it was like a It was like a tidal
wave crashing and just like sweeping you away. And we're
still swept away. Um. The only language that I can
find that's appropriate is like natural disaster language, and I
just I keep repeating it and saying, like it's like
a hurricane, It's like a tidal way. But that is
(04:36):
the those are the words that are most fitting to me,
like emotionally and just in terms of like the violence
and the that is that you that people are experiencing. Um,
and just the emotional and mental and bodily harm is
equitable to a natural disaster. Yeah. And I think during
(04:57):
one of our debriefs, during a particular really difficult day,
this was pretty um Row. We were talking about how
sometimes it's really hard for us when we can see
these things coming and yet there's nothing we can really
do about it. And I know that we talked about
how it felt like we were just tied to a
train track, watching and waiting for that train to just
(05:20):
come and hit us, and then when it did, it
was just it just knocked I think the wind out
of all of us. Um, I think we all cried
for sure, that we all cried, and um, and I'm
not even like I don't know, like I feel like
I am. I'm emotional and I am a crier, but
a whole I didn't think that I would sob immediately
(05:42):
the second I saw the news. And then I always
knew we were going to get a lot more calls
because um, Elizabeth and I also answered phones in the
abortion clinic, and I was like, Okay, we're gonna get
way more calls. But like, you don't know what that
feels like or looks like or sounds like, like, what
is it I feel like to have a hundred people
calling you pretty much at the same time? What does
(06:04):
that look like? Now? I know, and it's traumatic and
it's awful, and um, it's a natural disaster, but it's
a man made disaster. Actually it's not a natural disaster.
We've there are people who have inflicted this upon us. Um,
and now we know what it feels like, and it's
sucking awful. I should have asked if I was allowed
(06:25):
to swear. Oh yeah, I swear all the time, okay,
because like I've been on podcast before where they were like, oh,
we gotta edit that out, which, well, it's a fucking nightmare. Yeah,
we work in healthcare. I think we swear more than
the average lay man because they keep saying something out. Yeah,
there's so much more to say, like yeah, please, I
don't even know where to go from there. It's just yeah,
(06:46):
it's like a never ending nightmare because like the calls
started and then it's just like just just person after
person after person. They driving driving two hours, three hours,
four hours, five hours, coming from states that are like
three states away, coming from like states in the South,
people taking planes and um, people staying in hotels and
(07:13):
we've had people pay like hundreds of dollars for an
uber MHM and UM. And then just like bringing in
the labor angle to as like unionized abortion workers, who
you know, we have been vocal and we've been rallying
and making our demands like publicly known, but we are
doing this while under staffed, like skeletal crew staffing. We
(07:36):
didn't have enough staff before row Fell and the Doobs decision,
and now we just it's bare bones and it's like
we are so we're taking on this title wave, this
like man made title wave while just giving every last
ounce of our energy. Yeah um, and doing multiple roles
(08:01):
at once. Yeah. I don't know if you are able
to tell from the fact that Crystal and I both
work directly in the clinic, but we also answer calls. Um.
When we signed up for our job, Um, we knew
that we would be doing multiple things around the clinic,
and it's just it's funny, um to not really know
(08:23):
what that means until you start doing it. So one
day you'll be holding a patient's hand while they're having
this procedure done, like giving them a little baggy in
case they feel sick. Um, you'll be talking to them
on the phone. So some there are days where I
will meet people who I've spoken to on the phone
when they called to book their appointment, and it just
(08:45):
hits me like a tidal wave because I'm like, that's
the person, Like, that's this person specifically, I remember because
I remember hearing the sound of their voice, and every
single time they call in they are sobbing. This is
a horrifying moment for them. This is a moment where
they feel like trapped, They feel like they can't share
(09:06):
with their family, with their friends. Um. Depending on what
state they're from and the legalities of that state, they
are even afraid to make these phone calls. Like some
of the first things that patients say to us when
they call it is in my is this okay? Like?
Am I allowed to call you? Um? Emanuela to talk
to you? Of my allowed to book an appointment? Um?
What's going to happen next for me? Yeah? Because we're
(09:32):
not lawyers, because we everything is so fluid right now,
we don't have answers to give them. Um we can
just say, well, you're coming to Pennsylvania and it's stillegal
in Pennsylvania. So um. And then just to like paint
the picture a little more too about like both the
skeletal staffing and the emotional turnoil and the emotional weight
(09:57):
of it. Um. So, the jobs decision happened on June,
which was a Friday, and we're in Pennsylvania, and that
evening of the evening of June a trigger man went
into effect in in Ohio. It was a it's a
fetal heartbeat bill, which is a deceptive language because it's
(10:18):
not actually a heartbeat but um, but it's a it's
technically a fetal heartbeat bill. And so people after six
weeks um could no longer access abortion services or once
any sort of like electrical impulse was detected, and everyone
had their appointments canceled. So we were actually at a protest,
like the staff was like at a protest that evening,
(10:39):
um with our with our doctors, our abortion providing doctors,
and the news came out like yeah, shout out to them,
we love them, um, And we got the news that
Ohio had just did this, and we were just like,
oh my god, tomorrow because we knew the second our
call center and our phone lines opened, everyone whose appointment
(10:59):
was canceled gonna be calling us. And then we pull
up the staff schedule and we're like standing in the
middle of the street at a protest. We pull up
the staff schedule and we're like, oh my god, there
is one person schedule to answer phones right now, and
it is an older woman who's been doing this since
like the seventies or eighties and it's like we cannot
like and we were like all as a union, like, um,
(11:22):
we turn to each other and we're like, oh my god,
this is the situation. We cannot leave her alone. Um,
we've already worked our five days, we already worked our
already five hours, but we are going to call ourselves
into work. And like we just we were like we've
notified our managers, like we're gonna come into work and
we're gonna help too, answer the phones for these canceled
(11:43):
Ohio patients. Like that was a decision that we made
to work those extra that that extra time on our
weekend off because it was a Saturday. But this ties
into what Elizabeth was saying, where, Um, when you hear
the person on the phone and then they come to you,
and like it's very emotional because like you're doing your
best as a health care worker to get them the
health service that you have been trained to provide and
(12:05):
that you know is very important. So knowing that we
were understaffed, um, knowing that we're not making that much money,
and then just being like I have to go in
and be there. I can't leave my coworker alone because
I love my coworker and we can't, and like, somebody
has to be there for these these patients when they're calling.
(12:28):
And if it's not going to be the employer and
the bosses, then it's going to be you. And and
then we we all just we did that, and then
um there was another clinic day. We a lot of
us arranged to come in for an extra work day
because we were like, we have we have to be
there for these patients. Um, so we're really giving all
(12:49):
of our energy, and it's exhausting and traumatizing. I can't
I feel like I can't say that enough. But and
we need more staff, we need better wages, we need
better working conditions because it's so it's like at the
end of some of these days, it's like, how am
(13:09):
I going to keep doing this? My body hurts, my
brain hurts. I started having like issues with my memory
where like I couldn't remember anything because my brain just
gave up on retaining information. And I'm like, I think
this is like a trauma response, like yeah, I'm overwhelmed
system shock. I think this is one of the things
(13:39):
you get with working for NGOs, which is that like
we're doing something like this is like there is work
that needs to be done, but you know, the employers
not giving you the resources that is necessary to do
it right. You have one person on a call line
like the day after a fetal heartbeat bill goes goes
into effect and and it's I don't know. It seems
(14:00):
like one of the one of the things that's that
that these NGOs do is they were you know, they
make they make a mistake or they do something deliberately
because they don't want to pay people and then they
don't want to pay another more people, and they make
you go deal with it because you know it has
to get done because these people need you and that
has to do it. Yeah, and that's so cross, it's disgusting.
(14:24):
So for me, I like to equate it as kind
of like being emotionally gasolt because the whole point of healthcare,
and I've said this to other people in different healthcare
roles that I've worked before, because as we know, health
care is chronically understaffed, like there are so many like
nursing shortages and things. UM is that healthcare is designed
(14:45):
to draw people who want to help. You have these
like very strong moral and emotional beliefs, UM, and we
are paid to care like it is our job to
care UM. And that is how they can get all
of these things out of us, is because it's very
easy to feel emotionally manipulated when somebody's like, well somebody
(15:07):
has to be there for this patient, this person, UM,
this like thing that can't wait UM and so a
lot of us UM. Even like I said before, I
worked here. At like different positions that I've held, I've
been like, I will take an extra shift because somebody
has to do it. And I love my job so much.
(15:29):
I love working in healthcare. It's something I've been very
passionate about since I was a small child. UM. So
I for years would burn myself out and be like,
I'll take the extra shift at a different position. UM.
When I used to work at a care UM. I
worked at an intermediate care facility for adults with intellectual
physical disabilities UM for a couple of years, and I
(15:51):
remember routinely working sixteen hour shifts like day in and
day out. I think there was like six seven days
a week of just doubles where I would work sixteen
hour shifts. I don't think I like slept or aid
or did anything UM. And then at one point, I
was so burnt out that I just couldn't do it anymore.
(16:11):
And I started to get frustrated with the people that
I worked with and like the patients that I cared about.
And this one particular day, I like, I noticed myself
getting incredibly annoyed with everything that was like happening, like sounds,
patients like just being themselves, Like I didn't, you know,
(16:31):
take it out on anything or anyone. I just noticed
myself getting like slightly more irritated, and then I was like,
this is not sustainable. I can't keep doing this UM.
And I compared this recent change posted the Doobs Decision
to what it was like when I also used to
work for distributing medical equipment to hospices. UM. It felt
(16:54):
like every single moment was an emergency that I just
did not have the resources to be able to UM
help with. Because on one end of the line, you
have somebody that is having this emergency, and then on
(17:16):
the other end of the line, there's another person pulling
you because they're also having an emergency, and so you
have to kind of weigh which one of these patients
like needs you the most right now, and which one
of those can you reasonably help. It's like that psychology
psychology puzzle where they're like, um, if you move the
(17:39):
thing on the try, Yeah, the trolley problem where like
one of these people will die or seven people will die,
and you have to decide which one of those you're
gonna pull. Yeah, there's only so much that we can
give as healthcare workers, as abortion workers, as reproductive health workers. UM,
(18:02):
there's only so many hours in a day. And as
much as we want to keep giving, for us to
keep pouring out of an empty cup, it's just not
sustainable for ourselves. Like I know, many of us have
lost sleep, many of us have stopped like being able
to focus on anything outside of work because as soon
as like you turn on the news or you open
(18:23):
the phone or you like open up Twitter, there's more
and more and more information because everything is consistently changing
all of the time. And like, um, Western Virginia is
currently having like there, um yeah, so that's new. And
(18:43):
we had a couple of calls come in from UM
and we had Kentucky. Yeah, so that was new. UM.
And we're just starting to like really have a good
pattern of resources for patients coming in from like Ohio,
UM and now we're like, okay, well what about Kentucky.
So we just like we feel like there's just one
(19:07):
like hole in the dam that we put our finger
on and then another one shows up that at some
point we just have to know that we've done our best, um,
and then it's okay to take a second to rest
um and do you know, go home and maybe like
watch TV or listen to a podcast. Yeah, not about abortion. Yeah,
(19:35):
forget about abortion for two seconds, and because we will
inevitably have to do it again tomorrow. This reminds me
a lot of Um, I did an interview like I
don't actually it'll be a couple of weeks, I guess
by when this comes out. With some organizers who were
like trying to do like relief and aid for the migrants.
You're getting bus to d C from Texas, I think
(19:57):
you talk to and it was like they were talking
about exactly the same thing where it's like we have
to do this, we have to do this because otherwise
no one's gonna help these people. But like at a
certain point it's like everyone has COVID, like we just
can't and it I don't know, it's I think it's
especially frustrating that this is happening because like those people
were just like they have no resources, right, it's just
a bunch of people who could drink vitual aly thing,
but like this is planned parenthood. Like they have resources
(20:21):
and they're not they're not doing this, and they're they're
doing this. I talked to a nurse who's a friend
of mine a long time ago on this show, and
he talked, you know, he was in nurseting COVID. He's
gotten COVID twice I think, and like, you know, he
was talking about how like, yeah, he he said to
be like thing I've always remember, it was like I've
seen people die because I've seen people die because of
(20:41):
staffing decisions, and it's like it's this it's this moral
blackmail thing where it's like, in order to expect this
thing needs to be done, we're not going to actually
supervisee you with enough resources to do it, and we're
going to make you responsible for the consequences of our actions.
And yeah, it's grotesque. Yeah something that um really it's
(21:04):
just kind of like part of the trauma for the workers.
And I'm honestly for the patients and for everyone in
our communities because this impact literally everyone is um just
like turning, Like we do turn people away because pregnancy
is a time sensitive issue and you know, you have
to get in in a certain number of weeks in
order to get you know, the type of procedure that
(21:25):
you want, in order to get a procedure at all.
And these are people that are often parents, the majority
of people who have abortions or parents, um, and they
have children, and they have jobs or they don't have
like PTO, and they live four hours away. So it's like,
how am I going to get to this appointment? So
there's so many people that we have to refer, so
(21:46):
it's it's so much on your soul to be on
the phones and you speak to mother after mother, like
a single mother or somebody who lost a partner or
they are you know, um, they got evicted, and you're
referring them to Detroit, which isn't also four or five
(22:10):
hours away, and just to refer people to say I
can't help you, try calling this place. And to do
that like multiple times in a row every day, and
then you're like you're working seven hour days. It is
really soul crushing because it feels like and like you
tell yourself like it's my you know, we don't have
the resources, we don't have the staff, we weren't prepared
(22:30):
for this crisis. It's not on me. But it's very
hard not to feel awful when you are turning people
away because you don't I don't know any I've probably
turned like probably over a hundred people away on the
phones and told them who to call. I don't know
if they reach those places. I don't know if they
called those places. For all I know, they continue to
(22:51):
hire risk pregnancy, and they might suffer health consequences or
things that debilitate them for the rest of their life,
things that make the children's lives worse. And I have
no have knowing. So it's just very traumatic to constantly
be hanging up on the phone with people and just
like sending them into like just a desert. I think
the hardest part two is that these phone calls aren't
(23:13):
like two seconds long. They're not two minutes when we
tell when we answer the phones. Abortion appointments take about
fifteen to twenty minutes to schedule, So this is a
half an hour that you are getting to know an individual.
A person. They tell you everything about their lives. They
tell you exactly what they're feeling, what they're afraid of,
(23:33):
what they're going through with their families, like um, what
their financial situation is like. And then at the end
when you tell them or at the beginning, which I
do often just to let them know what they're getting
themselves into. When you tell them that you're booking like
three weeks out, four weeks out, you can just hear
it in their voice that they are so scared and
(23:59):
so desperate and there's nothing you can do about it
because there's just not enough of us. There's not enough
planet days, there's not enough hours in the day to
see all of these patients. There is so much red
tape that these patients have to go through to even
get to this appointment. There's a twenty four our phone
(24:20):
consent in the state of Pennsylvania. UM. If they miss that,
they can't be seen. And these are often like um.
Depending on the time of the phone call. Some people
work multiple jobs, they're like sleep, they can't make the
phone call, they're sick, they don't have working cell phones,
(24:45):
or they're in a yeah, there in a situation where
they're like have intimate partner violence, so they can't be
on the phone for that long without risking their personal safety.
And it's just really traumatizing. And I know that it
really common on the left and with like pro abortion
people to say like you can't stop abortion, you can
(25:06):
only staff save abortion. And I I totally support the
sentiment behind that, because people are going to get abortions
no matter what. But people also need to think about
the people who give up, because I have when I
have been on the phone with someone and heard them
give up. Yeah, and it's it's it's it's traumatizing because
(25:28):
like you know that you gave them the information that
broke them where they were just like when I'm like, okay,
you have to wait four weeks, you have to drive
four hours, you have to do this, you have to
pay this, you have to do that, and then just
for them to say, I'm sorry, I don't want to
waste your time anymore. I just can't do this much
right now. It's just too much. And just to hear
they're just resignation because you know, I think I feel like,
(25:52):
you know, working in jobs, you might have heard people
just like reach that moment where they hit their point,
um whatever they're breaking point might be whatever the con
text is, whatever the topic is. But like when it's
your life and it's your health and it's your family
and they're just like, this is my breaking point and
witnessing and that that does happen. And it's a tragedy
every time that somebody abandons what they really want and
(26:13):
their health and their well being and um, and it
does happen. And that's why this is a tragedy that
needs to stop. And I don't know when it's going
to stop, because it just kind of seems like it's
going to keep happening and keep going and going and going,
in which case the trauma is going to like move.
Right now, we're like bearing the brunt of it, but
it's gonna like radiate from us in our patients and
(26:34):
we're going to see the ripple effects across the whole country,
generational trauma that's going to continue for multiple decades. Yeah. Yeah.
And it's i mean, just on a basic level, it's
not fair that even you have to deal with this
like this. This shouldn't be happening at all like that.
(26:54):
And it's it's that it's that like all of the
evil of the American settler state falling on like a
bunch of people who have nothing and then a bunch
of workers who are expected to show up and have
to deal with all of their all of their trauma
to every day and it's just like a trauma to loser. Yeah,
(27:15):
and it's like flags and um. And then we had
a union rally recently and uh, we were very open
and talking about how a lot of us work two
jobs and and we have staff members who donate plasma,
so it's like we're doing this on top of a
second job and donating are like bodily fluids. I spoke
(27:39):
at this rally and I was like, we're literally giving
our flash blood and tears to this whole thing. Um,
because it's just we love it. We love all of
our patients, We care about the work. We really want
to make sure that our patients are going to be okay.
And I think that's why we do it, and also
(28:01):
how we can justify feeling this way day day in
and day out. I wanna, I think move from this
to talking about the contract negotiation process, because like, okay,
(28:26):
it is not okay for anyone to have like a
fourteen month long contract negotiation process. It is especially not
okay for you to have to do this, so yeah,
can we can we talk about what plant like what
planned parish has been doing and would be better at
answering this because she's on our bargaining committee. I'm on
the bargaining team, yam. I've been doing this for fourteen
(28:49):
months and like just oh god, I'm so sick of
these meetings. I'm so sick of them, sick of their
talking to their lawyer. Um, it's been long been just
um really just dragging themselves. It's like carrying a dead body.
It's like like it's like come on, come on, are
(29:10):
you are you okay? We're gonna We're gonna get there,
you know, Like I'm We're just like dragging them and
they are afraid of everything. Everything is we gotta see,
we gotta check, we gotta we gotta look into it.
And then you never hear back, or maybe you hear
back like three months four months later. Um, they constantly
(29:32):
want to bring in a mediator constantly, and it's like
there's nothing to mediate, Like what are we going to immediate?
You telling us that you gotta back to us, like
what's their tom mediate there? Um? And they're like it
will move it along. And it's like yes, because they're
doing the job for you. We want you to do it.
We want you to have answers, you to figure it out.
You're the bosses, you make the money, you're the one
(29:54):
running the organization. Um. Sorry, I start getting salty the
bark team as has um. Being on the bargaining team
has really nurtured my rage. Um. It's been very exhausting.
And I know we're going to win a good contract
because we are badasses and I think we're really strong
(30:14):
union and really strong team. Um, and we need we
need a livable wage because we're we're getting pommelled. So UM,
it's been really frustrating. I guess it's like in short,
it's really drawn out, frustrating, disrespectful. I feel like my
time has been disrespected. You know, I turn up every day,
(30:37):
um for for my employer in the clinic. I'm an
excellent worker and uh and they just waste like two
three hours of my evening constantly. I could have been
on my porch drinking tea or something, I don't know,
something relaxing. Yeah. And I guess, like any other person,
(30:59):
like like every every day that they don't like sign
a contract is another day they get to get away
with not paying you, not bringing more staff, and it's
and they're constantly trying to get delay contract negotiations to
where they're like, oh, if you do this, we can
We'll give you a couple of pennies and then we
won't make any you won't be able to make any
(31:21):
economic changes until the next fiscal year. And it's like,
do you think I want to wait till next July?
I have a life plans. Yeah, I mean I think
we've talked about on the show before that like one
of the one of the most common ways that one
of the most common ways that unions fall apart, and
one of the things that corporations do and n g
o s due to crush them is by trying to
(31:42):
make sure that the first contract fails. And yeah, it's
a union busting thing. And it's grotesque, especially that it's
like okay, like with capitalist firms, like yeah, you expect
them to be union busting, right, like that that's their job.
Their job is to ruthlessly specially, but it's like this
is an NGO, Like their job is to provide health
(32:03):
care for people. They're supposed to be oppressive organization. They're
still doing this and it's I don't know, it seems
just really grim. Um it is grim and it doesn't
give a lot of hope too, I think just everyone
living in this in this country because it's like, okay,
(32:26):
so there's been a a uh, I was gonna say attack,
but like attack doesn't feel appropriate. Like they have gutted
abortion access, hurting everybody, UM, causing like violence to people.
And who do you look to? So you would think
that you would look to these progressive abortion related organizations
(32:47):
like Planned Parenthood, National Abortion Federation, UM, narrow, but all
of them have nothing to give and nothing there. They're
you You only hear bad news. You hear them shutting down,
you hear them union busting, you hear them UM requiring
(33:08):
ridiculous regulations that aren't even necessary, and it's it's just
there's no they don't do anything to inspire hope. So
it's like, well you need you know, like um prison
culture and uh Mary Mikaba says, like, you know, hope
as a discipline. So I feel like a lot of
us are always looking to like a place to exercise
or hope and you're you're not going to get that
(33:29):
here with with some of these organizations, I think you
are going to get it in I think the rebro
unions because I think there's a lot of us, and
I think there were I think that we are working
our little hearts out, and I think you're also going
to get it with some of these other organizations, like um,
the abortion like abortion funds and some of the practical
support organizations that are really like getting on the level
(33:50):
of patients who are patients for former patients and are like,
we're going to get people abortions. I think that's where
Hope is right now. Um, but not with our employer. Yeah,
I wanted to I guess there's some of your things
I wanted to ask about was sort of on a
macro level. I mean, everyone we've talked to has talked
(34:10):
about how like the ability to get an abortion is
based on like a pretty small number of people who
are like some you know, people who are abortion who
are escorts, who are who are like a lot of
time volunteers, or it's people who are like you two,
who are being like horrifically underpaid to do the actual
(34:34):
work of this. And I was wondering what you two
think that like the like the way this like I
don't know, I guess, like the way everyone has sort
of run ragged even keeping the system. How it was,
like what role that played on a sort of macro
level in terms of why ROW was like destroyed in
the first place, and what that's done to the sort
(34:56):
of the broader movement. I mean, no, they didn't do
anything to Bennett, Like like, it's just what have we seen?
What show of force or strength or commitment to abortion
access have we seen in ever? Honestly, like I can't
even think other than like some loss or some legal
(35:19):
wins we've celebrated, Like I do remember whole woman's health
be Hellerstead, Um, what was that was like a win
and we were excited and we were like, this is
good news, and that's honestly the last and that again,
that was just a court decision, so it was like
not in our hands really anyways. So I just either's
(35:40):
so little, there's so little to work with, and so
a little look at outside of I think just some
really excellent organizing from workers and practical support groups. And
I really think that our community has been fabulous this
last whole like month. All of the support that we've
(36:02):
gotten um for our like personal morale has been through
like friends or local businesses or like people who know
people who um like are there to offer us like
an ear, a hand, um, a cup of coffee. Um.
Some of our doctors bring in bagels. Uh, this is
(36:23):
like from their own pockets. Um, we'll bring in bagels.
We've had like people donate and organized to bring in
like coffee and stuff. UM. I know that Crystal was
receiving a lot of donations herself, UM that we all
use to buy ourselves, like food, drinks, stuff for people
are just like sending me money for them. Yeah, and
(36:47):
I thought that was really great. But I also noticed
that it came from outside sources and not from internal sources. Um.
These are all other people outside in our community who
understand and value the work with that we're doing, and
like actively listen for what we need and what we're
(37:08):
asking for. Um. And I think that there's a lot
to be said about that. Yeah. Honestly, the most hope
and the most support has come from just like regular people.
You don't really see it from anyone with anything any
actual money or power. And on that note, this has
(37:28):
been na could happen here You can find us on
Twitter and Instagram That Happen Here pod, and you can
find Crystal and Elizabeth Union at PPWP Union on Twitter
for part two of this interview and until then goodbye.
It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
Or more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
(37:49):
cool zone media dot com, or check us out on
the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could
Happen Here, updated monthly at cool zone media dot com
slash sources. Thanks for listening.
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Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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