September 16, 2024 • 31 mins
Mia talks with Alex Chan, an organizer for the UAW, about the union's attempts to break her staff union and how it hurts both UAW organizers and the workers they organize.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
All Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
It could happen here.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
It's the podcast where things happen and you do something
about it. I'm your host, Via Wong, and we have
done you know, okay, over the course of this, we
have done so many union episodes that I lost count
a year ago, two years ago, I don't even know.
I lost count at the dawn of time of how
many of these we've done. But something I think some
of you probably know this, but a lot of you don't,
(00:29):
is that many unions have their own unions for the
people who to do staff work and to do sort
of a number of other things, and sometimes unions bust
their own unions and this unbelievably sucks. And to talk
about an instance of this happening that is happening right now,
I am talking with Alex Chan, who is an organizer
for the UAW, who is I don't know what.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Technical term is.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
I'm going to describe it non legally bindingly as being
purged for doing organizing.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
But yeah, Alex, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Hi, it's nice to be here. I think being purged
is a great way to describe it.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Yeah, the tentative title for this is the UAW Staff purge.
So it's not great. So why don't we start off.
I've given a very very brief sort of description of
what a staff union is, but can you talk a
bit more broadly about what a staff union is, what
it does, and why you all are sort of trying
to organize one.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Of course, So in terms of staff unions, yeah, it's
definitely an interesting phenomenon for people who are less familiar
with the labor movement. But when unions have a lot
of staff, sometimes those staff also need a union to
make sure that they are treated fairly in the workplace. Coincidentally,
this year there have been a lot of incidents that
have shown why staff unions are happening in the first place.
(01:51):
And so with my union, we are called UAW Staff United.
We are part of Region nine A of the us
UAW is split into a lot of geographic regions, and
nine A covers New York and New England, including Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut,
New Hampshire, Vermont, not New York State. New York State
(02:15):
is covered by Region nine. So we are a bunch
of temporary organizers and local staff that are organizing for
a lot of things, among them wages, workload, job security, healthcare,
and so on so forth, very normal things that you
would actually see in a lot of the contracts that
(02:36):
we helped fight for in the shops that we work
for and organize and the units that we help support.
So uaw Staff United otherwise known as Yuzoo like the fruit.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Oh that's fun, No, it's cute, right.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
We really love the USU imagery a lot. We were
formed in twenty twenty three, first went public in the spring.
I joined the unit in the summer, but I was
just kind of peripherally around and organizing with a lot
of these folks before they went public in the spring.
God recognized slowly and then slowly came to the bargaining
(03:13):
table in August. And so at this point we have
been at the bargaining table for over a year and
we still do not have a contract. Normally, in most
shops that you would see organizing, that would be cause
for escalation, and so that is actually part of what
we are doing here. After hitting one full year bargaining,
we are still very stuck on items such as wages,
(03:36):
job security, yep, all the very normal things that we
can see in units that we help support and bargain
for and so the situation that we're facing is slightly
more complicated because of many other internal things that For example,
UAW has another staff union. It is called Staff Council,
(03:56):
and that covers more regions of UAW rather than nine A.
It also includes people who are our direct supervisors. On paper,
those people are called lead organizers and they do make
low six figures. Yeah, and yes they are our direct supervisors.
So they are a managerial union, and they are what
(04:19):
some people may call a business union, you know, works
closely with management to secure a good deal, that kind
of thing. It's never really been known to agitate in
a contract, and that is partially one reason why Yuzu
was formed, because we knew that some agitation needed to
happen in order to secure actually good treatment for people
(04:39):
in our position. Our position meaning temp and local staff.
Now I keep saying temp staff, right, is that the
next question?
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yeah, I am so good.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
I'm one step ahead.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
I want to talk about both a the way your
contracts work and be what the thing you're actually doing is,
because I'm not sure, I'm not sure people are one
familiar with what specifically you do and what a what
a sort of like staff union organizer does, and the
difference between you and the.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
People that are sort of the organizer layer above you is.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Yeah, absolutely, So that has to go a little bit
into how we are hired, and that's why I kept
seeing temp staff and local staff. Our unit is formed
somewhat on our pay structure, and so temp organizers are
hired by the international or the region, and local staff
(05:33):
are hired by the locals, which is kind of a
sub unit of the regions and how different unions are organized.
There could be multiple units in one local, a local
may hire a staffer, but that staffer could be subsidized
by the international, and that is kind of what our
unitformation is like, where funding comes from the international, and
(05:56):
this layer of people does the most in new organizing,
so supporting new shops that form new campaigns, that are
organizing new unions that are just forming and need to
secure an election or a first contract. Some of our
colleagues go a little bit further into the stage because
(06:17):
of their local staff status where they're supporting contract renewals
or bargaining around the second stage. But a lot of
these has to do with on the ground, worker to worker,
peer to peer organizing, supporting them and many different ways,
including data work, including just resources. Like when you think
(06:38):
of how the parent union might be supporting a new shop,
we are kind of the resources that are supporting the
new shop that can help direct institutional knowledge, that can
help direct logistical or legal information like how or what
is necessary for an election or a petition, that kind
(06:58):
of stuff. And yeah, it's a lot of different tasks,
and that's why for a lot of us, our job
description is I'm doing air quotes here a flexible forty.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Hour work week, Jess Christ.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
And of course that usually means a lot more than
that when campaigns ramp up, and so you know, there
are a lot of different models on how to combat that.
But I'll get into that a bit later. So going
back to the difference between us and perhaps our direct supervisors,
our direct supervisors may be tasked with monitoring the status
(07:32):
of a lot of different campaigns at the same time,
and we might be assigned to one or two or
three at a time to work very very directly with
the organizers and the new workers. Of course, this looks
slightly different across different locals. Our different campaigns can be
(07:52):
adjusted depending on the shop's needs, but our supervisors who
are the leads will be handling a lot of different
campaigns at the same time, and just like kind of
overseeing that progress and giving the okay for the next
stage or or whats whatsoever. So I wanted to go
back a little bit to why we are called temp organizers.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Yeah, this is nuts. Well, I was so angry when
I forgat about this.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
So do you know what a temp organizer is?
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Yeah, this is actually weird. So I have friends who
are staff organizers for other unions that it doesn't work
like this. So yeah, I'm going to let you explain it,
because I.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Mean, do let me know about those in another Yeah,
but for temp organizers in UAW, this is a holdover
from the kind of older model of organizing, where theoretically
a worker might come off the shop floor for six
months nine months to do union work and then go
back to the shop floor when that concludes, so that
(08:54):
the job would remain open for them. So temporary, like
the nature is temporary. Someone is coming off to do
union work and then you know, sometimes it's even part time, right,
sometimes it's even part time, and the worker never stops
working at their original job. But nowadays the model doesn't
look like that anymore, right because, especially in say higher
ed shops, people graduate out of their graduate union jobs.
(09:18):
People may not have their reappointment if they are an
adjunct or contract faculty. And then a lot of our
unit members u zoom, meaning a lot of our uzoom
members come out of a shop that is UAW whether
that means they're legal services or museum workers or higher ed,
but it is less common nowadays to have a job
(09:39):
to return to. However, the model remains the same in
that the temper organizer job has three month renewals and
a three year cap. Every three months our contract is renewed,
and if we hit three years on this job, we
are no longer hired. Theoretically, you be hired to another
(10:01):
job internally, but there's no pipeline, there is no internal
movement that way. You would have to apply to the
job like a regular other job that is a more
full term job, or you just kind of like quote
unquote like age out the system and you're just no
longer an organizer. You no longer have a job. And
(10:23):
so this has manifested in a lot of different ways.
There are a lot of my colleagues that have gotten
tired or burnt out and have decided to leave before
their three years or leave at their three years of
their own will. There are folks that have left way
earlier than their three years as well to pursue other opportunities.
(10:44):
Yuzu at any given time has about forty to fifty
members and that is our nine a unit. Again, one
thing that we have come to find out is that
in the last five years of this temp organizer model,
only three people who have hit their three year cap
(11:06):
have managed to attain full term jobs in the UAW
afterward Geese. And then there is me, who, again within
the last five years, is the only person to have
been not renewed before their three year term, very unceremoniously
as well as in the middle of very active campaigns.
(11:29):
That brings us to another piece of context, and the
reason why I keep saying five years is because in
twenty eighteen there was a first iteration of the Yuzoo.
There was a first attempt to forming this staff union
of temp and local staff. Of course it was created
by different people. But what happened then, especially under the
Administrative Caucus when it was before the reform leadership septed
(11:52):
in is that everyone was just fired Jesus. Yeah, everyone
was just let go. And there are people still around
organizing these days in other positions or in other workplaces
that you have talked to us about it. And there
are people that are working in user now that had
friends or were peripheral to that happening. So we are
all very familiar with how non renewal is a very
(12:15):
retaliatory practice used in UAW in the past, or we
thought was in the past, because we were so excited
to have this reform leadership come in and now we
are finding out that it is still a tool that
is consistent. And so when we are excited that there
is democratic reform, especially with one member, one vote, which
(12:38):
was extremely extremely exciting to see, we also need to
point out that there are a lot of different places
here that still need to change, especially in how the
union treats its own staff.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
Yeah, and unfortunately we need to go to ads. We'll
we come back. I want to circle back around and
talk a bit more about the ways of the UAW
is acting like a fairly conventional boss trying to break
a union.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
And we are back.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
So there's something really interesting, I mean I say interesting,
it's something sort of terrible about the way that the
UAW is relying on effectively a casualized workforce, because because
you're dealing with these constant renewals, which are an incredible
sort of pressure leverage because it means you don't have
job security. It honestly feels like the way Amazon works,
(13:39):
where they're just like trying intentionally instead of trying to
retain people, they're just trying to churn through as many
organized as possible because like the more seniority people have
and the more experience they have, the harder it is
to like just completely underpay them.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Yeah, the keyword in here is flexibility.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Yeah, And it seems like, also on an institutional level,
a terrible idea because you know, you're training a bunch
of organizers and then the moment that they're you know,
the moment they have a bunch of experience, you're just
casting it into the wind and then hiring the less
experienced person. It's like, you bring up a great point. Actually,
something that I want to touch on is end bargaining.
(14:15):
We have asked for training and we have not been
met with a satisfactory answer. People are not trained.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Before they take on this position. But yes, you're absolutely
correct with the institutional knowledge aspect. The campaigns that I'm
working on, the organizing committees are real pissed that I
have been suddenly disappeared. And I want to highlight something
that one organizer brought up is that for all the
talk of us being one big union, how we are
the union, how we have a democratic saying this process,
(14:42):
it's very weird that someone higher up in the union
can just make one of our members disappear. Yeah, and
that is in reference to my unceremonious departure, of course.
And the points that we, as you you really want
to highlight and emphasize is that we really want to
just hold UAW to the values that it has espoused,
(15:03):
ending tiers, job security for workers, fair wages. Like I said,
in bargaining, we had asked for training, and that has
not gone very well. UW is refusing to bargain over
free speech and continuity representation, which refers to the hypothetical
scenario if Region nine A were to be absorbed somewhere
else the right for user to still exist, and they've
(15:25):
refused to bargain over that we are stuck in wages
at somewhere around three percent per year of four years. Yeah,
it's not great, and there's been a lot of chaos
behind the scenes that it is implied to be a
bad thing to let the members know about the members
(15:45):
that we work with and organize with. But to a
certain point things boil over, and especially in the case
where I am suddenly not renewed, it is really important
in our view that our members know what is happening. Yeah,
that the members know what this is about, because they
get the news landed on them after our social media
(16:07):
posts come out, because I am told not to inform
the organizers myself, and so the organizers had to hear
about it from my supervisors about a week later with
no details. Mine non renewal was without cause, without justification,
without reason. They did not give me an answer to
my face. And then as Yuzu kept pushing higher ups
(16:30):
kept flip flopping on who to blame and what the
actual cause was. And what I'm getting is a sense
of surprise that people are angry about this in the
first place, as if this was a normal situation, that
people were just getting fired any other day with a
month's notice, and they're like, we gave her a month's notice.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Which also like I feel like, like, what was the last
a bit of these people were on a shop floor?
Like do you know how disruptive it Like if someone
had pulled like so we had when we we were
organizing our union, we had we've had a number of great, writer,
skilled staffers, and it's like if someone had just pulled
our staffer out in the middle of the drive, like
all of use would have been unbelievably pissed and it
would have done incredible about it damage to the organizing
(17:12):
because union organizing, as you are well aware, and I
think as the audience should be increasingly aware, is built
on personal relations. You can't just yank someone out and
then not allow them to even know what's happening. Like,
that's incredibly disruptive. It pisces people off.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Yeah, it's been very enraging for a lot of our members,
and so I've been extremely grateful for the support that
I received, whether it be on social media or by
our email campaign to management. And what I've seen from
this is that management was really taken by surprise that
there was a reaction at all, kind of unfortunately for them.
(17:49):
There are a lot of shops and a lot of
units that I have supported and organized with and have
relationships with, and even for the shops that I don't
have relationships with, Yuzu members are working in those shops,
and there is a common understanding that it'd be really
weird for a stafford to be randomly pulled out during
(18:09):
a very active campaign. I've had a rough couple months
of going at it because I think there have been
some really unhealthy dynamics in the workplace with supervision that
was unjust and punishment that was unjust for my attempt
to advocate for different units and attempt to advocate for organizing,
(18:34):
and I think that is why we have reached the
conclusion that retaliation retribution must be involved somehow. On paper,
this was a very oddly handled situation. I was notified
by email on three thirty PM on a Friday before
Labor Day weekend.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
I was not informed by a meeting, not informed by
a call. My supervisor didn't pick up my calls until
two and a half hours later.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Oh my God.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
In the meantime and where they were actually informing my
co workers that I had been terminated and then came
back to me saying that they were busy Jesus, which
no firing happens like that. I'm sorry, but there was
no conceivable way where the HR email happens. And then
my supervisor is busy telling my co workers that I've
(19:20):
been let go, which you know, we are interpreting as
intimidation because why else would this be happening.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Yeah, even corporate best layoffs don't work like that, Like
you at least get a meeting.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
No, I didn't get a meeting until the Tuesday after
to talk about transitioning my work, and they had no
plan to transition my work. So currently no one is
handling the work that I was responsible for, which is they.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Just screw your units.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
That's quite dangerous for campaign and higher ed as the
semester ramps up.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Yeah, yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
And of course the HR email was signed in solidarity
and had no name. I didn't want to bring up
that point. There is evidence. Yes, it's extraordinarily funny if
you actually look at it. But yeah, just even if
we didn't have the context of what has happened to
(20:20):
me in the workplace in the last six months, even
just on paper, looking at how this non renewal was handled,
it was handled atrociously. Yeah, and so there is not
much else we can draw from it other than the
fact that I was someone they wanted to get rid
of expeditiously, but just didn't anticipate that people would be
mad about it, which is, you know, to me a
(20:42):
sense that people up there handling it are a little
out of touch, like they haven't experienced what it's like
to have this happen, to have a staff a randomly
yanked out during the middle of a really active campaign.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Yeah, we need to go to ads again, but we will.
We will be back soon.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
And what our product services, we're about to have unionize
them and then also ugnize your staff.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
We are back.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
So it's something we've been talking about in terms of
sort of your specific situation and how it's the terrible
impact and it's had on both you personally and the
organizing that's going on. And I wanted to come around
to talking a bit about the impact that this structure
and the impact that getting denied benefits and stuff like that,
the impact that this has in general on the way
(21:42):
that organizing new shops works.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Yeah, I think that the impact this has very concretely
is that it does not let us do good work.
It makes us as organizers scared every three months that
we have to have another plan. It makes us have
to prepare a plan every time that rolls around, and
then you know that takes our focus off of the
organizing that we could be doing. I mentioned earlier about workload.
(22:09):
Organizers get burnt out extremely easily because there are no
guardrails in place. And then there are plenty plenty of
other circumstances that make it very difficult within this workplace too.
For example, we don't have just cause we don't have
grievance procedures Jesus Christ. And it makes a very damaging environment,
(22:30):
especially when you consider that the members have to bargain
for their own contracts, and then they look at us
and they're like, wait a minute, why are your contracts
that bad? Yeah, it doesn't inspire trust. It doesn't inspire
faith in how this union would organize for its workers
if the staff are insecure constantly. And we are not
(22:51):
asking for the moon and the stars in Mars, which
is unfortunately what the UW lawyer accused us of doing
so in a bargaining session. We're asking for very simple
guardrails on job security, on workload, on healthcare that could
help cover our dependence on wages that are not stagnant.
You know, they're not even giving us COLA, which is
(23:14):
the phrase for cost of living adjustment, and christ a
lot of us live in New York City, and then
there's folks in Boston and hell, even the transport costs
have been a bit of a sticking point where we're like,
can we please just get an MTA card or the equivalent.
(23:35):
But overall, this structure does not inspire faith in terms
of how our contracts are actually negotiated and who is
responsible for these contracts. It is very difficult to hear
from the UAW lawyer that we are reaching for MARS
when we are asking for things that are very present
in our standard contracts that our members receive. You know,
(23:58):
we have taken language from the contracts that our members
have and tried to apply them for our own situation,
and we've been told that they're too extra. And then,
you know, this has been kind of an odd year
for union staff. I wanted to highlight that anya earlier
this year, National Education Association their staff were locked out
(24:21):
during bargaining eleven ninety nine. SCIU also just formed their
staff union and during the drive they had one of
the organizers fired. Thirty two BJSCIU just announced their union
and again during their drive one of their organizers. They've
posted this on social media. One of the organizers had
a miscarriage and then asked for help, was put on
(24:44):
a performance improvement plan, and then fired after a month.
And you know, there are these really uncomfortable trends of
this mistreatment happening because priorities might be elsewhere, or there
is assumption that we are more expendable, maybe we are
Kennon fodder, but that really really is not what is
(25:10):
supposed to happen in places that are advocating for fair
labor standards. And I am glad that we're hearing more
stories about this. I'm horrified at the stories that are
coming out about this, but you know, I hope there
are more that are formed because a lot of these
things are very extreme.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Yeah, it's and it's you know, it's impacting not just
the organizers. I think one of the reasons why unions
issue RIGHTSIL declining is like, well, yeah, okay, you guys
keep firing all of your organizers, Like yeah, of course
we're not getting shops for it.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
And I want to say what I think about just specifically,
like the mood and.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
The stars thing is this like okay, this is not
to say that this kind of stuff will be okay
at a smaller union, but like, this is not Like
we've had a lot of independent unions on this show,
and those are people you know, who have formed their
own using completely independently. In the money they've collected is
stuff that's come from them, like putting out their head
on the street, right.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
I mean, you know some of these unions have like
a thousand dollars of assets. This is the UAW. The
UAW has hundreds of millions of dollars. They have unbelievable
amounts of money.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
And earlier this year they were just bragging about how
they are putting so many more millions into new organizing.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Yeah, and it's like, well, okay, if you're gonna put
if you're gonna put all this money into organizing, and
again they probably should. They should be doing more, because
what is the point of sitting on this much money? Right,
It's like you're behaving like a financial institution and not
a and not a union, but like you have the
money to actually like cultivate and develop effective union organizers,
(26:37):
and you have the money to meet like pretty mild
contract contracts that are like that your contract is probably
significantly cheaper than like the contract that they're negotiating, right, Like,
this is just this is nonsense, Like we know you
have this kind of money also because you're paying your
like managerial staff for six figures, so clearly you can
do this and you're simply not. And I think that
(26:57):
should outrage everyone.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
I think that's exactly the response of a lot of
our members because knowing that a lot of our temp
organizers and staff organizers are people that are most passionately
devoting themselves to the labor movement and you are met
with such unstable job conditions is truly horrifying, because this
is not this is not a path to careerism. Like
(27:24):
as a temp organizer, there is not much upward mobility here.
Let me be very clear, there's not much upward mobility.
It's not like this is a cushy job. There's no
real way for me to just sit back and relax
on piles of bureaucratic money or something like that. And
that reminds me of how I shout out to our
Korean comrades that I've met at labor notes, where I
(27:47):
explained to them what a temporary organizer's job is like
and how many people we handle and how temporary our
status is. I was talking to some of our equivalents
in the auto industry as well, the union workers there,
and they were pretty horrified at the workload, at the insecurity,
(28:08):
at the just again lack of EQUIVALENCYE. And again I'm
not trying to claim that Korea's labor organizing world is perfect,
like absolutely nobody is. But the chocker to them is like, well,
why are you doing this? Why do you Why are
you working in this job? They have asked me this
(28:29):
to my face, Why are you working in this job?
What is possibly good enough for that for you? And unfortunately,
a lot of it is optimism of the will, and
I think that's a lot of what's keeping us going.
And so my last day is supposedly September twenty eighth,
but hopefully this month there have been fantastic outpourings of support,
(28:50):
and we are also picketing the political leadership conference on
the Friday the thirteenth, Scary, and I think that is
going to really align with how YUSUS needed to escalate.
I think this is again just a boiling point, and
it has shown how all of this culminates in a
very unfair labor standard and practice of which we have
(29:13):
filed a few charges. But there's a lot more that
needs to be done. And even if I don't get reinstated,
I think that USEU is a great example of how
there's still more change that needs to happen within UAW.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
Yeah, I want to close by talking about through line.
Through a lot of these episodes that we've done, We've
talked with a lot of people who work for Planned Parenthood,
We've talked for a lot of people who work for NGOs,
and this is this is the same behavior that they
do where you know, quite frankly, what they are doing
is exploiting, exploiting the labor of people who believe in
(29:46):
the cause, and because people are willing to you know,
because because people believe in what they're doing, because the
work that they're doing is vital and necessary, These NGOs
and these unions think that they can just continuously exploit
the people who work for them, and this damages the workers,
This damages the people who they're nominally trying to help,
and this damage is the entire left because when you're
(30:08):
sort of charting through organizers and when you're sort of
fundamentally betraying the missions that you're supposed to be doing
in order to just do more exploitation, this significantly damages
literally the entire organizing project that we're all fighting for.
So Alex, thank you so much for coming and talking
and talking to us about this. And I where can
(30:29):
people go to support you and support Uzoo?
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Our accounts are UAW staff United on Instagram and Twitter.
Please follow for more. Check out the adorable Yuzo Lemon
logos that we have everywhere. If you're in New York
or Boston, those are our major hubs we keep an
eye off for a future Actions awesome.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Thank you again for coming on the show. And yeah,
if you are a union staffer, because I know I
know a number of you are listening to this.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
If you're in the UAW, raise hell.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
And if you're not and the UAW and you don't
have your own staff union, consider it.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Yeah, thank you. It could happen. Here is a production
of Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
From More podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out from the
iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
You can now find sources for it could happen here,
listed directly in episode descriptions.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Thanks for listening.
All Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
It could happen here.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
It's the podcast where things happen and you do something
about it. I'm your host, Via Wong, and we have
done you know, okay, over the course of this, we
have done so many union episodes that I lost count
a year ago, two years ago, I don't even know.
I lost count at the dawn of time of how
many of these we've done. But something I think some
of you probably know this, but a lot of you don't,
(00:29):
is that many unions have their own unions for the
people who to do staff work and to do sort
of a number of other things, and sometimes unions bust
their own unions and this unbelievably sucks. And to talk
about an instance of this happening that is happening right now,
I am talking with Alex Chan, who is an organizer
for the UAW, who is I don't know what.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Technical term is.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
I'm going to describe it non legally bindingly as being
purged for doing organizing.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
But yeah, Alex, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Hi, it's nice to be here. I think being purged
is a great way to describe it.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Yeah, the tentative title for this is the UAW Staff purge.
So it's not great. So why don't we start off.
I've given a very very brief sort of description of
what a staff union is, but can you talk a
bit more broadly about what a staff union is, what
it does, and why you all are sort of trying
to organize one.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Of course, So in terms of staff unions, yeah, it's
definitely an interesting phenomenon for people who are less familiar
with the labor movement. But when unions have a lot
of staff, sometimes those staff also need a union to
make sure that they are treated fairly in the workplace. Coincidentally,
this year there have been a lot of incidents that
have shown why staff unions are happening in the first place.
(01:51):
And so with my union, we are called UAW Staff United.
We are part of Region nine A of the us
UAW is split into a lot of geographic regions, and
nine A covers New York and New England, including Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut,
New Hampshire, Vermont, not New York State. New York State
(02:15):
is covered by Region nine. So we are a bunch
of temporary organizers and local staff that are organizing for
a lot of things, among them wages, workload, job security, healthcare,
and so on so forth, very normal things that you
would actually see in a lot of the contracts that
(02:36):
we helped fight for in the shops that we work
for and organize and the units that we help support.
So uaw Staff United otherwise known as Yuzoo like the fruit.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Oh that's fun, No, it's cute, right.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
We really love the USU imagery a lot. We were
formed in twenty twenty three, first went public in the spring.
I joined the unit in the summer, but I was
just kind of peripherally around and organizing with a lot
of these folks before they went public in the spring.
God recognized slowly and then slowly came to the bargaining
(03:13):
table in August. And so at this point we have
been at the bargaining table for over a year and
we still do not have a contract. Normally, in most
shops that you would see organizing, that would be cause
for escalation, and so that is actually part of what
we are doing here. After hitting one full year bargaining,
we are still very stuck on items such as wages,
(03:36):
job security, yep, all the very normal things that we
can see in units that we help support and bargain
for and so the situation that we're facing is slightly
more complicated because of many other internal things that For example,
UAW has another staff union. It is called Staff Council,
(03:56):
and that covers more regions of UAW rather than nine A.
It also includes people who are our direct supervisors. On paper,
those people are called lead organizers and they do make
low six figures. Yeah, and yes they are our direct supervisors.
So they are a managerial union, and they are what
(04:19):
some people may call a business union, you know, works
closely with management to secure a good deal, that kind
of thing. It's never really been known to agitate in
a contract, and that is partially one reason why Yuzu
was formed, because we knew that some agitation needed to
happen in order to secure actually good treatment for people
(04:39):
in our position. Our position meaning temp and local staff.
Now I keep saying temp staff, right, is that the
next question?
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yeah, I am so good.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
I'm one step ahead.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
I want to talk about both a the way your
contracts work and be what the thing you're actually doing is,
because I'm not sure, I'm not sure people are one
familiar with what specifically you do and what a what
a sort of like staff union organizer does, and the
difference between you and the.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
People that are sort of the organizer layer above you is.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Yeah, absolutely, So that has to go a little bit
into how we are hired, and that's why I kept
seeing temp staff and local staff. Our unit is formed
somewhat on our pay structure, and so temp organizers are
hired by the international or the region, and local staff
(05:33):
are hired by the locals, which is kind of a
sub unit of the regions and how different unions are organized.
There could be multiple units in one local, a local
may hire a staffer, but that staffer could be subsidized
by the international, and that is kind of what our
unitformation is like, where funding comes from the international, and
(05:56):
this layer of people does the most in new organizing,
so supporting new shops that form new campaigns, that are
organizing new unions that are just forming and need to
secure an election or a first contract. Some of our
colleagues go a little bit further into the stage because
(06:17):
of their local staff status where they're supporting contract renewals
or bargaining around the second stage. But a lot of
these has to do with on the ground, worker to worker,
peer to peer organizing, supporting them and many different ways,
including data work, including just resources. Like when you think
(06:38):
of how the parent union might be supporting a new shop,
we are kind of the resources that are supporting the
new shop that can help direct institutional knowledge, that can
help direct logistical or legal information like how or what
is necessary for an election or a petition, that kind
(06:58):
of stuff. And yeah, it's a lot of different tasks,
and that's why for a lot of us, our job
description is I'm doing air quotes here a flexible forty.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Hour work week, Jess Christ.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
And of course that usually means a lot more than
that when campaigns ramp up, and so you know, there
are a lot of different models on how to combat that.
But I'll get into that a bit later. So going
back to the difference between us and perhaps our direct supervisors,
our direct supervisors may be tasked with monitoring the status
(07:32):
of a lot of different campaigns at the same time,
and we might be assigned to one or two or
three at a time to work very very directly with
the organizers and the new workers. Of course, this looks
slightly different across different locals. Our different campaigns can be
(07:52):
adjusted depending on the shop's needs, but our supervisors who
are the leads will be handling a lot of different
campaigns at the same time, and just like kind of
overseeing that progress and giving the okay for the next
stage or or whats whatsoever. So I wanted to go
back a little bit to why we are called temp organizers.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Yeah, this is nuts. Well, I was so angry when
I forgat about this.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
So do you know what a temp organizer is?
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Yeah, this is actually weird. So I have friends who
are staff organizers for other unions that it doesn't work
like this. So yeah, I'm going to let you explain it,
because I.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Mean, do let me know about those in another Yeah,
but for temp organizers in UAW, this is a holdover
from the kind of older model of organizing, where theoretically
a worker might come off the shop floor for six
months nine months to do union work and then go
back to the shop floor when that concludes, so that
(08:54):
the job would remain open for them. So temporary, like
the nature is temporary. Someone is coming off to do
union work and then you know, sometimes it's even part time, right,
sometimes it's even part time, and the worker never stops
working at their original job. But nowadays the model doesn't
look like that anymore, right because, especially in say higher
ed shops, people graduate out of their graduate union jobs.
(09:18):
People may not have their reappointment if they are an
adjunct or contract faculty. And then a lot of our
unit members u zoom, meaning a lot of our uzoom
members come out of a shop that is UAW whether
that means they're legal services or museum workers or higher ed,
but it is less common nowadays to have a job
(09:39):
to return to. However, the model remains the same in
that the temper organizer job has three month renewals and
a three year cap. Every three months our contract is renewed,
and if we hit three years on this job, we
are no longer hired. Theoretically, you be hired to another
(10:01):
job internally, but there's no pipeline, there is no internal
movement that way. You would have to apply to the
job like a regular other job that is a more
full term job, or you just kind of like quote
unquote like age out the system and you're just no
longer an organizer. You no longer have a job. And
(10:23):
so this has manifested in a lot of different ways.
There are a lot of my colleagues that have gotten
tired or burnt out and have decided to leave before
their three years or leave at their three years of
their own will. There are folks that have left way
earlier than their three years as well to pursue other opportunities.
(10:44):
Yuzu at any given time has about forty to fifty
members and that is our nine a unit. Again, one
thing that we have come to find out is that
in the last five years of this temp organizer model,
only three people who have hit their three year cap
(11:06):
have managed to attain full term jobs in the UAW
afterward Geese. And then there is me, who, again within
the last five years, is the only person to have
been not renewed before their three year term, very unceremoniously
as well as in the middle of very active campaigns.
(11:29):
That brings us to another piece of context, and the
reason why I keep saying five years is because in
twenty eighteen there was a first iteration of the Yuzoo.
There was a first attempt to forming this staff union
of temp and local staff. Of course it was created
by different people. But what happened then, especially under the
Administrative Caucus when it was before the reform leadership septed
(11:52):
in is that everyone was just fired Jesus. Yeah, everyone
was just let go. And there are people still around
organizing these days in other positions or in other workplaces
that you have talked to us about it. And there
are people that are working in user now that had
friends or were peripheral to that happening. So we are
all very familiar with how non renewal is a very
(12:15):
retaliatory practice used in UAW in the past, or we
thought was in the past, because we were so excited
to have this reform leadership come in and now we
are finding out that it is still a tool that
is consistent. And so when we are excited that there
is democratic reform, especially with one member, one vote, which
(12:38):
was extremely extremely exciting to see, we also need to
point out that there are a lot of different places
here that still need to change, especially in how the
union treats its own staff.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
Yeah, and unfortunately we need to go to ads. We'll
we come back. I want to circle back around and
talk a bit more about the ways of the UAW
is acting like a fairly conventional boss trying to break
a union.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
And we are back.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
So there's something really interesting, I mean I say interesting,
it's something sort of terrible about the way that the
UAW is relying on effectively a casualized workforce, because because
you're dealing with these constant renewals, which are an incredible
sort of pressure leverage because it means you don't have
job security. It honestly feels like the way Amazon works,
(13:39):
where they're just like trying intentionally instead of trying to
retain people, they're just trying to churn through as many
organized as possible because like the more seniority people have
and the more experience they have, the harder it is
to like just completely underpay them.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Yeah, the keyword in here is flexibility.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Yeah, And it seems like, also on an institutional level,
a terrible idea because you know, you're training a bunch
of organizers and then the moment that they're you know,
the moment they have a bunch of experience, you're just
casting it into the wind and then hiring the less
experienced person. It's like, you bring up a great point. Actually,
something that I want to touch on is end bargaining.
(14:15):
We have asked for training and we have not been
met with a satisfactory answer. People are not trained.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Before they take on this position. But yes, you're absolutely
correct with the institutional knowledge aspect. The campaigns that I'm
working on, the organizing committees are real pissed that I
have been suddenly disappeared. And I want to highlight something
that one organizer brought up is that for all the
talk of us being one big union, how we are
the union, how we have a democratic saying this process,
(14:42):
it's very weird that someone higher up in the union
can just make one of our members disappear. Yeah, and
that is in reference to my unceremonious departure, of course.
And the points that we, as you you really want
to highlight and emphasize is that we really want to
just hold UAW to the values that it has espoused,
(15:03):
ending tiers, job security for workers, fair wages. Like I said,
in bargaining, we had asked for training, and that has
not gone very well. UW is refusing to bargain over
free speech and continuity representation, which refers to the hypothetical
scenario if Region nine A were to be absorbed somewhere
else the right for user to still exist, and they've
(15:25):
refused to bargain over that we are stuck in wages
at somewhere around three percent per year of four years. Yeah,
it's not great, and there's been a lot of chaos
behind the scenes that it is implied to be a
bad thing to let the members know about the members
(15:45):
that we work with and organize with. But to a
certain point things boil over, and especially in the case
where I am suddenly not renewed, it is really important
in our view that our members know what is happening. Yeah,
that the members know what this is about, because they
get the news landed on them after our social media
(16:07):
posts come out, because I am told not to inform
the organizers myself, and so the organizers had to hear
about it from my supervisors about a week later with
no details. Mine non renewal was without cause, without justification,
without reason. They did not give me an answer to
my face. And then as Yuzu kept pushing higher ups
(16:30):
kept flip flopping on who to blame and what the
actual cause was. And what I'm getting is a sense
of surprise that people are angry about this in the
first place, as if this was a normal situation, that
people were just getting fired any other day with a
month's notice, and they're like, we gave her a month's notice.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Which also like I feel like, like, what was the last
a bit of these people were on a shop floor?
Like do you know how disruptive it Like if someone
had pulled like so we had when we we were
organizing our union, we had we've had a number of great, writer,
skilled staffers, and it's like if someone had just pulled
our staffer out in the middle of the drive, like
all of use would have been unbelievably pissed and it
would have done incredible about it damage to the organizing
(17:12):
because union organizing, as you are well aware, and I
think as the audience should be increasingly aware, is built
on personal relations. You can't just yank someone out and
then not allow them to even know what's happening. Like,
that's incredibly disruptive. It pisces people off.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
Yeah, it's been very enraging for a lot of our members,
and so I've been extremely grateful for the support that
I received, whether it be on social media or by
our email campaign to management. And what I've seen from
this is that management was really taken by surprise that
there was a reaction at all, kind of unfortunately for them.
(17:49):
There are a lot of shops and a lot of
units that I have supported and organized with and have
relationships with, and even for the shops that I don't
have relationships with, Yuzu members are working in those shops,
and there is a common understanding that it'd be really
weird for a stafford to be randomly pulled out during
(18:09):
a very active campaign. I've had a rough couple months
of going at it because I think there have been
some really unhealthy dynamics in the workplace with supervision that
was unjust and punishment that was unjust for my attempt
to advocate for different units and attempt to advocate for organizing,
(18:34):
and I think that is why we have reached the
conclusion that retaliation retribution must be involved somehow. On paper,
this was a very oddly handled situation. I was notified
by email on three thirty PM on a Friday before
Labor Day weekend.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
I was not informed by a meeting, not informed by
a call. My supervisor didn't pick up my calls until
two and a half hours later.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Oh my God.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
In the meantime and where they were actually informing my
co workers that I had been terminated and then came
back to me saying that they were busy Jesus, which
no firing happens like that. I'm sorry, but there was
no conceivable way where the HR email happens. And then
my supervisor is busy telling my co workers that I've
(19:20):
been let go, which you know, we are interpreting as
intimidation because why else would this be happening.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Yeah, even corporate best layoffs don't work like that, Like
you at least get a meeting.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
No, I didn't get a meeting until the Tuesday after
to talk about transitioning my work, and they had no
plan to transition my work. So currently no one is
handling the work that I was responsible for, which is they.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Just screw your units.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
That's quite dangerous for campaign and higher ed as the
semester ramps up.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Yeah, yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
And of course the HR email was signed in solidarity
and had no name. I didn't want to bring up
that point. There is evidence. Yes, it's extraordinarily funny if
you actually look at it. But yeah, just even if
we didn't have the context of what has happened to
(20:20):
me in the workplace in the last six months, even
just on paper, looking at how this non renewal was handled,
it was handled atrociously. Yeah, and so there is not
much else we can draw from it other than the
fact that I was someone they wanted to get rid
of expeditiously, but just didn't anticipate that people would be
mad about it, which is, you know, to me a
(20:42):
sense that people up there handling it are a little
out of touch, like they haven't experienced what it's like
to have this happen, to have a staff a randomly
yanked out during the middle of a really active campaign.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Yeah, we need to go to ads again, but we will.
We will be back soon.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
And what our product services, we're about to have unionize
them and then also ugnize your staff.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
We are back.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
So it's something we've been talking about in terms of
sort of your specific situation and how it's the terrible
impact and it's had on both you personally and the
organizing that's going on. And I wanted to come around
to talking a bit about the impact that this structure
and the impact that getting denied benefits and stuff like that,
the impact that this has in general on the way
(21:42):
that organizing new shops works.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Yeah, I think that the impact this has very concretely
is that it does not let us do good work.
It makes us as organizers scared every three months that
we have to have another plan. It makes us have
to prepare a plan every time that rolls around, and
then you know that takes our focus off of the
organizing that we could be doing. I mentioned earlier about workload.
(22:09):
Organizers get burnt out extremely easily because there are no
guardrails in place. And then there are plenty plenty of
other circumstances that make it very difficult within this workplace too.
For example, we don't have just cause we don't have
grievance procedures Jesus Christ. And it makes a very damaging environment,
(22:30):
especially when you consider that the members have to bargain
for their own contracts, and then they look at us
and they're like, wait a minute, why are your contracts
that bad? Yeah, it doesn't inspire trust. It doesn't inspire
faith in how this union would organize for its workers
if the staff are insecure constantly. And we are not
(22:51):
asking for the moon and the stars in Mars, which
is unfortunately what the UW lawyer accused us of doing
so in a bargaining session. We're asking for very simple
guardrails on job security, on workload, on healthcare that could
help cover our dependence on wages that are not stagnant.
You know, they're not even giving us COLA, which is
(23:14):
the phrase for cost of living adjustment, and christ a
lot of us live in New York City, and then
there's folks in Boston and hell, even the transport costs
have been a bit of a sticking point where we're like,
can we please just get an MTA card or the equivalent.
(23:35):
But overall, this structure does not inspire faith in terms
of how our contracts are actually negotiated and who is
responsible for these contracts. It is very difficult to hear
from the UAW lawyer that we are reaching for MARS
when we are asking for things that are very present
in our standard contracts that our members receive. You know,
(23:58):
we have taken language from the contracts that our members
have and tried to apply them for our own situation,
and we've been told that they're too extra. And then,
you know, this has been kind of an odd year
for union staff. I wanted to highlight that anya earlier
this year, National Education Association their staff were locked out
(24:21):
during bargaining eleven ninety nine. SCIU also just formed their
staff union and during the drive they had one of
the organizers fired. Thirty two BJSCIU just announced their union
and again during their drive one of their organizers. They've
posted this on social media. One of the organizers had
a miscarriage and then asked for help, was put on
(24:44):
a performance improvement plan, and then fired after a month.
And you know, there are these really uncomfortable trends of
this mistreatment happening because priorities might be elsewhere, or there
is assumption that we are more expendable, maybe we are
Kennon fodder, but that really really is not what is
(25:10):
supposed to happen in places that are advocating for fair
labor standards. And I am glad that we're hearing more
stories about this. I'm horrified at the stories that are
coming out about this, but you know, I hope there
are more that are formed because a lot of these
things are very extreme.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Yeah, it's and it's you know, it's impacting not just
the organizers. I think one of the reasons why unions
issue RIGHTSIL declining is like, well, yeah, okay, you guys
keep firing all of your organizers, Like yeah, of course
we're not getting shops for it.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
And I want to say what I think about just specifically,
like the mood and.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
The stars thing is this like okay, this is not
to say that this kind of stuff will be okay
at a smaller union, but like, this is not Like
we've had a lot of independent unions on this show,
and those are people you know, who have formed their
own using completely independently. In the money they've collected is
stuff that's come from them, like putting out their head
on the street, right.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
I mean, you know some of these unions have like
a thousand dollars of assets. This is the UAW. The
UAW has hundreds of millions of dollars. They have unbelievable
amounts of money.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
And earlier this year they were just bragging about how
they are putting so many more millions into new organizing.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Yeah, and it's like, well, okay, if you're gonna put
if you're gonna put all this money into organizing, and
again they probably should. They should be doing more, because
what is the point of sitting on this much money? Right,
It's like you're behaving like a financial institution and not
a and not a union, but like you have the
money to actually like cultivate and develop effective union organizers,
(26:37):
and you have the money to meet like pretty mild
contract contracts that are like that your contract is probably
significantly cheaper than like the contract that they're negotiating, right, Like,
this is just this is nonsense, Like we know you
have this kind of money also because you're paying your
like managerial staff for six figures, so clearly you can
do this and you're simply not. And I think that
(26:57):
should outrage everyone.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
I think that's exactly the response of a lot of
our members because knowing that a lot of our temp
organizers and staff organizers are people that are most passionately
devoting themselves to the labor movement and you are met
with such unstable job conditions is truly horrifying, because this
is not this is not a path to careerism. Like
(27:24):
as a temp organizer, there is not much upward mobility here.
Let me be very clear, there's not much upward mobility.
It's not like this is a cushy job. There's no
real way for me to just sit back and relax
on piles of bureaucratic money or something like that. And
that reminds me of how I shout out to our
Korean comrades that I've met at labor notes, where I
(27:47):
explained to them what a temporary organizer's job is like
and how many people we handle and how temporary our
status is. I was talking to some of our equivalents
in the auto industry as well, the union workers there,
and they were pretty horrified at the workload, at the insecurity,
(28:08):
at the just again lack of EQUIVALENCYE. And again I'm
not trying to claim that Korea's labor organizing world is perfect,
like absolutely nobody is. But the chocker to them is like, well,
why are you doing this? Why do you Why are
you working in this job? They have asked me this
(28:29):
to my face, Why are you working in this job?
What is possibly good enough for that for you? And unfortunately,
a lot of it is optimism of the will, and
I think that's a lot of what's keeping us going.
And so my last day is supposedly September twenty eighth,
but hopefully this month there have been fantastic outpourings of support,
(28:50):
and we are also picketing the political leadership conference on
the Friday the thirteenth, Scary, and I think that is
going to really align with how YUSUS needed to escalate.
I think this is again just a boiling point, and
it has shown how all of this culminates in a
very unfair labor standard and practice of which we have
(29:13):
filed a few charges. But there's a lot more that
needs to be done. And even if I don't get reinstated,
I think that USEU is a great example of how
there's still more change that needs to happen within UAW.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
Yeah, I want to close by talking about through line.
Through a lot of these episodes that we've done, We've
talked with a lot of people who work for Planned Parenthood,
We've talked for a lot of people who work for NGOs,
and this is this is the same behavior that they
do where you know, quite frankly, what they are doing
is exploiting, exploiting the labor of people who believe in
(29:46):
the cause, and because people are willing to you know,
because because people believe in what they're doing, because the
work that they're doing is vital and necessary, These NGOs
and these unions think that they can just continuously exploit
the people who work for them, and this damages the workers,
This damages the people who they're nominally trying to help,
and this damage is the entire left because when you're
(30:08):
sort of charting through organizers and when you're sort of
fundamentally betraying the missions that you're supposed to be doing
in order to just do more exploitation, this significantly damages
literally the entire organizing project that we're all fighting for.
So Alex, thank you so much for coming and talking
and talking to us about this. And I where can
(30:29):
people go to support you and support Uzoo?
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Our accounts are UAW staff United on Instagram and Twitter.
Please follow for more. Check out the adorable Yuzo Lemon
logos that we have everywhere. If you're in New York
or Boston, those are our major hubs we keep an
eye off for a future Actions awesome.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
Thank you again for coming on the show. And yeah,
if you are a union staffer, because I know I
know a number of you are listening to this.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
If you're in the UAW, raise hell.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
And if you're not and the UAW and you don't
have your own staff union, consider it.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Yeah, thank you. It could happen. Here is a production
of Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
From More podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out from the
iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
You can now find sources for it could happen here,
listed directly in episode descriptions.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Thanks for listening.
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Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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