CJ

I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but I think it was a turning point. They still turned down our proposals, but we were telling our story.

There was another lady who works at another building, Regions Tower, and she was telling her story, too. She has arthritis — she’s the one I was telling you about who can barely walk. They basically told her that she had to stop talking about it because she was making the company look bad, and they don’t want that reputation. So she either needs to stop or she will get fired for doing union work.

So Paul organized something for her real quick. He calls me up and says, “Hey man, so this is the plan for the day. We’re going to go out in front of Regions Tower, and I want you to come. But here’s the kicker. Are you ready to get arrested?”

I’m like, for real? Arrested? Because I’ve been arrested before, and it wasn’t pretty. I don’t like police that much. I’ve had many bad experiences with them. But I said, “Okay I’ll do it,” because it was something that needed to be done. I got my coworker at Jimmy John’s to cover the rest of my shift.

And we did it. We blocked the street off and said, “You’re not gonna treat this woman this way.” While we were sitting down, she’s standing up like, “I’m not backing down. I work in this building and you’re threatening to fire me, but I’m right here.”

That was a turning point for their building. They got the healthcare that they needed at Regions Tower. That was always the plan, we just had to figure out how to do it. And that’s how we did it.

So eventually I found a place to live. That was my birthday present, actually. I still have nothing in this place, and it’s been like a couple months. So I’m feeling empowered because now I have a place, with the lights turned on.

When we went into bargaining again, I left my house. I left my bike at Jimmy John’s and grabbed something to eat, then I walked in with a new outfit on. They didn’t know what was going on, but it felt good to me, to be able to hold that part of myself down. To know that when I leave this building I have somewhere to go.

We did another sit-down protest out in front of Lilly, and there were a couple of bosses from SBM there, and I’m pretty sure a couple of executives from Eli Lilly headquarters. And so I decided to tell my story again. The protesters were all looking at the street, but I grabbed the bullhorn and told them to turn around and look at the executives.

And I started speaking to the executives. I said, “This is real. You see this bike over here? That’s my bike. I bike everywhere, every day. That’s my Cadillac. And I’m busting my butt for you every day. And I have my place now. No thanks to you. No thanks to you.”

The protesters are still facing the street. They’re not even looking at Lilly. I’m telling people to turn around. “Turn around, look at the building. Look at the people that are paying you. They decide to put people out in the street or not. The people that are signing your checks are right here. They need to see you.”

That was the most impactful thing that I’ve done within this fight. To be able to tell people, “Look at the company.” And to tell the company, “Look at these people. Whatever they’re going through, it’s real.”

So the next bargaining that we did, it was the best thing I ever saw. They just walked in, sat down, said that our healthcare premium will be $100 a month, as opposed to $280 or $300 which it is now. We got a seventy-five-cent raise for the first year. It’s kind of big for the first year. And then for the second year we got a forty-cent raise, and so on. I’ll be making $11.60 by the end of this contract. Which is still not enough. But it’s a whole lot better than the $9.75 I’m making right now.