Video Transcript

The of the workout. And you got the lessons all the past we work with blood likes of the Pss we must fight for. Yeah. Baby Brothers and sisters that is power and I go along. Good out. When it comes to the The Never crosses melis. Yeah. Children to get to and it's never like. West's World's longest technically, this is illegal. But technically I'm not right in the like you miss it. Never-never To say, Nice Yeah. This government and parliament mighty seems like it's illegal to fight for the Union anymore, which side are you on boys which side are you on? We Are boys which side are you on? We join together we can we got the County line and go on boys so you're going to jail. We Are you won't boys we are on we. which side are you on. Well, the family suffered hurt's me-I, so do you Jackie, which side are you on boys? which side are you on? which side are you on boys? Which side are you on? What you'll be drenched to the bone. Your time is worth saving. You better swimming. Critics and keep your eyes wide. the chance won't come again and don't speak too soon for the wheels still spin. The loser now will be later to win all the time. I'm senators Congressman don't stand in the door. Don't like the oh he gets hurt the he who has the better side region. We'll shake your Windows and rattle your walls for the times they are changing. Mothers and fathers throughout the land and don't criticize What you can't understand your sons and your daughters have you're in you're old road is rapidly aging. Please get out of the new one. if you can't let your hand all the time they are. Alright. Hi everyone. my name is Anthony. I'm with Nixon, Iowa. I'm the digital organizing director with NS, Iowa. We are the state's largest youth voter engagement group in the entire state. We focus on College campuses and cities across Iowa to make sure that young people are saying engaged in politics and one thing that we see as a young people care about the economy that works for them. we see a minimum wage has been stagnant most of our life. We've seen economic downturns again and again. And we're coming here to celebrate on May day International Workers Day to talk about with experts across the state, how we can fix our economy to get it where it helps young people the first thing I really wanna ask everyone is if you are not registered to vote in Iowa yet if you have not requested your absentee ballot, go to NXT G N dot US slash Primary Iowa. it'll be in the chat and you can find out all about how to vote in this year's primary election on June second. With that being said, I'd like to introduce our first Speaker Danny or sorry Danny Homan is the President of the American Federation for State County Municipal employees, commonly known as Afscme Council, 61, Danny I'll show it to you. Can you tell us about Afscme and what you guys do. 40000 people across Iowa am I on wait a minute. Yup. I'm on okay and basically we do about everything there is to do in the public sector and some things in the private sector with the state, we represent probably 80 percent of state employees folks that work in Department of Human Services in the facilities correctional officers. Inside the DOT and the universities all the law enforcement officers and probably 90 percent of the folks that worked on the universities are represented by acme plus we have a hundred and 40 different contracts in city counties, schools and private sector represent the folks that work at the University of here in. the doctor, the doctor can't think of the name right now Prairie Meadows We represent the College over the professors that teach at the chiropractic College in Dubuque, so it's a wide range of folks and we're involved in trying to raise the standard of living for the folks that we represent not Denny a lot of people who work are represented with Afscme they're working in municipal state government offices, a lot of them work behind the scenes. we don't really get to interact with them too much, but how are a lot of workers in Afscme and ask the Council 60 - one helping Iowa's get assistance during this crisis. Withno virus well right now all these folks are working inside our facilities the MHI the resource centers the Iowa Veterans home the normally you don't see those folks, but they're in they're taking. Of the clients, the residents of the inmates that I get that live inside those facilities and trying to make sure that they don't end up getting out of the facility but providing them the care that they need inside the office, buildings and stuff like that. you know they could be the folk at the driver's license station when you get to get your driver's license, one of the folks that go. On the Polk County or any of the some of the County offices and try to get your vehicle licensed, we represent a lot of those folks right now, they're trying to do what everybody else should be doing to stay safe. this virus is real and one of the things that I that I noticed being one of those folks that's in the high risk group since I'm 67, is that a lot of folks aren't taking this serious yeah. It's we had over 700 people tested positive for it. we've had right around a hundred and 7080 folks die from it and you know nobody asked for this and they're trying to make sure that everybody's life is safe and doing the things that they need to do to make sure that they're providing folks with the quality of life and that's what they do and. Are there certain things that acme has been asking our our federal or state representatives, including the next Cron of virus package that you can talk about. Oh yeah right now if States and municipalities don't get some help they're gonna they're gonna be going broke. I mean the bottom line is this virus has had a terrible effect on cities counties. In the state of Iowa because you know all the all the funding that we get to supply those services are paid for with tax dollars of one sort of another. so you know, cities, counties and schools operate on property tax sales tax the state operates of income tax, so these people that are laid off they don't have the aren't bringing in any money. Are paying any taxes nobody's going out to eat good thing shouldn't be going out to eat right now but that's hurting the tax base so the federal government needs to step in the next chron relief bill and provide funding to city County schools and States unlike mister Mitch Mcconnell, who wants everybody to go broke so ask me is doing a really. Heavy lobbying to get 300 million dollar billion excuse me billion dollars for States and local governments to help offset money that they have lost during this and trying to get 200 billion in F map and 200 billion for education and we wanted it to be unrestricted. We wanted it to come with no. Strings attached Now that scares me a little bit in this state because I don't trust the governor so if she gets 300 billion dollars or whatever I was cut of that is if it's unrestricted, God only knows what she will do with that money, but we're gonna have to try to hold her feet to the fire so that she's spending the money on what we need the money's banks' about the it's kind of say. Helping us in this crisis June second, it's gonna be your last question here. we have a primary from everything in Iowa from the US Senate seat to Congress, the state Legislature so if there are young people who really don't think that the economy is working for them really feel like they're not getting build out during this crisis, What do you have to say to those young people about why it's important to vote in that primary and in November vote like your life depends on it because I. Believe it does you know I'm 67. I'm on the downhill side of this thing they call life. I have a 24 year-old daughter if we don't change the direction of this country by electing Democrats to office this November then God help us a lot of the things that we take. In this state could potentially be gone gay rights. the right for having an abortion. the Republicans are stuck in the courts with people that are gonna start attacking rights that we have enjoyed in this state and in this country for a number of years and that's gonna affect young kids and. What do I got 1015 years left? if I'm lucky? Alright, you know not a whole lot. I can do to me I'm worried about my daughter. I'm worried about my grandkids. who I have grandkids that are as old as my daughter. you know, I'm worried about what is gonna be left for them. so it it really is important for young people to get out and vote in primary go vote for whoever you. Is the best person but when it comes to the general in November, you know vote for the person that matches the majority of your things you're never gonna find a candidate that agrees with you on every issue. I've been voting since I've been 18 years old. I don't know that I ever voted for a candidate that agreed on everything that Dan Homan wanted, but I could find one that agreed with a lot of things that Dan Homan wanted and I've never really. But the other party was trying to sell so please go vote. It's important. It's it it. It's it's for your life. you know so it's up to you guys. Awesome. Thanks Danny that was Danny Home and the President of Acme, the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees Council, 60 - one we have a great mayday Danny and if you haven't registered to vote yet in Iowa or you haven't got your absentee ballot, you can go to NXT GN. US slash Primary Iowa It will go to all the steps next we have Mike Bates Bates is the President of Des Moines area American Postal Workers Union Local 44 Mike tell us about what the American Postal Workers Union does in Iowa well thanks for having me on we protect and process now for the carriers. we also maintain the buildings and the vehicles for the Postal Service and we deliver mail station-to-station we represent eight. Members in the Des Moines area and about a 50 mile radius around de Moines. We also unionize a trucking company that is out of Des Moines and Kansas City. Awesome now President Trump is President Trump in a couple of lawmakers have discussed requiring the USPS. Let's say the United States Postal Service increase rates on customers in order to receive funding during the crisis. So you know the price of stamps going up the price of shipping going up and that increase might not seem that much the average American is just 1234 cents, but can you tell us about some of the work that American workers are doing across Iowa and across the country to help people who really need an affordable reliable mail service? sure People don't know that the Postal Service delivers 40 percent of UPS and FedEx Mail. It's called the last mile. It's not worth the it's not a profitable for those guys to go down into a small town in Iowa or anywhere else in the country that the full service was privatized. the corporations will reduce services to rural America in inner cities and raise prices on customers. Real Iowa depends on the full service to deliver medications and farm equipment. we operate. Zero taxpayer dollars the board of Governors has requested a 25 billion dollar stimulus money to bridge the revenue that we're losing due to the Corona virus travels me that the Trump administration will provide aid to cruise ships, Airlines and other businesses, but they refused to help the pulse service I also think that the Union is working on expanding services. Such as puls banking, secured broadband Internet and Iowa to where the Postal Service will be at the hot spot in rural Iowa, So the small towns can thrive again charging station for electric cars passport centers, hunting and fishing lights, and so we're looking at expanding services and not just be in the industry. That's awesome. Another question. So what's the A P W you've been doing to help keep the workers safe from Corona virus cuz I sent out a couple letters usually every week or every month, you know whether. A happy birthday card or a Mother's Day card coming up and for me I go to a box. I put a letter in the mail and that's the last I will see of it. so what's a PW doing to kinda make sure that your workers are safe during this crisis. that we're safe, we go to get our mail pick up what's going on behind the scenes well, we're placing Plexiglas in between the window operations putting markings on the floor to observe the six feet distance. Practicing social distancing we're working with management to make all employees have mask and face Shields, which they're doing a very good job. I I I can't say nothing bad about the pulse service they have been taking care of their employees with P E hand sanitizers gloves disinfectants to wipe down their work areas. we just started a pledge of personal accountability. To wear refuses to take temperatures of the employees like other companies. so what we did, We started a personal accountability prior to coming to work. Take your temperature if it's above A hundred, stay home, wear gloves and mask disinfect your work area prior to work working wash your hands 20 seconds before it breaks and lunches and then we also started a zoom meeting Monday through Friday. for a. with the governor's shutdown, we can't have a Union meetings. so what I did is. I started Zoom meetings and it's a great way to keep the communications level moving with your membership and and to get their concerns and where we might be lacking PE or anything like that. awesome. Well. Thank you Mike. I wish you a happy May day. I hope you have a great weekend. I see that it looks like little kid in the background there So imagine they probably wanna have. Play around time So I want to update that we do have a petition where people can contact their legislators in Iowa to demand mailing elections so one thing that the American Postal Service American Postal Workers Union and the USPS is doing to help all of us. Keep safe is allow us to mail in ballot and instead of having to go to a really high trafficked place to vote by sending an absentee ballot mail, we can really reduce the number of people who we're exposing ourselves to. So if you believe that we should allow counties to all mail-in ballot just send out ballots to people who are registered to vote then go to NXT G N dot US slash mailing M A I L I N Dash Iowa and you can follow a form that will go to Governor Kim Reynolds, your state senator and your state representative telling them that you demand better protections for our mail and ballot system and to expand it. So once again, Thank you, Mike Bayes, that was the President of the Ruy area Americans' work. Union local 44 and up Next I wanna introduce Sule, who is the executive director of the Iowa Citizens Action Network, Sue, Are you there? Can you tell us a little bit? I'm here Action Network. I'm here. Thank you Anthony. I as you said I'm the executive director of Iowa Citizen Action Network. We're a grassroots public interest Organization committed to creating social change across the nation and in Iowa we've been around for over 40 years. I was. Is and leading efforts to change the public climate for Progressive change, so we believe in working in coalition and have a lot of organizational affiliates from a wide range of constituency and I'm proud to say many of those are organized labor and I'm happy to be in such a great company on this call today and then you're gonna be around longer than 10 or 12 or 15. But and as director of I can, I wear a lot of hats including being in the state Director of Tax March, Iowa, and that's an affiliate of the National Tax March and here we and I've had an exciting 12 months we've been attending events. We've been writing and delivering postcards to elected officials. We've been hauling around the 12 foot inflatable Trump chicken to events and in the back of our pickup and everywhere we can take him. We speak to groups and we've reached out to hundreds of Iowans and a lot more. In fact, I don't know if you can see the shirt I have on, we have a tax. A Red shirt and I tried to calculate the other day. I think we've given out about 1200 of them around the state and it's all in an effort to shine a light on the unfair tax law and ensure that our tax the rich message activates Iowans statewide, and it has been here in Iowa. That sounds great, too. I mean, yeah. so when Americans think about what our taxes to go to that, you know, we are a little bit of money we throw in the pot and we trust our lawmakers to distribute that equitably and that you know if you're making tons of money out of the economy if you're making millions or billions you know you should have to pay for. More But when we saw that cares that come out, we saw a lot of big corporations getting a lot more money than the small businesses that you know are family-owned Moma stores. So what if Iowans been talking to you recently about that kind of inequity we've been seeing well, you know before I it should be BC I guess before we had already been in a rigged economy and it's been getting worse and worse. in fact, it's not been since the Great Depression that the difference between the haves and. Have not been as wide as it was and then Cobain hit Uss and here in Iowa. we've had 77 counties opening up businesses even as our numbers of cases and deaths are soaring and the relief to small business and everyday Iowans is appallingly lacking and at the very top of our federal government, thanks to high paid lobbyists and wealthy donors, the White House and some members of Congress are trying to shield these bad actor corporations from lawsuits filed by their for. Workers and their patrons, but you know what Americans are listening and so are we you know we are mobilizing to demand that any future relief packages have to correct the shortcomings of the first three and they have to prioritize the needs of the people and the families who are suffering the most. we know that in less workers receive hazard pay and insured people have access to insurance. unemployed people receive the support they need and like was mentioned. State and local authorities have the funding to get their communities through this and corporations are held accountable for putting their workers. First. this pandemic will just continue to bear the whitening gap between the Super wealthy and the rest of this and you know a little more here-I'm on a bandwagon now in the midst of all of this, what we really wanna know is where senators Ernst Grassley. Why are they against standing up for big business and the wealthy instead of standing with the people of Iowa, we need a lot more than that. And prayers and bailouts for their campaign donors and the half measures we've been giving we have to have. We need funding for small business. We need long-term solutions for the citizens of our state and country and what we need our senators to use their voices to raise ours. So you know we're proud to stand in solidarity the solidarity with working in the Middle class people and small business owners and farmers in the front line workers and I don't think it's too much for senators to do that as well. Also, I mean, I definitely don't see the kind of leadership that we expect out of a place. a guy that's being hit really hard right now. you know so kind of one more question on the on the tax marks stuff is young people. Most of us still aren't filing our own taxes. we see taxes is something that you know it's way above our head. Why should young Iowans young voters really care about these issues like economic and really make them a priority for our officials to care about too. Four. That's at stake Young People's Future is at stake and maybe you're too young to get that $1200 economic stimulus, but your parents are getting it and it's helping you and if things continue the way they are unless you are Uber wealthy or have Uber wealthy parents or have stock or big stockholder in a big Corporation, you're screwed. Basically, you know. We're seeing a lot of the drug companies, for instance, taking our tax dollars for research and development of honen drugs and what's going to happen. That's that's our tax money your tax money that's paying for that who's going to profit from that. No one should we We need a fair system and we need young people to stand up and demand it. We're getting old and Danny and I are getting old. We're too tired to do this all the time so well, I guess we'll just be up to us kind of take the charts for it. Please thank you sue for jumping on board. I hope you hit the. A really great mayday I'm gonna drop a link if you believe in economic Justice, one of the things I've been really brought up that a young people really gravitate towards is that they have a universal basic income or UBI. if you believe that you want your Congress person to fight for an issue like universal basic income basically where we would get a similar check each month to help on issues, especially during right now. you can go to NXT Gion dot US slash UBI Dash, Iowa and there's an Email form where you can go. contact your Congress person. And up next someone who is probably hearing from a lot of constituents right now, we have the Des Moines Des Moines Ward three Councillor Josh Mandelbaum, Joshua there. Yup. I'm here. Awesome. Hi Jeremy Yup. many of us have seen a lot of stories, especially about the Des Moines recently. can you tell us about the work that the Des Moines City government has been doing for people right now? Yeah, so the city of Des Moines is is working to continue providing the essential. That we need, but then also playing a role to educate the public. Keep our employees safe, but keep the general public safe. So we have our front line workers. you know my my trash was picked up picked up today. We have our police and fire who are out each and every day responding to calls we have places where people can get outside and be active and healthy during this our parks so we're. Working to continue to provide the same city services that are essential services and the impact everyone's lives every single day, But then we add another layer and we have to think about how we're keeping our employees safe. You know we had our first police officer today it was announced that tested positive for Coen 19, and we need we're doing work to make sure that our employees get the personal protective equipment. They need that our policies are adopted. It folks can take paid time off and it might not be their normal paid time off paid time off if they need to quarantine at home or if they need to take care of a loved one or if they're without child care right now because schools are closed and their situation might have changed dramatically. so we're trying to adapt to all those situations. and then there's the public facing piece where we're we're trying to encourage people to practice social distancing and give them give them the space to do that. So we've closed. Downtown to create more space around the sculpture Park. We've closed some streets around Lake Park again. We wanna encourage people to be active and healthy, but to do so in a way that they're taking the appropriate safety measures to keep themselves safe to keep others safe and we have a role in all of that and we're trying to to get that balance right and and help folks make good decisions while maintaining their basic services that they need. It definitely sounds like a lot of you are working around the clock on these things I'm making changes meanwhile, there are lots of counties that are opening back up in different ways today. we didn't have a stay at home or in our. we're one of the only four or five States that never issued one but there are relaxing restraints going on and some other areas so like you said about paid sick leave a lot of people right now, feeling a bit concerned about the safety of the workplace and many of us heard during the press conference with the governor that so. Workers and not return to their workplace, they would forfeit their eligibility for unemployment insurance benefits. So if you didn't think that your employer, your boss was keeping the workplace safe enough, you don't wanna go to work you could forfeit receiving unemployment. What do you wanna tell workers in Iowa and Des Moines, especially if they don't feel safe at their job during this time? well, so I don't think that the governor stated the law correctly when she said that if employer. Are not providing a safe workplace and the employer doesn't return. I believe that you still qualify for unemployment insurance but one of the keys if it's employees or employers are not providing a safe workplace. reach out contact folks so we can shine a light on that because one of the things that we are working on to the extent that we are involved. In any conversation about reopening the key is how do you do that safely and properly, so we need to get the public health piece of this right first, we need to prioritize increase testing and contact tracing so that people can take the steps I need to protect themselves. First so people are healthy and that you need to figure out how we do that with our with our employers and one example that that is come up recently with the governor saying that farmers market. Can reopen well Des Moines has one of the largest farmers markets in the state and we're not gonna open up based on some arbitrary date. that the governor provides we're gonna we're gonna open up based on facts and practices being in place that can keep our people safe. and so everyone has a part to play in that, but everyone should be willing to contact their elected officials to shine light on employers who are not playing their part. Keeping people safe and is there a specific Department or something that people in Des Moines or Polk County can reach out for that. Well, I encourage if there's bad actors reach out to your local elections city Council your state legislators and and we can get working on that right away. awesome. so I'm I said again so things like paid sick leave things like increase minimum wage the things that a lot of Iowans, especially young Iowans really want to see in their state. really thing is that make them want to stay here and become young professionals and you know set roots down and Iowa. what is Des Moines? What do people like you who are representing these constituencies need from the federal and state government and what obstacles do you face and pushing to best represent those people cuz unfortunately right now you know Des Moines couldn't just pass minimum wage increase. So what do you need people to do to advocate on your behalf? Yeah. So what one of the things we have the the Blue City Red state problem right now in in the sense that when. Wants to do things that look after workers and and look after regular folks, whether it be a minimum wage increase or something like we just did which made source of income a protected class for housing discrimination so that you can't you can't discriminate against someone if they're using a section, eight voucher or alimony or child support to help pay their rent and when. Do something like that the reaction from the Republicans in the state Legislature has been to try and stop the local government so we need help fighting back on the state government trying to take away our ability to to pass a Progressive ordinances and to protect our folks and then we need it in the broader covid- 19 response. we're we're gonna need federal assistance and dollars so that. Our budget, it's gonna take a massive hit, and that means cuts to services and the things that impact people on a day in and day out basis. so we need help just like Danny was advocating for that federal package for state and local governments to be included in that next package. Awesome. Well, Thank you Josh. one thing you can do at home right now. if you wanna do some advocacy yourself we have a call line 51531660 that will patch you through to the governor's office. right now, she has a lineup. that's totally automatic if you're like me and you don't really like talking to people on the phone. this is totally all robots. you can call 51531660 she is asking people to give their thoughts and opinions on how they feel. reopening of the economy right now, it's a simple press one to get the virus concerns and then press one If you support the opening of the economy press two. If you don't that's really important because this is really how we talk to our legislators when they're in office. we do have a primary June second in elections this November third but for the mean time, then we really do need to keep in contact with our our lawmakers right now. so thank you Josh again and we're gonna go next to Sophie Karr, who's an executive member of the Union of Grell Student Dining worker Sophie there. yeah. I'm here. Hi. Sophie Great for May day most people imagine you need workers as people in career jobs, not in College. So how is unionizing the dining workers at Grinnell benefited your workers your students, your colleagues and friends and what challenges did you face? Yeah. So I mean you're right. We are kind of unfortunately standing alone. We are proud to be one of the first undergraduate labor unions in the country, but also we want more company obviously, because unions have been greatly beneficial to our dining workers since you. We have been able to increase the pay of $10 an hour for all of our workers, including the high school employees who aren't like Grinnell students. we have also got like mandated rest breaks and stuff like that that have really helped increase like make the working conditions better right, which is the goal of the Union and I think that we have been really successful in doing it. We have a lot of work to do because one of the challenges that we face is being heard and being taken seriously. I. You know we are young and I think a lot of people tend to look at that as kind of a downside like we're inexperienced or we don't know what we need but I would argue that that's not true. we know what we need and I think that having a Union where we're willing to fight for what we need and make it clear that we are unhappy with with working conditions or with pay rates or with anything that we that we are willing to organize and that we are going to do so until we have the respect that we feel we deserve as student workers. That's absolutely amazing to me that you could be a Union worker while still in high school and that's amazing progress that I I I've never even heard of. That's so great to hear as you're saying, young people often feel left out of economic discussions out of politics. it's really easy for people to kinda push youngers away. so how do you guys make your voice heard Torino administration. What are the different ways and pathways that you really stand together in solidarity and push for change? We have taken a lot of different routes right now. Currently, we actually have a petition out to demand respect from our administration, which like which is a big term right respect but we're asking for transparency because right now, our College is trying to put out different policies for students and student workers like during this Corona virus crisis but a lot of them are kind of ignoring the needs of lower income or working students. And so we have a petition out that. We are asking them to be more transparent about like what how they come to the decisions that they come to you with these policies and then also an appeal process for one of the policies that they have is like a work study or work or they pay you for hours that you didn't work, but a lot of people felt that it didn't represent their actual work and then also it's not enough to now sustain themselves especially considering that we've lost our on-campus housing and we've a lot of people have lost our. Campus jobs and so that's been a real challenge but yeah when we were on campus, we'd love to do like really engaging direct actions, one of our favorites and I think a crowd favorite was occupying Noland House, which is a House on campus where a lot of administrators were including the President of our College and I think that with our messaging, we really do want to build solidarity like that's what we're all about. We're all about. Hey, we're student workers and we're. Through this together and we need to band together in order to find success and so a lot of our things we have like singing or fun activities like doing sidewalk in front of Nolan House and things that get College students engaged in out of this like really stressful mindset that being in College and then being a student worker in College can put you in awesome. Yeah. I mean I think the biggest thing is that I can talk about is there's really strength in numbers. I mean when you all stand together, that's a lot more impactful. you know it's one by one and that's exactly what our messages in the next hour that young people if we all vote together. if we all really show up for, that's how we get the issues that we care about on the ballot. That's how we get it on the bills and and really make a country a state counties and cities which reflect our values, is by coming out together and voting. you know so if we're facing historic unemployment for the second time in our lives alone. And many of us if you're like me, have thousands and tens of thousands of dollars of student debt on top of that and meanwhile, the minimum wage has been stuck in the same level as it's been since 2009 and I'm not even sure if I have that many memories when I was that young so what Grinnell did the Student Dining is really amazing to see what actions do other College students would you recommend them to do if they really wanna make any economy that works better for them? I mean I absolutely would suggest if it's possible to try to unionize your students. I think that. outside of like the grievance process or the bargaining process or anything like that, it is powerful to have a group on campus that is advocating for workers rights because while we are students, we are also workers and I know that for a lot of us, those roles are equal if not dependent on each other, like I often say that if I wasn't working at Grinnell College, I would not be at Grinnell College just because I wouldn't be able to afford it. And you know, I think that if you unionize that you can genuinely enact positive change to make your experience and the experience of people beyond you more positive. I also think that right now, especially with the Corona virus the entire narrative on labor is changing like you know you hear the term essential labor, which I think is funny in quotes because it literally implies a hierarchy of how people value labor when really all of us are essential pieces and I think that. This crisis has really put to you the people who you can't put on hold you know like your workers, your grocery store workers your policeman your you know everyone who has been talked about so far today. These are people you can't put on Pause. You can't just say, go home and do nothing because their work is Super necessary to function as a society and be financially. They might not be able to do it and we as young people are going into these positions of employment. We don't start fighting for our rights now and demanding respect and you know good working conditions. good pay now then in the future there is ever a crisis. We're gonna be left high and dry, just like everyone now has so I think that unionizing or at least organizing around labor is Super important for us young people to be doing because we never know what's gonna happen. we just know that we're gonna have to endure this mess. Of an economy that we're inheriting and if we wanna make it work for us, we need to start demanding now that it worked for us because the future is coming fast. I think that we've all kinda notice that and yeah, I just yeah unionizing obviously is a big one voting Was' talked about earlier get people in office that you feel genuinely represent you or that will work in your interest because that's what I represented. Are supposed to do and get in positions of power Get in positions of office. You know like put yourself out there and get yourself in a place where you yourself can enact change for other people. whatever that may mean for you. So yeah. Thank you so much so for coming on here and representing UG S D W I appreciate it so much. It's so amazing to see young people take power into their own hands like that's much kinda like what you're saying it's of the ad. you know the best time to plant a tree was yesterday. The second S is now and I think that you know when we are seeing an economic crisis, the best time to unionize was yesterday, but the second best time is today, so something to keep in mind. When we go forward is you know we really do need to make sure that we're creating the economy that we need for crisis when we're out of that crisis. so thank you. Sofia again with an executive member of the Union, Grinnell, and we have a special guest with us also who is Mike's Moet who is with faculty for of Iowa and speaking of unionized and speaking of humanizing on campuses Mike. If you're can you tell us about the work that faculty Ford is doing at the University of Iowa. Alright. Thanks for having me I didn't know I was a special guest so we've organized the non. Faculty of the University of Iowa, about 22 and a half years ago and we had a couple of protests that went with the deer colleague letter and a list of demands to improve our working conditions. we did a great in at the President's office and then we marched to the President's House and we put some lawn signs on his lawn and left in there and he didn't like that very much and you know held probably the largest rally at that at that location. We then got a meeting with the President and some of the top officials of the University they had us meet at the police station and our members were first going to meet with the President. the late Jeff Cox said he doesn't you know, he said he didn't ever hear of a faculty having to be first by police to meet with their employer before but out of that meeting, which is very tense first until we turn the tables and begin to win the argument of it. we want a major victory in terms of getting the University to. Reduce the threshold for for members with benefit back down from where to where it had been some years before 50 percent so that restored you know health care and retirement benefits to about 64 of our members and really helped a lot of people. we suspect that the board of regents and or the President of the University, got a hold of this and was not happy with the administrator who were in charge of that because from that point forward, the University told us that. They were going to stop talking to us and so you know we are not a formal Union and under Chapter 20, We're in no position to and there's not much reason to formally incorporate as a Union. we have been blessed by you know be able to work with SEIU who's provided some staff hours for us and I look forward is of course, a nationwide campaign of of of a. IU trying to you know, move forward the rights and working conditions for a non-tenure track faculty across the country. so the next step was we processed on the board of Regents meeting shut it down actually and they did that agreed to meet with us. I was at that meeting the first meeting our our demand was a sort of a no cost to them and they agreed to it the President of the board of. The chair the in and out coming incoming and outgoing chair of the Senate of the University, Were there. They all say? yeah, let's do this. We want a sick leave policy like what University of Northern Iowa has where members can you know employees can contribute their sick leave to a Bank so that when somebody does get sick, they will be covered the problem is that not just non-tenure track faculty but 97 percent of faculty. Have no sick leave coverage should they get seriously ill before in a kind of a four to five month period before catastrophic policy kicks in so, that means you have to make a choice between working while you're ill so that you can continue to have health care benefits or going without health care benefits. while you're getting seriously ill. we had a we had several members of the Department had cancer one of them very serious cancer. initially had to make this horrible choice and continue working while he was ill and sadly as the negotiations continued and I was an alternate so I wasn't in the meetings on the day that they sort of flipped the script on us and told us that they were not going to do what they had told us they would do it the first meeting but they were going to study this and then they ended up breaking it down to 12 stages and it's gonna be a long term phased in policy. They hid behind some legally saying that you know they couldn't do with the University of Northern Iowa has done and it was so our members walked out of that meeting but it happened to be some of that very same day. that are that our member who had the stage four cancer passed away. So this was a real I really you know, tragic and sad result of those meetings. so since then we've been trying to kind of regroup and figure out a new strategy. we you know continue to have a long list of demands you may not be familiar with tenure, but tenure is basically when the University Gries to fund your research. so those of us who are not tenured, We don't get funding for research. We teach more courses we are by our numbers our calculations. We have something like 51 percent of faculty at the University of Iowa and we do something like 70 percent of the courses but we get paid less we generally have less benefits less access to conference funds. You know other rights less representation and shared governance and so on so that's been our campaign and that's what we're working on more recently. I guess I should also say we had a meeting and we're kind of trying to work in a coalition with CI as well as the nurses Union that Cathy Lawson has You-know-who run for a governor A couple of years ago, has been you know one of the leaders of they've been very active and we've also been working with the graduate student Union Couls on campus, and there's also a new student group students for work. that we've recently had a kind of a social event with those two groups on campus, so we're in the midst of trying to do some coalition building but it's been a really uphill battle. and of course, you know we're not a formal Union and it just one last thing about Pss that kind of you know. I'm sure many of you are familiar but these new laws that have been coming down means that cogs has to continue the Union they have to continue to have a vote. I believe it's every two years or is now every year that they have to you know prove that their members are for having you so that. A tremendous resources and it's a tremendous energy, but they've had huge turn out in favor of continuing their Union. so look to them as a as a strong ally. So. Gotcha. Now I went to Penn State for my undergraduate and so there we had that the faculty were unionized and the graduate employees try to unfortunately now just to be clear. So at the University of Iowa, it's the graduate students who are unionized, but the faculty are currently correct amazing well well, why should students support the unionized faculty at their University? Why do you think it's important for students at University of Iowa? The Hawkeyes really care about well in terms of student self interest. first of all, we're you know, we're the majority of the people you're in contact with. And secondly, you know the University is pushing for larger and larger classrooms. They have been for for for eons and in this Corona's crisis, we're already hearing from different departments that that visiting assistant professors those who have this sort of at least job security and usually just teach one course at a time maybe losing their jobs because they're gonna consolidate to trim budgets which means larger class sizes for people like me lectures Morey. more stress you know same pay more work for us. so we're gonna be more stressed out but class size. I think is huge as somebody who teaches classes of you know, 75 students and more. you know, I really prefer working with students in a smaller classroom. I can get to know them. I can help steer their career along it's really hard to get to know 70 - five students from one class and you know there's issues. there's a lot of other issues that come up in terms of you know how we supported if we're not supported in our research. Then it's a real challenge for us, even though we're not expected to do research, We're not really directly supported for. it's certainly a challenge to kinda stay up on the literature and be at our. you know top of our game in terms of course content, which we of course like to do so, there's a few of the challenges and there's many more. I'm a one more question as we get to the top of the hour so many of our students and students across Iowa are wrapping up classes in the month of May, they're away from campus, but a lot of them register to vote on campus for the caucus or you know from previous years so they can still request an absentee ballot for that address and have it sent to a different address wherever they're living in currently when you're talking about the issues that students are facing on campuses right now, you're bringing up bills before that are affecting the ability for their faculty, the professors to collectively bargaining with the. Iowa State Legislature up for reelection this year. What are some of the issues that you want to tell students and faculties and universities? what are some of the issues that are at stake this November. Well, you know we would love to see a Democratic regime come in because we don't think the Republicans are going to go to backtrack on their changes to Chapter 20. you know there was a lot of sense that Fred Hubble won the governorship that that those changes would be rescinded and we would be allowed to unionize. If we could, you know, get a great gain, a majority of members unions. Would really help us you know to be able to to move forward with you know the kind of changes that we'd like to see the University has been you know so disingenuous in in It''s saying that they can't speak to us because the law that they're referring to is one that prevents them from interfering with our attempts to unionize but since we can't really unionize and that's and we've explained to them, that's not actually what we're doing is. We're not we're not currently pursuing a formal. immunization drive that they're just sort of using that as an excuse, not to talk to us so having the right to unionize will allow us to actually sort of bring our employer to the table Have a seat at the table and begin you know pushing for some of the changes that we think will improve the quality of education at University of Iowa gotcha. and with that I thank you. Mike Mike with faculty Ford Iowa Branch of SEIU. this has been our May day virtual. Rally we hope that next May next May day we'll be we'll be able to go on you know nice awesome activities outside things like rallies, parades are regularly expect to see on May day if you like this event, if you want to see more events like this pledge to vote this June June second primary pledge to vote on November third primary, you can do that by going to NXT G NS NextGen without the E NexGen dot US slash vote dash, Iowa that'll get you involved in our process and all the upcoming events that we have. It also shows us where there's interest in young people voting. It shows us where you know the next campus that we should go to. there is hope that you know camps is gonna open up maybe late summer or into the fall semester, and that's really a lot of the work that we need to do to make sure that young people come out and vote for a country that works for them and the economy work for them. So thank you all for coming and watching. Thank you all to our speakers. there'll be a follow-up email through our Mobilize events page about how you can take actions moving forward. Hope you have a great day. Hey, everybody make sure to go vote.