 I am Andrew Ferguson. I am running against Republican incumbent Bill Couser. He is a 16-year incumbent who drew his own map. He voted for the six-week abortion bill, and he has also not said anything to denounce the January 6th insurrection. It's been 609 days. I don't think he's going to. I mentioned this all because it's election season. Can you believe it's only 62 days to the November 8th election? In 62 days, we decide. Do we go forward? Do we go backwards? It is up to us. Here in Georgia, we have a historic slate of statewide candidates that we can elect, that we will elect, that we are fortunate enough to have one of those candidates here tonight. Representative William Bode, State House District 62, we are so grateful that you are here. We are so grateful that you have stepped up to run for Labor Commissioner. Thank you very much. Now, before we hear from our next Labor Commissioner, we are going to hear from a few other folks, and I also want to recognize the elected officials and other candidates that are here tonight. If I miss you, forgive me. We have District Attorney Deborah Gonzalez in the house tonight. We have Athens-Clarke County District 6 Commissioner Jesse Hull in the house tonight. We have State Senate candidate for District 47, Kenola Scott in the house tonight. We have State House candidate for District 124, Cat Hawkins in the house tonight. She is going to speak in a moment. We also have State House District 120 candidate, Mocha Jasmine Johnson in the house tonight. We also have State House District candidate for one, District 111, Ryan Cox, my counterpart in Gwinnett. Can we go to round of applause for Ryan? Is there anyone I have not recognized who is here, who is either an elected official or a candidate? All right. Thank you all for being here tonight. Really appreciate you all braving the weather. We might be able to move some of this outside as we look out the window, hopefully. So Monday was Labor Day, a day when we honor all of those who have fought and organized for better wages, better treatment, safer workplaces. We all have a lot to thank the labor movement, because when workers organize and win, everyone benefits. Our quality of life goes up, the quality of life of our neighbors, of our friends, our family goes up. It's not just about increased wages, it's about being treated fairly in the workplace. So before I hand it off to Mocha, I'm going to mention something. We're going to do a little call and response. If you all are up for it, this is originally designed to be outside. So we're going to see how this goes. So I'm going to mention something. You're going to tell me who's responsible for it. All right. All right. You got to shout it out. You ready? Who is responsible for lunch breaks? Unions. Unions for collective bargaining. For paid sick leave. For the eight-hour workday. Still too long if you ask me. For the minimum wage. Still too low if you ask me. For child labor laws. For paid vacations. For overtime pay. Now we're talking, right? That's what the labor movement, among many other things, has done. Unions have given this country so much. Wrongful termination laws, sexual harassment laws, the American Disabilities Act, the Equal Pay Act, Workman's Comp, OSHA, Health and Safety Laws. Unions are the bedrock of a democracy. They're the bedrock of the middle class. They serve as a crucial counterweight to the warped concentration wealth at the top of our society. We have a long, long way to go, but it is heartening to see that 71% of Americans support labor unions right now in this country. The highest number since 1965. Workers from all backgrounds of all ages in all industries, from companies like Amazon and Starbucks, to organizations like United Campus Workers of Georgia. Folks across the country are courageously standing up for what is fair, what is right, what is just. Because we have seen in this country what happens when unions are hollowed out, when protections are denied, when our labor is exploited, those at the top get richer, while the rest of us pay the price. From economic and education inequality to housing and healthcare inequality, the lack of strong unions in this country ripples across the fabric of every aspect of our lives. It is way past time we said enough is enough. Republican elected officials in this country, in this state, say that Georgia is the number one state for business. We've got some folks here tonight who are committed to making Georgia the number one state for workers. As I mentioned earlier, with us tonight, we have State House candidate for District 120 Moca Jasmine Johnson. We have the treasurer for the United Campus Workers of Georgia, Joseph Few. We have Athens Clark County Commissioner, ACC Dems chair and former organizer for United Campus Workers of UGA, Tim Denson. And we have the next Labor Commission candidate of the great state of Georgia, the current state representative for District 62, William K. Bodie. So thank you all for being here. Thank you, Terrapin. Thank you, Agwalinda. Enjoy the food, enjoy the drinks. Thank these workers. And next at the mic, Miss Moca Jasmine Johnson. Hey everybody, how are you doing today? How are we feeling out there? You feeling good? Are you happy to be alive? I know I am. I'm not even gonna lie to you. I'm just getting over COVID. I had to check out for like seven days. I was down, I had to unplug. While I was laying there, I was thinking to myself, not necessarily about my health, but my bills. I was thinking about, am I gonna be able to pay my bills if I'm staying down, if I'm laid out and cannot work for seven more days? That's two weeks. I remember in 2020 when COVID hit and a lot of us lost our income. And I remember applying for unemployment and for months I couldn't even get in touch with anybody about how am I gonna get paid. Those times are very difficult for people that live week to week paycheck to paycheck. The reason why I'm running is because we deserve more, we deserve better. 725 an hour minimum wages is not enough. We need to fight. We need to advocate for livable wages. As a person that owns a nonprofit or I would say founded and developed and built a nonprofit that now employs three people, I have to think about how they're gonna pay their bills week to week as an entrepreneur, my husband and I, in order for us to eat, we have to work like literally because if we don't we are going to be struggling. So I think about the small business owners and all the different folks that I see struggled during the pandemic and the businesses that closed. And what can we do to create incentives for small business owners to make sure that they're paying their employees? How could we make sure that our employees are maintaining and having livable wages? We need to elect people like William Bodie. We need to elect people like Andrew Ferguson. We need to elect people like Cat Williams. We need to elect people that's gonna fight for us so that we can have financial security. How do y'all feel about that? You don't believe that? It is really an honor to be here today and it's an honor to actually be running on this ballot because there's a lot of good candidates. And the thing that strikes me the most is that the candidates that I'm surrounded by, these are people that you can actually reach and touch. These are people that's already doing the work in the community. It's not because they're just running for office. Just to give you a short story before I step down because I'm not gonna stay long. I always say that, right? William Bodie and I had the pleasure of working together recently, working with a particular client because at this anti-discrimination movement, the organization that we work for, we help to pay legal fines and fees. We help to provide bailouts. We help people that are in economic crisis coming out of jail. They might need housing. Those are the people that we help. There was one young lady that I've been working with for the past three years to get out of the criminal justice system. Our organization even paid for a lawyer. We paid for a private lawyer that took this young girl money and did not represent her at all. When I went to the Capitol to file, to say, yes, I'm gonna be running again, I ran into Will. He greeted me with a smile, his wife and his whole team that remembered me from 2020. I was standing in line. I said, okay, this is good, this is good. Another time when I met him was at the courthouse in Cobb. He ended up being the lawyer, a public defender. We paid, listen to me, we paid for a private lawyer. This young lady did not have the money. She did not have the resources. We paid for a private lawyer that could not represent her properly. Lo and behold, William Bodie was the one that represented her and helped this young lady gain her freedom. That is the kind of person, that is the kind of person that we need to be our labor commission. Somebody that I'm gonna run into because I'm looking for justice. Somebody that I'm gonna run into because he's trying to do the right thing as a public defender. I'm gonna say it again because it really broke my heart to know that, okay, we're gonna pay for a private lawyer that took this young girl money and did not represent her properly. William Bodie, a public defender, is the one that stood up for her and I met him in the courthouse because we're out in the field doing the work. It is not because we're elected officials or because we just want to walk around with this crown on our head and said we have the right to tell people what to do. We wanna help people live. We wanna help people live a better life. We wanna fight for people to have livable wages. We wanna fight for people to have full Medicaid coverage, healthcare coverage. We wanna make sure that people can pay their bills. I know right now, September 1st, there was a lot of people that got evicted out of their home with increasing rent prices, gas prices. We need to make sure that our constituents and the people that is in our communities are being taken care of. This is a long battle and this is a tough battle and I pray every day when Deborah got elected, I was like, thank you, Jesus. I'm telling you the truth. I'm telling you the truth because when you're running as a candidate and you're running against the incumbent or somebody that's been sitting in that seat for a long time, sometimes it's difficult to uproot and get them out but I'm telling you, if you want change, if you want change, we have to uproot and get them out. And folks like Deborah could go against camp. I saw what they were trying to do to her. She would not stop fighting. We cannot stop fighting. We have to keep on fighting. We have to fight for folks like William Bodie. We have to fight for Stacey Abram. We have to fight for war now. We have to fight for these people. So when I'm laying there and I'm sick, I'm thinking about all these people. I had the benefit, I had the blessings and I have to thank God to where I could work from home. I could go to sleep and get back up and work late nights. But there's some people, if they're missing that income, they're missing that paycheck to buy groceries. They're missing that paycheck to be able to put gas in their cars. They're missing that paycheck to plan for their future to take care of their families. As a state representative and as elected officials, it is our job to take care of the people that's out here doing the work. So I'm happy, I'm kind of excited and I still got the COVID brain because I'm forgetting stuff, but I'm happy and I'm excited to be here. I'm happy to be alive. I'm happy to be running for office because you deserve more, you deserve better, you should have a choice. They should not be able to draw us out of districts, unfairly create the districts to where it can benefit them and allow them to win. We need to give them a run of their money every single time. They cannot just take the seat. They do not own the seat. They have to work for the seat. And if they're not working, I got paranoid, y'all. Now I'm walking around with a mask even when I'm talking. But we need to make sure, we need to make sure we support candidates that is gonna fight for us, not just today, not just tomorrow, but forever. Thank y'all for being here. Mocha Jasmine Johnson, everyone. One more round of applause. Next up we have Joseph from the, Joseph Hue from the United. All right, he'll say it. There we go. All right, thank you, Andrew. Thank you, Mocha, for those great words. Another big round of hands for Mocha. Thank you, thank you. All right, yeah. My name's Joe Fu. I'm Treasurer currently of the United Campus of Georgia, local to the 3265 of Communication Workers of America. Great to see so many old friends and supporters here. Mocha, Debra, who else have I got? Tim, of course. Andrew, of course, our new friend, Mr. Will Bodie, our next Labor Commissioner here in the state of Georgia. We're looking forward to working with you on our workplace issues. So, as you all know, you look in the news today, you look on Twitter, you look wherever, all throughout the land, this great land of the United States of America, labor, power is rising. Labor, power is rising. And in the state of Georgia, labor power is rising. We're proud as members of UCWGA to have been on the cutting edge of this development. We've been working, organizing since 2016. Joey Carter was with us in those days. Who else is here from those days? Rocky Raffles was with us in those days. Back in those days, you talked to supposedly educated people, my colleagues, and they would ask, you know, when I asked them to join this union, they would say, well, isn't it illegal to join a union in the state of Georgia? Well, what do you think? Is it illegal to join a union in the state of Georgia? No. That's a ridiculous, ridiculous answer. Now at least people know. It is not illegal to join a union in the state of Georgia. Unions are essential in the state of Georgia. Unions are the only thing that can keep workers together, safe, building on the principle of solidarity, first of all, across all work classifications at the University of Georgia, University of Georgia from teaching instructors, from teaching employees, to custodial employees, to facilities employees. I don't care who. In UCWGA, we are standing together in one cause because we are the people who make this institution work. Now we are facing, thank you. Now we are facing in the University of Georgia many of the same issues that workers throughout the country are facing. Centralization, depersonalization, bureaucratization of our workplaces. Power, responsibility, decision-making being removed from the people who, the only people who know how to do stuff around our offices and buildings. That's not gonna last too long. We've got to pull back, we've got to take back this power into our own hands. The second principle I want to mention besides solidarity we have is we control, we control our workplaces in the most obvious ways. That's right. Let me ask you that question in the spirit of Andrews. Who controls our workplaces? Hey, that's right. All right, so anyway, we've been at this for now six years going on and they said we couldn't do it. Right now we're pushing 1,000 members statewide. That's right. We are gonna lead the way. As public sector workers, public sector workers need to be, and public sector employment needs to be a model for employment in all sectors of the state. And what? And especially in the universities. Universities as workplaces need to be a model for workplace democracy. All right, I won't take any more of your time. Thank you very much for coming. Thank you for Mr. William Bode, our next labor commissioner of the state of Georgia. Let's get him elected. Let's turn it out. Let's join your local union. Let's make this happen. Thank you. Give it up for Joe Foo in the union. ECWGA. For those of you who don't know, my name is Jesse Hul. I'm commissioner of district six, which is soon to be very near here, West Athens. I'm also here wearing a couple of hats. I'm wearing my post holder with the local Democrats hat and I'm wearing my member of the DSA hat. For those of you who don't know, the DSA is the Democratic Socialist of America. I'm really proud that in this community there is solidarity between organizations even when their ideologies don't 100% align. There's a lot more that we align on than we don't and so we're here to work together. So what are we here to work together about? I mean, obviously labor is a lot of what we're talking about, right? And labor takes many forms and we have a long road to hoe here in Athens. We are one of only two states where inmate labor is unpaid. The modern day most explicit example of enslavement is locking people up and only giving them an opportunity to leave if they do their work for free. And that's increasingly not just happening in the public realm with communities, including unfortunately here in Clark County and basically every other county in the state. It's also happening in the private sector. Increasingly corporations are hiring this unpaid labor in a particularly nefarious way. So that's one thing we've got to work on. Another thing we've got to work on that other people have elaborated on quite well already, workers' rights, wages, perhaps even a worker's center here in Athens, yeah? I'm not sure. Is anyone in the house from EJC? Okay, EJC. So talk to Joey who's wearing multiple hats here with Mocha's campaign and the Economic Justice Coalition about their worker center project because that's one way that we can foment some change here. Another way is through cooperatives. How can we help develop cooperative businesses? Kind of the extension of the union mentality democratizing our workplace, democratizing the ownership of workplaces, yeah? But none of this is gonna be easy. Not an estate that has unpaid inmate labor and a minimum wage lower than the federal minimum wage, right? We have a lot of work to do. And so I wanted to share with you all some thoughts on inside-outside strategy because the same way we need to work across organizations, we need to work in the electoral cycle and we also need to sustain our movement beyond the electoral cycle. Why I'm excited to wear my DSA hat here is that that is an organization that's very committed to trying to do what we can to do both, to employ that inside-outside strategy. So if you're interested in participating in the electoral work but also helping sustain some explicitly labor-oriented organizing, you can plug in with the labor working group of the DSA and get plugged in in that way on that issue. There is a working group that is active and it needs people. If you wanna focus more on the electoral side, a Democratic Party needs people. And so this is where I'm gonna do some awkward asking you to raise your hands. I'm gonna ask you to be honest and then I'm gonna get the heck off the stage and hand it over to my friend Tim. So the first thing is if you are here as a candidate or working on a campaign as a staff member, raise your hand. Okay, everybody look around at who's got their hand up. All right, now if you are not somebody who just raised their hand, raise your hand. All right, please look around at who raised their hands. Here are my questions for you. The first is for those of you who just raised your hands who are not working on a campaign, I'm gonna ask you to get out your phone or a pen honor system here or if you get a real good memory, put it in your head. I want you to think of three people who you are not confident is going to vote. Three people who you're not sure are gonna vote for the same people you are. I want you to write down those names and I want you to talk to those people this week. That's one person every two days with Sunday off. Do y'all think you can do that? Only one person thinks they can do that? Do y'all think you can do that? Yeah, all right, yeah, this is, see we talk about organizing, this is what we get, we get excited, we wanna talk about how we wanna transform the world but it's dirty, hard, sweaty work. And sometimes it involves uncomfortable conversations. The next thing I want you to think about is one non electoral thing. This is for everyone who raised their hands. Because what we're doing electorally needs to coincide with a movement that extends beyond and through the elections. I want you to think about one non electoral thing you can do in the next two weeks, we'll say. Cause you've already got your calls to make half of you. One non electoral thing. That could be plugging in with the DSA. They got a table back there. Aaron James raised your hand. Yeah, but it doesn't have to be that. It could be next time you go out to eat, talk to the person who's serving you and ask them if they've thought about unions. Have they heard about how Starbucks is unionizing lately, for example? Yeah, so please write that down. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is the dirty, sweaty organizing stuff. And then the last thing I want you to do, this is for the people who raised their hands and did not raise their hands. If you raise your hand and you're working on a campaign and you saw somebody else who's working on a campaign that you don't already know, talk to that person. None of the campaigns in this room have enough resources. None of them have enough volunteers. None of them are gonna be able to knock all the doors and make all the calls that they wanna make by election day. But we'll be able to do more if we work together. So please, if you're working on a campaign, talk to somebody who raised their hand, who's working on another campaign that you haven't connected with. And if you are not working on a campaign, please talk to somebody who is working on a campaign and think about what you realistically have capacity for because they need help with lots of things. It's not just the especially difficult, uncomfortable work of knocking on doors or making phone calls. It can also just be data entry or cutting lists, taking all the people who signed up here and plugging them into a spreadsheet or a form on Google. So if you can help in some way, that's how we're going to win these elections. That's how we're going to win a better community and state for labor. And that is how we will ultimately transform our lives to be better. With that, give it up for my friend and one of the organizers of today's event, Commissioner, future school board member and longtime organizer, Tim Denson. My friend, Commissioner Hool here can get a crowd going. I love it. I'm excited to be here, folks. You all excited to be here? You need to be excited. This is thing. Everybody stop and think. I was thinking about this earlier. Outside of, with our waking hours, right? We have finite time here on this beautiful earth. We have finite time every single day. With our waking hours, what are we spending most of those hours doing? Working, right? Working. We're working. We spend so much time laboring, working. And you know what? It's honestly, the way I look at this life, right? I have two main purposes on this earth. One is to make sure that I enjoy it and that I make sure that I get to work, to make sure the other folks around me are able to actually have quality life and enjoy their life too. To me, that is the whole point of this amazing life. And when we are spending so much time of our lives working, and oftentimes working, doing things that we don't wanna be doing, that we don't have control over, that we don't feel our valued, how insane is that, y'all? Spend a majority of our time doing things that we don't wanna do and we don't feel our valued. How many people here have worked a day in their life and felt like they were not valued? Yeah, every single person raising their hand. We've all felt that. It feels terrible. And right now, there are millions of people doing the same thing. That's not what we're here on this earth to do. It's not. It's not what it is. We deserve better. When it comes down to it, when I think about labor, it's that we deserve better. The workers deserve better. And all of it is within our grasp. That's the crazy thing. Who's making us fit into this structure where we have to spend the majority of our time, many people spend the majority of their time, doing things they don't wanna do and they don't feel valued doing. How did we get here? How did we get here? Capitalism? They're ding, ding, ding. Yes. But who can change that? We can. We can. Seriously, I know at times, at times it feels powerless. I am an optimistic person, but at times I felt down. But here's the thing, I've seen it work. I had the privilege of working with, or working for, Joe Fu and the United Campus Workers members as an organizer for a few years. It was an absolute privilege and it was amazing to see what happened. I got to start that job back whenever very small numbers of people and recruited people, they just got an institutional fee waived this last year that's going to put $900 back into the pockets of graduate workers and all these people who basically need that money. And the reason that happened is because those graduate workers demanded it and took every step they needed to to make sure it happened. It was not going to happen otherwise. No, yeah, that is big. I seriously get tingles because I remember sitting in the UGA School Library with those graduate workers as they came up with this plan and what their goals were going to be, putting that as the number one goal. And then whenever I got to read in the newspaper a year and a half later or so, that they did it, I'm like, damn, organized labor works. It works. But that's what we have to do here, folks. We deserve better. The people of Georgia deserve better. And right now we're touted as, we're the number one state to do business. Hey, hey, that doesn't sound bad, right? Well, not only for who, but how. To me, that's the thing. It is a shame to be the number one state to do business because of the exploitation of labor. That is unacceptable. I want the state of Georgia, we deserve the state of Georgia to be the number one state to work in. That's something I want to see put on some commercials. That's something I want to see that we're touting. That's something I want to see the governor up there having a press conference about that we're the number one state for workers. I don't want to hear this with the number one state to do business. Oh, and also our minimum wage is $5.15 still officially. No, that's embarrassing. We deserve better. The people of Athens deserve better. The workers deserve better. And that's why we need to elect Representative William Bodie to be that next commissioner of labor because I've seen this man step up and I've seen where he's put his values. Now I'll tell you this, we haven't had a commissioner of labor who's standing up for organized labor and I don't know, maybe ever. I gotta say, in a long time at least, it's been a long time and we need to see those things change. And we, again, we know who can do it. It's within our grasp. We can do all of these things. We can organize our workplaces like Joe Fu was talking about. We can change the working conditions and we can elect a commissioner of labor who's gonna work for the people and work for the workers. So with that, please welcome my friend, Representative William Bodie up here onto the stage, our next labor commissioner. This is really, really amazing to have such amazing candidates and elected officials that care about organized labor and workers in this state. As I was sitting there just listening to the speeches, which just projects why we have to care about workers in this state. This is a Labor Day rally. I know it's a couple of days after Labor Day, but this is Labor Day. Still, if we have organized labor in the room or if we have workers in the room and we are promoting labor and we are promoting protecting workers' rights, that's Labor Day. So I want to say to you all that I have had the honor of being endorsed by organized labor in this state. And I'm very proud to have the endorsement of the Georgia AFL-CIO. And that means a lot to me. I got the opportunity to be organized labor all this weekend. I was at a Labor Day event with the Central Georgia Labor Council in Water Robbins on Saturday. I was with the Savannah Regional Labor Council and Savannah on Sunday. And I was with the Atlanta North Georgia Labor Council on Monday because that's what labor means to me. So as your next Georgia Labor Commissioner, I'm going to put Georgia workers first. That has been my model for this campaign because each speaker said the same thing and it's absolutely true. We could be the best state for workers and business. It doesn't have to be mutually exclusive. Why can't we not have workers to have a quality of life? And so I want to get into the reasons why I'm running for Georgia Labor Commission. It's quite personal for me. As a legislator, I've served in the Georgia General Assembly. My dear friend, DA Deborah Gonzalez, we served together. But I served since 2016 being elected to represent the citizens and my neighbors in Georgia House District 62, which is parts of South Florida and also Douglas County. I grew up in South Florida. I was educated in South Florida and my law office is actually in Douglas County. So I'm very familiar with the district. But during the pandemic, I served as the House Democratic will when the COVID-19 pandemic hit us like nothing else back in March of 2020. And so in my role as the Democratic will, at the time we had 75 Democrats in the Georgia House of Representatives. We have 77 now. One of the things I was charged with doing is trying to figure out what is going on with this pandemic and how are we gonna be able to navigate at the gold dome doing that. And I was a part of a bipartisan, I would say commission that was impounded by the speaker at the time. And we decided at the Democrats push for it that we were going to suspend legislative session. I think we did that March 16, 2020. But when we suspended legislative session, that's when the phone call started. We were all shelter in that place at the time. We didn't know what COVID-19 was. We didn't know if it was airborne. We just knew we were locked in the house and somebody said it's gonna be about two weeks before we can leave. That two weeks turned into six months, six months almost a year. But what happened is that you had Georgia workers who lost a job to no fault of their own. Absolutely no fault of their own. And they could not get anyone to respond with the Georgia Department of Labor to their phone calls, inquiries, someone even sending messages through Facebook. I know because I got those same messages. I had to pick up the phone and talk to constituents not just in my house district, but across the state of Georgia. They wanna know what is going on with my unemployment benefits? Why have I not received my unemployment check and I've been approved and certified? Why have I not received a notice about my appeal? Why have I not received a callback from anybody within the Department of Labor? We're talking citizens that were working and our citizens that were hurt the most were some of our lower wage workers. We all know how the leisure and entertainment and hospitality industry got hit. Those were a lot of our low wage paying workers that were working in industries such as this one here. But those workers that were, I would say, mostly African-American and people of color, black and brown people got hurt the worst. 40% of individuals that were making $40,000 are less lost their jobs and could not work again. Now some of us that were professional jobs got the opportunity to work from home, but these individuals did not. Some are women that work every day that go out to try to take care of themselves and also their family lost their jobs. So when me as a state representative have to pick up the phone and have a conversation with one of our seniors who lost their job to no fault at all, who was contemplating whether they're gonna pay their light bill or pay for their prescription medication. That is not a decision that anyone has to make, but that was the decision that was made because Mark Butler, the current labor commissioner, did not answer those calls. So I am gonna make sure that the Department of Labor lives up to the standards that it should have. The Department of Labor for workers who lose their job no fault at all should supply this safety net that the federal government mandates, which is unemployment insurance benefits. It is a safety net, not a handout. So if you lose your job and you have to certify for unemployment benefits and you are approved, we're gonna make sure you get those benefits in a prompt and timely manner, which is Georgia Constitution and the US Constitution, not the US Constitution, but US statute states you should have. So I wanna make sure that it's a priority. Also, I wanna make sure that we start to really look at the Department of Labor as a department that can actually help people. Right now, my dear friend, CEO Michael Thurman, was the last Democratic Labor Commission. He left that position back in 2012. We had 4,000 employees working with the Georgia Department of Labor. Now we only have about 11, 1200 employees. We had over 80, actually 83 career centers that served as satellite locations for the Department of Labor. Now we have about 42. So this Department of Labor was not set up to deal with day-to-day matters, much less a global pandemic or economic recession. I looked to change that. I wanna modernize the Department of Labor so we don't have antiquated technology. I wanna staff up the Department of Labor so we can deal with any economic recession or any global pandemic that may come our way. And I'm also gonna make sure that the Department of Labor employees are essential workers. So if we have a situation where the government has to shut down again because of another global pandemic, we at the Department of Labor under my administration are gonna continue to work. We're gonna be safe, but we got to continue to work because the citizens have to have that department working at almost full staff. So that's on the legislative political side, but on the personal side, my father worked for a warehouse. And when I was a young boy growing up in South Fullerton, he worked a night shift. And he would go to work every night. I know because we would give him a high five because he would leave around two, two 30 and he would go to work. And most of the time when he came home, I was asleep. But sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night because I knew he was gonna bring food home with him. And sometimes I would wake up because I would smell Waffle House walking through the door with him. And so I used to get very excited going there with my mom and dad and eat Waffle House or McDonald's fries. But one day I realized my dad wasn't going to work anymore. I wasn't giving him high fives out the door. And he was just walking around the house trying to look like figure out the next step was gonna be. And I realized as I got older, my dad had lost his job to no fault of his own. His warehouse was bought out by marshals. And so my dad, I know because I saw him, I didn't realize what he was doing that time. Sunday nights he would get on the phone to recertify to get his unemployment benefits. And so my dad had to do that for five weeks until he got his next job opportunity. So at the time it was just me and my brother and my parents living in an apartment in College Park, South Florida. But sometime I wonder if we would have had this Republican governor and we would have had this Republican labor commissioner, Mark Butler, would I be standing on this stage right now? Would I graduate it for Banneker High School in College Park? Would I graduate it from Boston State University and got my bachelor's degree? Would I've graduated from Mercer Law School and became a lawyer? Would I be able to serve my neighbors and constituents in Georgia House District 62? Would I be standing here right now as a Democratic nominee for Georgia Labor Commissioner? I don't know. My family could have lost everything, but we didn't. I wanna change that. I wanna make sure no one ever has to go through what workers during the pandemic had to go through in this state. And we're gonna change that. And so I also, I also wanna make sure that we partner with organized labor. Organized labor is, along with the middle class, the backbone of this country and the state. All those great things that my dear friend Andrew stated early is absolutely true. We would not have an eight hour day without organized labor. We would not have guaranteed pitches without organized labor. We would not have labor day without labor. 18, I think it was 1894, organized labor decided that we were gonna have a date to celebrate labor and celebrate the sacrifice of working families and workers in this country. Because workers are the engine that moves this country forward. And organized labor is the voice of workers in this country and in this state. I'm proud to say that Georgia is one of the fastest growing organized labor states in this country. And it's because workers in this state realize that organized labor gives you a seat at the collective bargaining table. And we know through collective bargaining, workers have a higher standard of living, how wages, better healthcare, and also a quality of life where they know they can take care of themselves and their family. That's what organized labor does. And that's what I want to make sure that I partner with organized labor to help continue to grow and get workers in this state of voice. I was very glad to hear what the United Campus workers are doing right there at UGA. They decided to organize. They organized back in 2016 when they check got cut right before Christmas. Can you imagine working and your check get cut right before the Christmas holiday? No, so they decided to stand up and they modeled what they were doing after the state of Tennessee. And now they have almost, like you said, close to 1,000 workers. UGA has the most or the largest employer in Athens-Clarke County at over 9,800 employees. So I'm glad that you all are doing what you're doing and making sure that workers right there on UGA's campus has a voice. So thank you. Thank you United Campus workers. But I want to partner with organized labor because organized labor has some amazing apprenticeship opportunities where we can start with having opportunities for our young people. As early as 10th grade, if they want to go into a trade, vocational or crap, they don't have to go to college if they decide not to. Right then in the 10th grade, they can go into a career academy if their school system has one. But if it does not have a career academy, they can go to the local technical college and start to learn HVAC, start to learn construction, start to learn television and movie industry training. They can learn that right then and there. And so when they graduate from college, now from high school, they can either go to college or four-year institution, they could go into their trade or craft or vocation or they can go to a technical college. Right now I have a button on the says construction rate, a lapel. That lapel basically is an organization, a construction rate that helps any student or any young person or anybody in the state for that matter that wants to get into the construction industry. You can get certified in construction in 20 days through their program. Get certified up to eight certificates. If you graduate, you could go into their, I would say premium program, their graduate program and get into a 15-week program where you're learning a trade of construction. But the great thing about that is that you graduate from those programs, you don't have any student loan debt. And so not only you don't have any student loan debt, you could then go into a liberal wage paying job. Someone stated earlier, right now Georgia is tied with the state of Wyoming for the lowest minimum wage. $5.15, state minimum wage. We're tied with one of the smallest states in this country with the lowest minimum wage. Now, of course, that minimum wage doesn't maybe cross over or it's applicable to most of the industries in this state because the $7.25 minimum wage is the prevailing wage. However, even with that wage, a lot of us or a lot of our citizens can't make a living taking care of all of their necessities of life. So we want to look at working with our Georgia General Assembly and our federal delegation to look at raising the minimum wage in this country and not only in the state as well. So that's something I wanna make sure that we partner because right now the minimum wage has been stuck and stagnant. If you look at most researchers that are experts in this area state that if the minimum wage was tracking with cost of living and with inflation, the minimum wage would have been $24 in the year 2020, but it still remains at $7.25. So we need to look at that. We need to have a minimum wage that tracks inflation but also a cost of living. And our federal delegations, Democrats have filed legislation to do that. However, it has a move. Hopefully we one day can get that passed out of the Senate as well. But right now I want to kinda talk about the importance of this election. I'm a statewide candidate and I'm proud to be on a Democratic ticket, a ticket that includes a lot of my dear friends, but that ticket is not only historic and looks like this rule, but that ticket has an opportunity to protect workers in this state. We have the opportunity to elect a pro-labor governor and Governor Ables that cares about working families. We had the opportunity to elect a pro-labor lieutenant governor in Charlie Baylor that cares about workers in this state. We had the opportunity to elect a labor commissioner that actually has a relationship with labor and cares about organized labor and the principles that they represent in William Bowden. We had the opportunity to elect a secretary of state that's also a member of IBW Local 613 in B-Win. We had the opportunity to elect an attorney general in Jen Jordan that's actually gonna go out and form a task force with the Department of Labor Commissioner to go after wage theft and misclassification in this state. We have an ad commissioner and the key to him away that's gonna fight for farm workers and she also wants to help organize farm workers in this state. We're gonna have an insurance commissioner in Janice Laws Robinson that's actually going to fight to make sure insurance rates are where they're supposed to be at normal levels and not that being inflated to a point where working families can't even pay for car insurance because insurance companies are coming in basically having an insurance commissioner to basically rub a stamp whatever rate they want. So we're gonna do it away with that and we also gonna make sure that we have a democratic ticket that's always gonna keep workers at the front of mind on any legislation that they pass. I wanna make sure that we actually pass pro worker legislation that the gold don't and I'm gonna work with our state senators and our state representatives to do that. I passed over 27 bills as a Democrat in the Georgia House of Representatives including the Amar Dharvi citizens arrest repeal legislation. I'm proud to say that Georgia is still the only state to repeal the citizens arrest in direct response to the senseless murder of Amar Dharvi back in February 2020 down in Glynn County. So I want us to work together. I want us to fight. I know we up against a lot right now. I'm running against a candidate right now that his focus is not labor. His focus is taking a warmest fundamental right to choose and we cannot have someone in office that is so rigid and so stuck in that old audiology that they don't even look at the exceptions, the exceptions for a woman having an abortion. My opponent stated that even if a woman at the advice of her doctor with her life on the line wants to get an abortion, he says no. Even if a woman who has been raped and has reported that rape to law enforcement wants to get an abortion, he says no. Bruce Thompson states and says that a child that has been the victim of incest, if her family and her decide to get an abortion, he says no. What type of audiology is that? That is a choice for the woman and her healthcare provider, not the government and not Bruce Thompson. So I know it's tough right now. And as I wrap up, we're in a, as my dear friend Lita Abrams said, a generational opportunity. We lost the majority in the state Democrats and I'll also say organized labor because organized labor and Democrats have always been partners and we have always worked together. But we lost the state in 2002. That's 20 years ago. It's been 20 years too long. It's an opportunity we have right now to take back control, to have legislation that actually cares about more than just the 1%. That actually cares about workers and working families. So I know times are tough right now. I know we're looking at SB202 where black and brown voters are having to vote suppressed and their voices suppressed. I know we're looking at a situation where these Republicans in this state refuse to expand Medicaid that will provide over 500,000 individuals who need affordable healthcare coverage in this state. The opportunity to have affordable healthcare. It would also create 64,000 living wage paying jobs and it would save hospitals from closing like Well-Star AMC and the hospital in my neighborhood down to East Point, Well-Star South. So my grandmother, my dear grandmother Miles if she was living today, she'll say, son, we're going through some tough times right now. But then she will say, son, we're going through tough times right now, but tough times are made for tough people. And I wanna say in this room, organized labor, Athens-Clarke County Democrats, Jackson County Democrats, O'Connor County Democrats, we are tough people. And not only are we tough people, we are going to win up and down the ballot in November. We're gonna get Democrats elected that care about organized labor that's gonna listen to working families that cares about working families that won't put profits over people, won't put power over people and won't pass bills that hurt workers like the COVID-19 immunity bill. We're gonna be there for workers and we're gonna be there for organized labor and we're gonna fight to make sure that the voiceless always have a vote and Democrats are gonna win big in November because of you, thank you all. Our next labor commissioner, William Bodie, everyone. I'm gonna do something I probably should not do and channel my best Deborah Gonzalez right now. My big regret from today is that we did not have Deborah Gonzalez speak. We had so many other labor folks that I wanted to get in for this labor event that I did not ask her to speak. So that is on me, everyone. We have 62 days, all right? 62 days to elect Democrats up and down the ballot, to restore reproductive rights, to restore labor rights, to fight climate change, to elect folks who are going to understand that free and fair elections are the bedrock of our democracy. 62 days. My friend Jesse Hul, the commissioner, said this earlier, if you are not already involved in a campaign, please get involved if you're not Deborah Gonzalez because you're already involved in so much. But we have 62 days, folks. And this is all on the line. We have a historic slate of candidates from Stacey Abrams to commissioner or to future labor commissioner, William Bodie. We can do this. The window is small, the work is intense, but we absolutely can do it. Every poll you look at, it's right there for us. But we've gotta come together, we've gotta work, and we've gotta knock every door, we've gotta make every phone call, we've gotta attend every event, we've gotta reach out to every person who we personally know, who we know is not currently involved in politics. We have seen since Roe versus Wade has been overturned in state after state after state that young women, women in general, but young women in particular, have turned out not just in registering to vote, but in actually voting. The state of Georgia has not had an election since that has been overturned. I firmly believe this is a wave election for Democrats. So we need to turn out the vote, we need to engage with our young people, we need to engage with women, we need to reach across the aisle whenever possible, and let's get this done because this is our one shot to do this. We can't have another four years of Brian Kemp as the governor of the state of Georgia. We need to elect Stacey Abrams, we need to do it now. This is our moment in time. Thank you everyone for being here. The Agua Linda food truck has been here and weathered the storm the entire time. If y'all have not gotten a food ticket from me or from our team, come get one. You have a free meal on us. Go out there, grab some food, tip their workers. Thank you everyone for being here.