 I want to welcome everybody, I'm Barbara Madaloni with Labor Notes, and I'm excited to be out here in LA with a Labor Notes crew, as well as some allies from United Caucus of Rankin File Educators. We've been out here for a week now, supporting the strike, last week doing phone banking and supporting plans for delivery of flyers and signs and getting ready at the picket lines, and it's just been amazing since, I guess it was only since yesterday that the strike began, that it feels like Jillian's laughing there, it's amazing how much time it feels like has already passed, because the ground is shifting under us, or certainly under Superintendent Butner, because of the power of the LA teachers. So just a few things in terms of how this is going to work for those of you who are listening in, you will see, you should see down on your screen, a place for a chat box and a Q&A. We will be taking questions, but the way I'd like it to start is, I have a few questions myself for the educators and union members here at UTLA, probably going to talk about that for about 20, 25 minutes, and then we'll open it up for those of you who are participating, so as you have questions, you can put them in the Q&A or in the chat, I'll follow through and when it comes time for you to ask your question, I will let you know that it's your turn, I'll unmute you, and you can speak, please keep your questions as questions, and it's certainly less than a minute, and then we'll hand those over to the panelists. So if everybody's good to go, I have one more thing I need to do, okay, now we are going to be officially live on Facebook, so we're getting there, tick, tick, tick, and there we are, but I do have one more question for my producer, Samantha Winslow, how do I get back to my screen, there we go, all right, we're good to go, all right, so Jillian, at the top of my screen, so I'll invite you to start off first by just introducing yourself, who you are, where you teach, how long you've been a union member, if you have a specific role in the union, say that, and then we'll go to Mark, and then Carla, and then let's hear about the strike. Go ahead, Jillian. Hi everyone, I'm Jillian Russum, I've been teaching high school history in LA for 18 years, and pretty much been active in the union for that whole time, and now I represent the East Area on the union's board of directors. Great, Mark. Hi everyone, my name is Mark Ramos, I am a high school history teacher, been teaching for 11 years, I've been involved in the union for all 11 years, and now I'm a on the board of director representing North Area. Great, thank you, and Carla. I'm Carla Griego, I teach high school, I am on the board of directors for UTLA, and I'm also area chair. Great, and I've been teaching for 15 years. All right, well I want to thank the three of you very much for being on with us, I know it's been a very intense couple of months, and certainly an incredibly intense last week for all of you as you prepare for this strike. Maybe you could start off by just giving some context here. What's this strike about? Why are you on strike? What are your demands? Just jump. Carla, go for it. Well, we've got a long, a lot of demands on this strike, in fact that's one of the things that we often talk about is how many things we put on our, at the bargaining table. From, we started off with the demands around work issues, salary, and then we expanded those demands to include some community demands. We had many discussions around bargaining for the common good, and we arrived at the decision that those were things that were very worthy to fight for our students. We knew all along that we had to do it, but to put it to the table, and really fighting for immigrant rights, for the end to random searches, which is something that came out of students, came from students demanding that, and we thought that was very important to include that. We commuted schools as another big demand, and then we started also looking at testing and over-testing and how that impacts instruction, and particularly with students like kids in special education, English, language, language, so we added things around testing, things that the district does not want to negotiate on, but that we know as educators are very important, because they impact students learning and they take away resources, just how costly they are. So those, and then of course we have salary, we have working conditions, class size is one of our major ones, we have a clause in our contract, it's called section 1.5, that although we have, I guess, someone sent caps for class size numbers in our contract, there is this section that says that if the district has financial, is under financial stress, they have the authority to not abide by the contract class size. So they've had that and they've used it forever, ever since they put it in there. So that's a very important one that we want to make sure it's off and out of the contract. I'll give space for other folks to add to this, but I want to take it all. Great, thank you. Mark, if you want to jump in. I would also add to that that one of our calls in our negotiation is the privatization of the public school system in LA OSD. I think in the past couple years, there's been a 287% growth in charter schools, unregulated charter schools in Los Angeles, and the district fails to collect money from those charter schools, from charter schools, and which is costing the district $600 million that could be used for public schools. And Jillian, did you want to add anything to that? Just really quick, I mean, to give people an idea of what we're talking about, we're just talking about decades of conditions getting worse and worse in the schools. And so it is very, very common in secondary schools to have 40, 43, 46 students in a class, which is just absolutely outrageous. And we've talked about how 80% of our elementary schools have no full-time nurse, and counselors are working with 950 students. And our school district is 85% black and brown students. We've seen that the dramatic underfunding of our schools has happened in California in the last four decades as the number of students of color has grown. So we actually see a willful disrespect and abandonment of students of color, and these conditions are outrageous. And we've put up with them and put up with them because teachers do that, they try to make it work. And I think this is really this outpouring of saying we're not going to allow that anymore for our students or ourselves. Great, thanks. So just again, this is Barbara Mantelloni, and I'm with Labor Notes. We're here at the United Teachers of Los Angeles in LA, speaking to three educators and union members from UTLA who are deep in the struggle here in this absolutely critical strike. And we've heard a little bit just now from Jillian about sort of like that this strike is the result of decades of an assault on public education in LA, and in particular, we understand that assault to be an assault on Black and Brown children and their communities with the underfunding of schools. And, you know, what we heard from Mark and Carla then is that with an understanding of that context that the demands for this strike go way beyond salary and health benefits, although that's part of it, but are really demands that encompass bargaining for the common good, bargaining beyond salary and wages to include accountability for charter schools, to have the district take invest in the resources and community schools, to look at and stop the random searches of students issues relative to immigrant rights. So really broadening the scope of bargaining and saying we want more for our students and for ourselves. So that's where we are in terms of the demands. We're going to get back to that a little bit because I know we have a question about that. We'll come back to that. But I think part of what people probably want to hear right now is you went out on strike yesterday morning. You had to delay the strike. You had planned to go out last Thursday. So you got yourselves four more days to plan and four more days to get anxious. But you went out yesterday had two great rallies. I'd like to hear from you about what it's been like to be out there on the picket lines. And you got to jump in. I'll go and then Mark and then Jillian. How about people like that? So it's been amazing. I mean, we knew it. We've read about this. You know, it's happened in the past and we've seen it with the other strikers across the country. But being in it is just incredible. We've been doing circles at my school in between activities. So we pick it, then we do a circle and then we go to the citywide action. We lunch together and then we circle and everybody has been talking about how they've been, it's been bringing them back just their previous knowledge and understanding of labor of social justice movements and how they have been feeling really ignited. And some folks have said, I have been feeling like I've been doing things but I haven't felt power. And now I feel power. And it's so it's really a magical thing that is happening among people to see the solidarity from the community is amazing. I mean, it's just nonstop love for teachers. As we're walking down streets, we don't even have our picket signs and people are just supporting us and honking just because we know Metro is allowing us to go on free buses or free parks or opening their door. It's just amazing. It's built such incredible community. And I think that the city, which is something that I don't know if you didn't expect this, the city is showing their love for educators. And it's a wonderful, wonderful feeling. And so I think we're everybody knows that we're in it until we get a settlement that is good for our students. And that is what we talk about on a regular basis so that, you know, we can every day we know it's a fight, it's a fight, but we know we're doing it for our students. And we believe that it is, we are going to win. There's this faith that we're going to win. Mark, what's it been like for you and the picket lines, who you've been? So it's been also amazing. It's been great. My three-year-old son comes with me in the morning, at 6.30 in the morning every, every strike day. There's been some community members, some folks on the line that walked the line in 89 and came back to walk with us to 2019. So seeing at the school side, it's been so much parent support, community support. But when I go to the bigger rallies, it really shows the sheer numbers of support and teachers that are out there that are fighting for what's right for our students. And if you see any of the aerial pictures, we're pretty much shutting downtown LA for the teachers, for the students, for our communities. And seeing those aerial pictures, it's almost like jaw-dropping and we're doing it in downpour and it's raining and there's still 50,000 people out there for the schools. Today, the second day, same thing, we're from the Charter School Association, 50,000 teachers again. And at some point, I heard that the LAPD stopped counting because they don't want to count after 50,000. Don't want to count 50,001. So, Jillian, I want to hear from you, but I also want you to start sort of talking and thinking a little bit on pickup on something that Carla said, or two things that she said. One is the experience of power, that the people really feeling their power and feeling their power, certainly, as Mark says, like I was out there yesterday, 50,000 people, that's powerful. And dancing today to Ozo Matli with 50,000 people was another kind of power. But I'm interested in how you help to bring people to a place where they could feel that power. As an educator myself, I know lots and lots of teachers feel pretty powerless day in and day out in their classroom because of the assault that they're experiencing. So, as we continue talking, I'd really appreciate it if you could start to help us understand how we got to this place. But Jillian, if you want to speak first to the picket line, you go for that too. Go ahead. Yeah, there's so many stories. I mean, 30,000 person dance party in front of the California Charter Schools Association is a pretty, it's not a bad day. And then we filtered through the streets. And basically, there were impromptu music bands throughout all of downtown where school groups were forming their own performances and getting down with their chance. And it's just awesome. I had a co-worker bring three daughters with him yesterday to the picket line. And I basically saw them start their own game of picket line where they're all chanting, see, say, boy, they are jumping in rain puddles. And like, this is what young people are learning right now. So the, the Oaxacan chant that, you know, teachers fighting are also teaching is like very deeply felt on the picket lines right now in LA. And I think that it's, there's a lot more stories I would love to tell. But as far as how we got to this point, it, it, I think for those of us that have been doing this work for so long, we've been incredibly emotional because of realizing how we see fruition of what a lot of what felt like, you know, late nights and long meetings for so long. But just to, I mean, there's a long history of how we transformed our union, certainly the Chicago strike gave us a new energy behind that or although our caucus had existed for a long time, we created a motion for all members to vote on, we have the ability to do that, which said we need a campaign for the schools our students deserve. We said we need to reframe what we're doing as a union. And this was back in about 2013 that we did that. And that was the launching pad for running a new group of people to lead the union. And there's any number of steps we had to take to retool the organization. But I think there's there's three that stand out to me. And all three of these we actually had to fight around, you know, there were political disagreements in the union. One of them is the idea that we're going to create these cat teams, right, which we got from Chicago that at every school, it's not going to be one leader. We're going to need like a one to 10 ratio so that union can become about those conversations of what we're up against and why it matters to you. So I have I'm at a big high school that used to just have one chapter chair putting memos in people's boxes. And now we have 13 people that go around to the to the part of the school that they work in, and they talk to their colleagues on a regular basis to get them involved. Another one would be coming parent and community work and making that a priority. And I know we'll come back to that but there was a fight around that there were people that said with Janice coming. Hey, we're going to lose money. We can't afford parent and community organizers. And we fought for that we said without that we will lose. And then another one being fighting racism and putting that at the forefront of what we do as a union. So for example, we as a union stood with Black Lives Matter over the past several years. And when students started fighting for Black Lives Matter in schools we stood with students. While some in our union said, you know, we actually held a rally with police around more police for school safety. And we said, no, that's not where we want to stand. And we won that argument. And so we're able to put forward the demands against random searches. We're able to say this is a strike for racial justice. And we've really kind of won that argument. So those are just a few things, but I'm sure others can add to that. So I see a question being posted that I'm going to ask now because I think it's relevant and interesting in terms of sort of the detail about how you built this power. So to any of you who could answer this, but the question I'm trying to see who it's from here is asking Carol Churchill is asking, how did you actually move from having one chapter chair to having one to 10 ratio like that? Like we can say, yeah, have one more to 10 ratio. And then you go to do it and it's not so easy. So I don't know if Mark or Carla can speak to that or if we want to go back to Jillian, but I'd be interested in sort of, what was that like at the building level to develop those new leaders? So as far as building those new leaders, we needed to teach or even give teachers the tools of an organizer. And we made a concerted effort to try to train chapter chairs to be kind of leads and then train the folks that they felt that they could identify as leaders to be their organizers. And it was hard. I mean, in practice, it takes a lot more than just all of these are our 10 people. And we throughout the past couple years, when we started, when we decided to create this contract action team structure, we practiced and we used these methods of communication to try to prepare for this week. And it was wonky at first. But as we practice and as we can see in the numbers on Monday and today, those contract action teams have worked. Cool. Carla, do you want to add anything in terms of what it was like at your building site as you were really working to transform the union and have more rank and file activity and participation? Yeah, I mean, I think that it came from trying to build structures that could be functional during a strike. But I also think in some areas, it was also a way to expand leadership and build new leadership. Because prior to that, our chapters were organized in a way that everything was went through the chapter chair. And so there wasn't a lot of involvement from the members with the union as a whole. It was mostly the chapter chair doing the work and they just gave information to the members. And so in some areas and particularly in our area, in the same area that Mark and I are in, we try to do it so that people actually did become their own leaders as well. And in some areas, I think Jillian can speak to that. I think it was like expanding the role of the steering committee in some schools. They already had steering committees. But now what does this cat team do that is different or adds to the steering committee. So I think that was another thing that happened with the cat teams, which I think has really helped because now people are stepping in to leadership roles. So for example, at my school, it started as we just barely started organizing last year. They just barely got a chapter chair last year. I came in this year. And I mean, today when we were in circle, that was a big part of the discussion was, okay, the chapter chair and Carla have worked to do after the strike, after the pick line. So how are others here in the circle? They start seeing themselves as you know, I never saw myself in this position. And but I can see myself now in, and I said, you know, I tell them sometimes it's just speaking up and giving a suggestion that could begin that that that road or you taking on more leadership role. So I think that that was a beautiful thing about the cat was when it set up a structure, but it also empowered people to step in and become more involved in the union different ways that they had. So I've actually been really interested in that as I've been out here just for the past seven days. And because the structures that you've created around the strike are just phenomenal. I mean, in terms of the sort of the various levels of communication, just to like just to carry off the strike, right? Like in terms of who's responsible for what where who's counting who's on the picket line? Who's got the materials there that you need? Who's reporting back to whom? Where is that happening? And really clear communication with people. But I've also been thinking as well about your point Carla, which is sort of how do those structures work so that they actually are developing leaders and are going to sustain the work beyond the strike so that it's not just yeah, we got this done and we got it done really like damned him well. And it's impressive. And that's part of why I'm interested to go back and you know, what are the kinds of things you did to build to get here? And so I hear about the cat teams. I hear directly about leadership development and sort of an intentionality about that. To identify leaders. Are there other things that you've done and and both within the union and then to extend within to the into the community because I know there's also tremendous community support. So I don't know if any of you want to speak to either part of that like other things that you've done as union members at the building site and and or things that you've done that have started to bring the community in. I could I just wanted to add on about you know developing more leaders at the school site. When I think about it, actually I think it's the content that drives the structure that is if you're never talking to members about anything, then what's the need to have a one to 10 communication ratio because you're not talking to members about anything. I think what drove the urgency and actually got people to step up is that we started talking to members about a whole lot more stuff that people wanted to talk about. And then there's actually a reason why you need that ratio. So for example, like you know Eli Broad had a secret plan to get half of our students into charters within eight years. We were like the whole membership needs to know about that and talk about that. What is going on with billionaires and their efforts to transform our district? You know we we saw Janice coming and we were like we need to have a talk with members about why there's an attack on our unions and why we actually want them to pay more dues. And that means we got to talk about what our union does and what it's going to do in the future. And so that then creates the sense that like yeah so as far as the structure like I'm at a big high school and so ours is broken up by buildings and floors right because in your normal day you can't possibly get to talk to people on the other side of campus. Elementary school is a lot of times it's by either the grade level like oh all the fourth graders need a point person or the lunchtime that they have. So then you can approach people who haven't done much and just be like you know what we really need the third grade team to kind of be informed. Would you be willing to share that information and get their feedback? And then there's a real reason behind it and an urgency behind it. And we have encouraged and done trainings and had conversations about making parent outreach a part of your school site union work and we've been talking about that luckily for years. It did take really quite a while to transform that into feeling like a part of people's union work and I can let other folks talk about that a little bit more. I would like to share a little bit about some of the emerging parent leaders that I work with but if there's time. Yeah I'd like to actually hear some of that. So Mark do you want to tell us some can you speak a little bit to the issue of how the community was brought into the struggle? Well our teachers are also heavily involved in their community are part of organizations are part of churches are part of all these things outside of teaching and we try to pull on those. So at some point at one point it was maybe five months leading up to the strike I was running trainings with community groups to partner up with with the universities to send students to send community members to pick sites that they would all send community orgs to and students to support the teachers. And I know that some folks I've been working with have also been in contact with those kind of creating cash structures but with the community too so that the community can connect with someone on staff or a or a UTLA member to get folks to specific areas that may need more support than others. So Jillian was just talking about and I'm really interested in this part as well like the sort of direct political education that the union has done with members that you know talking about Eli Broad and his plan for the Los Angeles Public Schools and being very direct about like there are people out there who are looking to undermine our unions to undermine public education here's who they are this is how this works and I'm interested in you know how those conversations went with the members because sometimes sometimes people will think that's too sort of far away and not immediate enough for membership so I'm wondering about how it was that that became so real for members and certainly see it out on the in the rallies everybody's got signs about privatization so it's it's been effective and then as well I'm curious about how you did that with the community how how is the community educated about the the assault on the public schools and come to understand this as a fight that is a fight against privatizers to preserve public education can you talk some about the political education on in those different places so I as far as our members I think it's been easy for us to bring in that political education we see it every every day with since 2008 like I said earlier two charter schools have grown 287 percent in la usd what that means is less students less funding that means that means our public schools are surrounded by charter schools and charter schools are being sucked or are sucking students like at my old school right before testing all the special special education students would be come back to our schools because they would be kicked out by the charter schools and then we would see this massive influx of students right before testing or in the beginning of the school year we don't see how much that many students like we because of those real effects of charter schools it has been easier for us to talk about the privatization question because because we feel it every day and it gives because of that it's easier for us to to teach about that because it's in the teachers every day so that's got to be a real challenge then to work with the community around that as well as especially given the degree to which parents are being you know encouraged to think about charter schools like as the place to go for for their kids so how to add can any of you talk a little bit about the the community education around the privatization efforts I can I can begin that I think like Mark shared how teachers feel it the same thing started happening with parents because of locations so basically schools that have empty spaces I think the magic number is six empty classrooms once that happens the charter school can come in and oh carlia frozen worse and where's where we started getting sorry as more and more people more people the schools started feeling it because then they were coming in to take up spaces that were very valuable to the school site like the computer lab or the parent center or the room where the school psychologists met with students so people started really feeling it the other thing is that they weren't carrying their weight in the school site in some schools it like on the west side I've heard stories from parents where it was a very segregated space not only like by charter but the kids for example one of the schools in the west area the the public school was predominantly black and the charter school was predominantly white like european white like german or something I don't know but um it was a make out all the nice space they had everything actually looked better for them than it did for the public school that didn't have all the resources so people the parents started feeling that in there so what was needed was um a leadership and like you said that education and so connecting it back to when this new utla leadership came in we prioritized spending money on a parent and community organizer we have two parent and community organizers who developed a program or a presentation that they started taking to some of these school sites that were co-located and parents or that were about to be co-located it started organizing with parents to fight back that co-location and in the process of organizing in that fight they started the political education I've been able to participate in some of those presentations as a person who is listening to the presentation and in speaking and it's really amazing how they've been able to break down this privatization process and it really makes it very accessible to parents and so I think that started happening and it was a very focused group in east area they did a lot of work out of that uh Jillian can speak more to this um a a anti privatization parent group arose in my area um another organization started working with us around that and same thing a parent group that is focused on um anti privatization arose but it was it was it started at these schools that were being co-located and I think that experiencing the injustice of that is what at least opened people's minds to this and really and for our teachers it also empowered them because prior to this leadership I remember working with teachers who were co-located and they were angry and they felt like the union wasn't doing anything about it and so once the new leadership came in and took on that they started getting more involved as well go ahead Jillian you look like you wanted to add something there yeah I think I mean Carla really laid out the process really well and and just to underscore like I would say a lot of our leading parent activists across the city are these parents who emerged to fight against a charter coming in to take space at their campus but then they realized even if we fight so hard that we push the charter school out it basically goes down the street and locates at another neighborhood school because this is allowed um and I just want to like we did come up with one of the early trainings for parents on what is privatization and it really hadn't been done before like we you know we parents had been engaged in how to fight off a charter at their school but not in the bigger picture and so I just think part of the lesson is that parents are really interested in political education and understanding what is behind this who were who are these rich people who are these corporations that have this plan for this you know my child's school and so just don't underestimate the desire among parents and community to to um learn that stuff and then those moms literally um have completely run with it they go to school to school to organize other moms they take on corporate figures in our city um so it's a beautiful thing to see that um flowering and and I just want to sort of pull out for but that I think what's really what I'm hearing both for the the union members the educators and for the parents and community around the political education is that it started because around things that people really experience and I think mark you say it like really clearly like people feel the lack of funds in their school they feel that every day that the resources are not there the parents experience the co-location as taking resources away from their their child in their child's school and so the political education didn't just sort of come out of nowhere but it grew from the struggles and was woven into the struggle is what I'm hearing you saying is that accurate cool all right so I do want to make sure we have some time for some questions and we've got some up here um so I might just uh just start out uh with the q and a's we've got a and I'll just sort of run down the list um so Kayla mock uh has a question and um I'm gonna see if I can uh have you answer this question live Kayla if I can figure out how to do this and if I can't I'll just read Kayla's question so we don't lose time uh and I'm just gonna answer so Kayla wants to know she says hi solidarity from Virginia can you talk a little bit more about the demand that came from students regarding random searches Karla you had mentioned that yeah so um so there is a group here called Students Deserve that is a grassroots organization made up of students teachers and parents and several years ago I don't remember if it was four years ago or five years ago we were doing these um there's a funding formula here that um it supposedly gets um it requires that there is parent and student input and teacher input so several years ago we took the opportunity to host some of these and UTLA hosted some of these meetings parents and students and students deserve did it as well and out of these meetings um and along with the the fight that was going on here with Black Lives Matter um with the local Black Lives Matter organization and other organizations that were fighting against um the um school to prison pipeline um this uh issue um in our school district of random searches came up where we are only four percent uh there are only four percent of school districts in the United States who have random searches and it means that they pull your students out it's supposed to be random they have a wand and they wand the students and um and then they put them they take them back in and this begins at the sixth grade level and um as students started talking about this they started sharing their stories of how it made them feel um they talked about how they felt like they were already in jail before they you know wherever before they even got that the people who were doing this were their counselors and how could they trust their counselors when their counselors were treating them in this manner so they started organizing around it and they've done an immense job for several years now going to the school board and talking about it um urging them to end it uh just recently there were some um some town hall meetings I think there is a a task force was created by the city attorney and it involved some members of the community as well as the city attorney and they were done throughout the city students deserve students participated in one of them and from that the city attorney said that it made no sense that this would happen and urge the district to stop it however the district continues to invest in it in um in making sure this happens um but it's it's one of the demands that we have on our contract and the beautiful thing is that and you guys can share this but one of our um when we first started talking about random searches within our our leadership our board some board members were like ah you know sure it happens but and it kind of connected to what Jillian shared earlier about how there was this this um this trepidation that's getting involved deep and so started uh hearing about it maybe two weeks or three weeks people on our board of directors being the need to lift ending random searches I am I hope that this ends because Karla you're breaking up a little bit um so I'm going to move on and hope we can get you back and have you not be frozen hello there uh and and actually I'm going to ask I'm going to ask another question that's I think relevant to what you were saying when you started breaking up uh and this is a question from George Lucen he says uh regarding your move to become a racial justice union can you talk a bit more about the nature of the resistance and over how you overcame that resistance so maybe we could hear from uh Mark or Jillian about that or not sure I mean is this the nature of the resistance in the union is that yeah I think that's what he's asking for yeah um so one um moment within that um and and I'll think about it a little bit more but um uh when the school shootings happened and there was you know this dialogue about what is it that makes schools safe um folks basically opposition against union power there had always been sort of an undertone of we need to stick more to basic member interests and I know all of us see that in our unions right we see some group that says you know we need to focus on member issues and benefits um and some of these other social justice things may sound nice but they're not the core business of the union so that that sort of sentiment has always existed among a more conservative layer um of our union um but when the school shootings happened I think people jumped on the sort of national panic for um and you know and the there was obviously fear around it um and um I also recall that it was it was a very there was a very cynical opposition within our union um that wanted to pit wanted to ally with the school police union um and capitalize on the fact that the school police union was criticizing us because we've called for um you know ending random searches and we've called for ending the school to prison pipeline um and so I think a very cynical opposition in a union basically tried to ally with the school police um and thought that they would sort of expose union power or something um as um not not caring about school safety um but um because of the courageous work that Karla just really well described um these students voices were already out there and they were saying that being searched and then having to feel humiliated and walk back into my algebra class like I'm a criminal that doesn't make me feel safe in my school in fact it makes me feel like I have no one I can trust um and and then we were able to connect that with all the research that was coming out about how more criminalization in schools um does not make kids safer and um I mean it's really because the kids were self-organizing um and right around just after those school shootings the kids had a massive town hall on making black lives matter in schools so um you know uh luckily we had as a union come out squarely with them and um we're able to put their voices in the forefront so I don't know hopefully that answers your question uh can I also add yeah please do um I think also there's been like a mindset shift of what it or of what a union is I feel like previously a lot of folks have seen the union as a service model type of union this is what the union does for me this file if something bad happens this file of grievance and there's been a change with union power coming in and folks changing the way the union union's mindset is and turning it into an organizing union so instead of waiting for the grievance to happen and figuring out what happens later instead we're trying to organize organize around it to change the conditions in the first place so we don't have to file a grievance uh one of the ways is like also getting people to see that they have power in organizing with stopping co-locations getting rid of bad principles and I feel like once once union members saw the power and were able to win organizing their ideas of what a union does or can do has changed over time so that that brings me to two questions that I think I'll put together um because we're going to be getting close to to wrap me up uh so put these together and and one comes from sheer colon uh hi sheer in uh philadelphia and uh she says how have you raised expectations for rank and file members who may have only experienced a traditional business model union how do you train rank and file members not just leaders in buildings to be organizers and then with that um I have to find this other question I think the other question I had inadvertently had deleted uh so I don't know who put it up there but it was a question about what the role of staff was in the transformation of the union uh and if staff was resistant or or not and um so as you think about how you want to tackle those questions I just want to clarify uh for those of you who are listening uh that union power uh was the caucus that elected new leadership that elected as new leadership in utla in 2014 uh and what we're seeing today um with the strike and what you're hearing uh from these union members uh when they talk about union power when they talk about new uh leadership that's what they're talking about union power is a caucus uh that uh had elected leadership and it's been working to transform the utla so any of you want to jump on the how did this happen how do you raise expectation for rank and file members and uh and or uh the staff role in that just go carly I can give it a try oh carly do you want to go you go ahead okay all right there's a lot in there I mean um I I think um it's what's so awesome about having a lot of strikes is that the real world raises expectations in ways that like you know your best union program can't do and so for that I I mean again I think we kind of have to go back to Chicago um once we had that to point to which was so different than what we'd been used to it was a strike for one thing and second of all it was framed around justice it was framed around what students deserve I mean once you have that then we I mean when union power ran for office I mean that was kind of what we ran on um and so we we ran with a program of pretty high expectation what we needed to be able to fight for and fight against um and then basically we're plunged into a contract campaign in the first year of the new group taking office so we had um we you know we had to organize escalating actions which had never happened before I mean we had had one-off rallies you know but escalating actions leading into our contract of 2015 um which included um the first mass rally of our membership in downtown LA to actually everyone see each other and see their collective power um and and those were those were some of the of the things um and um as far as the role of staff um absolutely absolutely there was resistance and debates um around uh the role of staff um we had never had I mean I don't it it was all over the place there was no clearly defined um you know work plan or level of responsibility for each staff member staff kind of just did their own thing and mostly sat in their offices and when expectations changed dramatically that they should be spending most of their time um in the schools and that we would no longer have a divide because we used to have a divide where it was like these people are contract enforcement people and these people are are you know help with organizing sometimes um that was like no actually everybody's an organizer um we we we had folks um really push back against that we had folks leave we had folks push back against it um and we had debates among the staff themselves um um so I I don't I it was not easy um but because I think because we showed real success and power in that first contract fight in 2015 um I think it kind of um it's an example that that staff began to see could actually work and of course we brought on board a lot of amazing um organizers as well so can I also real quick Margaret because we're going to start we actually have to wrap up soon but go ahead okay don't worry um I think as far as staff once there's once we as a union changed to a organizing union it attracted staff people wanted to be in this fight and people that have been on strike before and been part of other unions wanted to be here because they could see the writing on the walls and staff has played an important role in the past couple days or leading up to these past couple days because we wouldn't be at the 50,000 too if our staff were on point and ready to organize also awesome yes the last last last thing I wanted to talk just personally that the that what Jillian was sharing about when the LA the platform that motion that was passed at um at our area meetings that's when I started getting involved that's when I started feeling like this is where I want to be when I went to that first leadership conference and we said that we were building a movement that's when I took off with being more involved in the union and I'll never forget that moment and I think that it was because we shifted and there were many people like me in the union that this platform and the way we were moving forward brought um brought a lot more people in awesome uh I hate to even have to wrap up uh but I also know y'all need to get some sleep uh because we got to be out on the picket lines early tomorrow morning but the one and there are great questions out there I'm sorry for those of you who posted questions that we haven't had an opportunity to answer um but I would like to hear from each of the three of you like 10 seconds um what can people who are not in LA do to support the strike what what's been meaningful for you in terms of what's out there go mark um I think for my staff when I when I'm on the picket line they always talk about on their social media what other folks post about our strike and other folks share our videos when they see people from across the nation talking about what we're doing in an LA I think it gives uh people an emergence of like it's bigger than than just here it's bigger than just LA and that they know that all of the nation is supporting supporting them so if you can post up on social media uh utla red for ed all those hashtags uh post your support that would be helpful for for some folks great julian um uh california educators rising um check them out on facebook they created a spreadsheet for adopt a school and that's not just for california schools if you're a an educator and your school hasn't adopted a school there may still be schools to be adopted and develop a relationship there um the people probably know alliance to reclaim our schools created a solidarity fund um and there's also the tacos for teachers fund which uh if if there's too much money left that you know two we can't buy that many tacos all that money goes back into the utla solidarity fund as well um people I mean it does make people feel good so just to add those things carla i was going to say lunch we've been adopted and we've been so grateful duarte nation has been feeding us the past two days and we are so grateful to them and uh we are connecting via facebook sending pictures of us on the picket line eating our lunch and then sending us solidarity pictures it really lifts us up so if you can adopt okay it looks like we lost carla one more time uh but if you can adopt the school that would be great I think that's what she was going to say all right uh again thank you mark julian carla uh thank you to utla um uh for your incredible leadership on this we all understand that this is a fight that's not only for the LA public schools uh but when you win and you're going to win uh it's going to it's going to be important for um public schools uh for for union members in public schools and I actually think for the public sector uh there's a huge fight uh and we're with you we all know that when we fight we win uh so let's go out and win this so have a good night thanks very much let's go get them thank you thank you bye bye bye bye