It Could Happen Here Weekly 77

putting it back together, all that good stuff. Today we're actually covering something that's at the intersection of all of that, both how fucked up things are and the attempt to make them more just, more equitable, less nightmarish. We're talking about war crimes, the International Criminal Court, and most specifically the warrant that was just issued for Vladimir Putin's rest, which is something you've probably heard about on the internet.

People have various takes on this in order to kind of talk about what's actually been done, what it actually means, and sort of the history of attempts to hold the leaders of nations to account for war crimes. I want to talk to Nick Waters. Nick, Welcome to the show. Hi, Nick, You and I have some connections outside of this. First off, you're here on the show today because you work in

an investigatory investigative capacity. Geez, can you tell that I'm not used to waking up this early for Bellingcat where we both work together. Your focus has been primarily on war crimes. You've been covering Ukraine lately, but you have a pretty wide purview and a pretty wide base of experience, including crimes in Libya, and yeah, I wanted to talk to you a little bit. First off, welcome to the show.

Thanks very much, mate. In of behind the Bostons. I have the largest knife I could find in this place next to me. It's not quite machete, but yeah, I mean I thought I should have one just in case. That's that's good I've got um Well, yeah, I actually am more or less knifeless here. I do have a nine millimeter in the desk, but somewhat more limited span

of uses. Um now, Nick, you and I. You and I have shared one of the strongest bonds that two men can share, which is eating some really delicious a repas. But um we we we also share an interest in the somewhat difficult history of attempts from our species to kind of grapple with the nature of war crimes, of

acts of genocide and hold people to account for them. Um. I kind of think before we get into what's happened with Putin, we should talk about what the ICC is and what its history comes from, because this it actually dates back a little over a hundred years attempts to make the ICC. I think nineteen nineteen was the first convention in which a number of European nations were like, boy, we should really have some sort of court put together to attempt to hold leaders and individuals to account for

committing war crimes. Yeah. I'm not that familiar with the kind of the very long history of attempts at international justice. Suffice to say that so far hasn't worked out quite how I think everyone expects it to. That that is the tl DR, the international justice good idea hasn't happened yet pretty much. Yeah, I mean there's been lots of yeah, lots of agreements obviously, kind of everyone knows Geneva Convention,

et cetera. Lots of other agreements about how not to kill people in the most horrific way as possible in war, and you know, as part of that like room statue which created the ICC. Yeah, it was green in nineteen ninety eight. So yeah, it's been kind of like one hundred years or sort of efforts before the ICC actually got here. Yeah, auld probably also I need to say,

like before we kind of get going anything. I'm not a lawyer, which is super important because I know all the lawyers out there will be like angry about it. So Nick, I want to talk about what in particular this decision means, because there's bit like obviously, I think it's fair to say in the immediate term, probably nothing like it's not like the International War and agents are going to come out and arrest Vladimir in the Kremlin or in his mansion that you see fake photoshopped images

of on Twitter all the time. But yeah, yeah, yeah, so in kind of like day to day stuff, Yeah, it doesn't have that much an effect. So Russia doesn't recognize the jury resdiction of the ICC. So it's not like, you know, the FSB are going to storm into the Kremlin and aar Resputin and like export him to the Hague in a you know, different matter bag or something that's that's not going to happen, um. But in other

ways it's it's a big deal in other ways. Um. And also it's for me, like really the biggest thing about this is that it's an indicator about how seriously the ICC is taking taking this war. International justice moves so slowly, you know, we're talking like you know, mentioned in decades, so to having a restaurants out, yeah, in one year is like a really big deal for the

ICEC at least. Yeah. And this is because if I'm an that mistake in the both Putin and the woman, because he's not the only one, by the way, that's been been charged by the the ICC. UM. There's also I'm gonna attempt to get her name right, Maria Lvova Belova,

who is the Commissioner for Children's Rights in Russia. And part of the reason why this has happened so rapidly is that both Putin and Maria have made pretty unequivocal statements about the removal of Ukrainian children from their families, forced deportation into Russia, and adoption by Russian families, which is that is a war crime, that is an act

of genocide. Yeah, so I think the actual crime is on lawful deportation, or the actual citation is on n awful deportation of Ukrainian children, which yes, could be arguably and again at this point emphasized to lawyer, Yeah, I think can feed into the kind of accusations of genocide. And so it's a pretty big charge to level against Putin and this commissioner this early on. I think it's also like one of the easier ones as well, Like in the view of the Russian States, this is a

you know, wonderful thing they're doing. They are essentially kind of rescuing these children from and you can't see if I'm doing air quotes right now, like Kinian Nazis educating them and bring them up as Russian children, and you know, they're they're taking these children away from their culture, their families, and their country to basically erase who they are, which plays a quite a big part in the accusation that's could be part of a act of GENOCIDEA yeah, And

it's it's interesting to me Levova Belova has kind of described this like her justification of this, and I think the Russian states justification of this is both that, yeah, the Ukrainians Nazis, and also I've I've heard claims from her that like, well, we're removing children from a dangerous war zone, which you know, that begs the question why is it a dangerous war zone right now? Among other things.

But one of the things that's interesting to me is that Levova Belova is not just part of the state apparatus of carrying out this act, but has also thanked Putin publicly for making it possible for her to adopt a child from dun Bass, which is one of the Russian occupied parts of Ukraine. So, yeah, it is it is kind of interesting the stuff that had to fall into place for this to be able to happen in

such an expeditious manner. Yeah, I think it helps that they view all the Russian state views this act is something that is beneficial and so they want to say, hey,

look we're rescuing these children. And you can see kind of similar You've seen similar vibes with like basically stealing Ukrainian cultural heritage from museums and stuff like that, they or the Russian state believes, you know, that they are doing the right thing, like we are very proud that we have taken these objects away and we are saving them again from Ukrainian Nazis. And so they make public announcements about it, they say, yeah, we're doing the thing.

It's awesome, isn't it. Yeah, And so the result is quite a lot of evidence that they're doing these pretty bad things. And so yeah, there's there's quite lot of evidence there. There are statements from his Commissioner for Children from Peton, it's pretty clear what's happening. So it's quite a I think it's quite an interesting charge to bring. Yeah, and we're just so people are aware of the scale.

President Zelinsky, if Ukraine at least has says that his country has recorded about sixteen thousand cases of forcible deportations of children. That's not like a final number, just like the death talies and whatnot or not final numbers, but that's that is the Ukrainian state's estimate of how many kids have been taken away, which is a I mean, that's a pretty staggering number. I mean, yeah, that's a huge number of children. Yeah, yeah, I know, that's an

absolutely huge number of children. And then you have to account you know that it's not just a children, they're the victims it's also their families who are the victims. So we're talking about like a knock on effect with you know, tens of thousands of people who've been affected by these arcs. It's not more than that, Yeah, I think probably, I mean, sixteen thousand children are probably higher than the tens of thousands in terms of family members

and whatnot who are impacted by this. In terms of what technically this means for Putin, there's about there's I think one hundred and twenty signature signatory nations to the Rome Statute, and within those countries, theoretically, if if Putin or if Maria were to travel there, they would theoretically be arrested if they were to set foot in one of those signatory nations. Yes, so theoretic theoretically doing a

lot of walking there, Yeah, doing a lot of heavy lifting. Okay, So yeah, in theory, if Putin, trup's any of these nations who should be arrested. But some of the nations don't recognize or believe that heads of states are basically immune, and I imagine there will be several of those signatories who will likely refuse to extradote Putin. Should mister Putin visit them and this has actually happened before, so I think it was South Africa refused to extradite a former

head of states. I think it was a leader of South suit done. But yeah, it wasn't it wasn't it Elmarba Sheer, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I believe it was Elmarbasheer. Yeah. So he actually travel around and

was not arrested and extradited as theoretically should have been. However, it still gives mister Putin and especially security details some headaches because they're still going to have to check with these states when they go and visit you know, hey, are you going to like arrest him, which is not like a cool usually have to ask, and then if they were planning to arrest him, you know, they might

not tell them that they're planning to arrest them. So there's always going to be well at the moment, there's still like a cost applied to mister Putin in terms of traveling to these countries that would you know, you might still like considered the ic jurisdiction of the heads of states to be lacking. Um, yeah, yeah, So it's still there's still like some some cost deployed. Though if I'm remembering correctly, there have been three sitting heads of

state that have faced ICC charges in office. We talked about Omar Bashir, Um, Momar Kadafi uh and now Putin

is number three. UM, which is, if we're if we're looking at the history of the last you know, I mean, just since the establishment of the ICC, fewer than the number of world leaders who have been involved allegedly in uh uh crimes against humanity, I think fair to say um, Which brings us to the question of, like, what does it mean to be a signatory UM to Rome, to the ICC, what does it mean to actually be bound

by any of these rules? Because both Russia and the United States, it was looking at a map earlier that kind of lists out every countries relationship to the ICC, in both Russia and the United States are in the position of like having endorsed aspects of the ICC and then not signed on right, yeah, yeah, yeah, again, not not that familiar with how the ICC works in practice, but basically, if you sign up to the ICC, you have to agree to enforce their judgments, you know, including

a restaurants, which again is something like the US and US and Russia haven't done the idea that basically the ICC market is itself as markets, itself basically thinks of itself as a court of last resort. So you know, they're not going to be out there prosecuting individual sold or fair unlikely to be prosecuting like individual soldiers who've like say executed like temprince and war in a ditch. That's something that is unlikely that the ICC is going

to prosecute. They are going for, you know, high in commanders, people who've carried out like extremely civilar acts yea, and especially in cases where like a state is not able to carry out such prosecution. So for example, take the UK, so UK has in theory conducted investigations into allegations of war crimes in a rock, conducted by its troops. That was I had so the Iraq Historic Allegations Team. It was pretty shambolic. It is extremely shambolic. It was a

really bad investigation. The not just for the victims who basically no one really ever got justice from it, Very very few people ever got justice from it, but also the people who are actually accused were sometimes like investigated multiple multiple times. But because the UK made some kind of effort to investigate it, even if it was absolutely shambolic.

It's unlikely that the ICC has ever actually going to investigate UK soldiers for walk in Rock, because in theory that should be the UK carrying out their investigation, and in theory they have carried out their investigation. It's completely

in other quotes. But yeah, that's that's the justification. That's incredibly interesting to me because it does seem like on one hand, I can see the logic, and this is part of why, like the US, the United States, my country's justification for why we are not a signatory is that the Constitution does not allow us to agree to have our citizens tried for crimes that they are being tried for in the United States by an international court

something along those lines. And I can understand the idea that, like, well, national sovereignty, like, the only way we're going to get anyone to agree to let this thing exist in abide by any aspect of its rulings is if it does not overly interview with their national sovereignty and to including their ability to prosecute their own soldiers for war crimes. On the other hand, the state of affairs, as you've

just related. The state of affairs is inadequate, right, Like that is, the system that has been developed is not adequate to to trying or achieving justice in a case like the Iraq War, in which there were a lot of crimes committed that people have not been punished for. And I I mean, obviously you have to kind of marry that to the fact that the attempt to do

something at all in this way is extremely new. As we've said, like there are we have, like most of the people who work on my show are older than

the ICC, and so that's that's still an achievement. I don't know, I'm wondering kind of like what you see is like the positive future for attempts to hold individuals and nations to account here, Like is that is it continuing to grind like this or do you see kind of a more positive opening coming forward as a result of particularly the attention that all of these these war crimes in Ukraine have gotten. I mean, I think it

can need to grind. When you look at the history of atrocities that have taken place in conflict over the last you know, like twenty years, it's just absolutely huge. Yea, you know, there's like atrocity upon atrocity upon atrocity, and the ICC you can only investigate a tiny number of those. The reality is that only a tiny fraction of those atrocities will ever actually be investigated in victims faced justice.

That is the reality of the situation. The ICC does, you know, carry out investigations and does carry out prosecutions, but again we're talking like the most grave crimes possible, and usually you know, really senior people who often are able to evade those kind of prosecutions. I think there's a better chance of some kind of justice at like

a national level with universal jurisdiction. So recently, universe or jurisdiction was used in Germany to prosecute two Syrian officers who basically a torture against the Syrians during during the revolution, and those those two syranofsicers have basically fled to fled to Germany and related prosecuted that. And so it's not just the ICEC, it's also universe jurisdiction. It is you know, trubunals, there's other stuff there. But again, like this is only

a tiny fraction of everything that gets investigated. And I've been reading going through several different books about Joseph Mengela most recently and including some accounts from um. You know Jewish doctors who are enslaved and who are forced to work at Auschwitz. And I've been thinking a lot about

the Nate like the different kinds of war crimes. Right, you have a group of Australian or US or British soldiers in Afghanistan or Iraq who commit a massacre, kill a number of civilians, and that is a war crime.

But there's also the kinds of war crime that is a war crime that is the result of individuals taking individual actions right as opposed to the actions of a state, and the actions that are a result of years worth of directed cultural efforts, which I think is part a way to look at what the Russian state's attitude towards Ukrainians are and a lot of the crimes that have

been committed over there. The denial of the existence of Ukrainians as a people is deeper and more complex than the kind of crime that a soldier might commit in a moment of passion, and fundamentally different from that. And

it's one of those things. If you like, for example, to go back to Mangola, if you're trying to judge Mangola for his crimes, you have to judge the entire German medical establishment, which joined the Nazi Party in higher numbers than any other group in the country, and which was directly implicated in how Auschwitz functioned and why it worked the way it did. And there's realistically, like most of the doctors Mangela, there were attempts to punish him.

Obviously he escaped, but the doctors who edge jucated him, who taught him, who who inculcated him in the attitudes that were directly responsible for the crimes that he committed, were never punished. And legally, I don't know how you

would punish people for that. How do you punish someone for promuligating ideas like the ideas that Ukrainians are not a people, which leads to a lot of the violence that you're seeing over there, Like, how do you like, there's not, realistically, in at least in my understanding of the law, a way to punish that. But it is a factor in these crimes. Yeah, the creation of a culture absolutely is and a key Like a really good example of this is the radio station Rwanda, Yes who

you know broadcast basically effectively caused to genocide. And I think they were actually ended up being prosecuted by the ICC. I think actually as well. I believe, Yeah, I believe there were at least attempts. Yeah, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Yeah, I mean, it's one thing when you're

talking about like direct incitements to violence. It's another one you're talking about like kind of the stuff that Dugan is responsible for, which is absolutely a factor, the kind of id the ideas that he was one of the people who was kind of promuligated under the direction of Putin and others in the Russian state are like a

factor in the behavior that we've seen over there. But it also is harder to kind of qualify it as a direct call for war crimes in some cases, although some of the stuff Dugan has said, I think you could you could argue is certainly like a direct call to violence. Yeah, I mean, like, yeah, well, it's really difficult to kind of get that to raise up to

the threshold of prosecution. It's really difficult thing to do, especially if you are external to the culture that is or to the organization that is creating that internal culture. And I'm like very familiar with this kind of stuff having for those of you if you listened to from one will be familiar. I was an army officer, so like quite a big part of my job was making sure that like the culture within my cartoon was a beneficial, good culture in which the blokes would knock go off

and like murder people. And you read about stories like my Lie or there's a really good example for this book called Black Hearts, this American plating in Iraq, and it's really clear where basically institutional culture has completely failed or has created a culture in which basically committing atrocities or murder is either you know, mildly ignored or actively encouraged.

And yeah, that that culture is something that is really difficult to police because it really has to come from within the institution itself, you know, unless you just completely destroy the institution itself, which is also another option, which is what the Canadians did with their Airborne Regiment after some of their guys in Somalia like roasted some poor guy alive on a fire. Jesus, the Canadians basically just disbanded the entire album regiment. They basically said, like the

culture in this regiment is not us. It's too far gone. Basically, we're going to dispand this entire regiment, which is what they did, so you can't do that too. It's quite a difficult thing to do, kind of. The last thing I wanted to go over is the uh, the most recent the response of the Russian state to these warrants. One of them has been they've announced that they are in carrying out an investigation into the ICC, which is it, you know, um, I'm sure as meaningful as the sentence

I just said. And I the other thing that they've done is sort of threatened to launch a hypersonic warhead at the Hague, which I mean, like, it's not he does have a lot of missiles, so it's you can't like completely disregard a threat from a nuclear armed nation to launch missiles at the Hague. But it's also just you know, threats like these are not completely and in fact, there's a provision in um what is it called. Let me let me double check on the name here. I'm

so bad at remembering the names of laws. UM, the American Service Members Protection Act that does theoretically allow the use of military force by the US if American citizens are extradited. Um, so like this is this is like a much cruder version of that, like if you arrest us, will Well will nuke they. But it does like it's one of those things we're laughing about it. But if you if you were to go back ten years and imagine that threat being leveled, like even by Putin, it

would seem like farcical. Um, I guess it is farcical, But we're here. Yeah, it's it's it's completely insane, isn't it. Yeah, I mean, like how do you respond to that? Like right, like I'm gonna I'm gonna hypersonic They the Hague response,

it's just like, yeah, it's mad. Like when if you go to the Hague, like the ICEC, you know you'll have like the security guards sat there with their little kind of nine mill pistol and they're kind of buzzing through that kind of stuff, and like the idea of them kind of you know, trying to fight off like a delta force assault on the ICEC in the case where like in a recond soldier there is like it's farcical, but then the idea that they could do anything because

like a hypersonic missile is like thirty seconds away from like obliterating the entire You gotta really, you gotta really leave the missile. I mean, I mean, the only kind of benefit I suppose is that like the ICEC is on the outskirts of the Hague, so they would irradiate actually quite a bit of a residential area and then

a lot of sand dunes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean one of the appside is that if Russia does nuke the Hague, we will have deeper concerns than what to do about international criminal law and the wake of that, including taking sufficient iodine pills, which I'm not by I mean, people everyone gets is antsy about enough today. I don't think this is like a realistic threat. I don't think it's likely that the Russian state is going to nuke

the ICC. Unfortunately. Part of why it's unlikely is that it's unlikely that Putin is going to face direct justice for his actions unless he is somehow overthrown right like that is realistically, the only case by which he winds up in front of the ICC is if he is forced out of power. Yeah, I mean, like when I

when this you know, news first broke. There are some people who are saying, hey, is this a big deal, little like will never you know, people mc justice, and like, yeah, he might, he probably won't, but on the off chance, it's always good to have that there. You know, I went Slobadamnossovich uh, you know, step down was president president

of Serbia. You know, there was I think there was a law which meant that he couldn't actually be extracted to the icc So everyone said the same thing, you know, he's never going to face justice, and then he ended up at the ICCA. And if there is some kind of cool or something, you know, not now, maybe in

the year's time, two years time, fifteen years time. You know, Putin is a very valuable bargaining chip, and being able to sent him to the Hague would be an extremely powerful message of hey, guys, we're entering a new era like Russia. The Russian state doesn't want to be associated

with what happened under Putin's rule. He go have mister Putin put him on trial, and you know, he becomes like quite an important bargaining chip, and so yeah, the chance of it happening is like pretty small, but it's still there. It's still worth doing this and that's I

think where I land is. I've just been again reading about In this winter of nineteen forty four, there was a rebellion in Auschwitz by a number of members of the Sonder Commando, which was a group of prisoners who were tasked with the actual like job of making the camp function. And these guys rebelled, they blew up a bunch of stuff. And the whole attempt, this whole like attack that cost hundreds of them their lives, was in the hope that one of them would get out and

tell the story of what had been happening inside. And when you think about it that way, what historically, and not just going back to the Holocaust, but the entire long history of war like human war crimes which go back as far as war. The desire of victims to have someone be aware of what has happened to them, I think makes this a positive move in the middle of an incredibly dark chapter in human history and an

incredibly awful war. The fact that this is happening at all, as flawed, as imperfect as the whole and it's you know, people keep bringing up things like the inequities of the prosecution of like the United States and Israel for a number of different acts of their states and militaries. But like, even given all that, the fact that this is happening at all is I think meaningful. I do think it matters.

It's definitely a meaningful Like it's very much like a statement of intent from the ICC and especially from the new prosecutor, the ICC cream Con who came in last year and he's kind of like, as far as I can tell, come in and shaking a few cages, and it's a very clear statement of intent from both himself and from the court as well. Yeah, well, I think

that's as good a note as any to end on. Nick, Do you want to direct anybody towards um place they can can donate or something they can or a place they can go to read up more on this series other issues of international criminal justice. I mean, yeah, I'd direct people to to Bell and catocom, which is who I work for my twitters and non school Waters eighty nine. I don't really go on Twitter that much anymore. Something happened there, I don't know men, Yeah, but I place

the occasion every so often. But yeah, felling out the con would be you wor'd recommend that's where like our work is anyway. Yeah, well, Nick Waters, thank you so much for coming on, for lending your expertise here. That's going to do it for us here, and it could happen here. Sorry for using the word here so many times. Have a lovely day, everybody. Hey everyone, this is it could happen here a podcast about things falling apart sometimes

about putting things back together. This is one of the former episodes because we are recording this in the immediate wake, within a couple of hours of America's the United States of America's most recent mass shooting in Tennessee at a Christian school called Covenant. You know, obviously there are way too many mass shootings in the United States for us

to cover each one. We are talking about this now in a timely manner because there's a bunch of very specific disinformation coming out about it, and particularly disinformation that is part of the broader targeting by the right wing of transgender people. So I'm gonna for the first part of this, I'm going to turn things over to Garrison, who has been doing specific research on the shooter and

what we can actually verify at this moment about their identity. Upfront, I'll say that the police have identified this person as Audrey Hale twenty eight of Nashville NBC News notes quote who said she identifies as transgender. Again, this is not quite right. We'll talk about it. But the right wing is obviously running with the idea that this is a transgender shooter and part of a trans a series. They

will argue of transgender attacks on Christians. We're going to talk about the right wing sort of analysis of this later, but first I'm gonna again push to Garrison, who will talk about what we actually can verify about this person

and about this shooting at this point. Yeah, just as a note here, throughout this episode, there will be some what is probably miss gendering because we're going to be quoting from a lot of other people's statements, and also there will be a mentions of like a few slurs against trans people, just because we are quoting from whole a whole bunch of stuff, and some of the details regarding the gender of the person in question is relatively

unknown at the time. So just as a heads up, Okay, So yeah, I'm gonna just gonna go over a few things regarding what we know happened, What the what the school was, because I think that kind of that might play into it, but that will kind of veer on speculation. So we're just going to limit it towards what we

actually know and then attempt to avoid speculation on this epimosphere. Yes, so, someone caring multi fire arms entered a private Christian school in Nashville this Monday morning and shot and killed three nine year old students and three adult staff members in their sixties, including the head of the school, doctor Katherine Khans. Police initially claimed the shooter was a teenager, but minutes later changed course and described them as a twenty eight

year old woman from Nashville. It was then reported pretty quickly in NBC News that the shooter was identified as Audrey Hale, twenty eight, of Nashville, and the police chief said she identifies as transgender. NBC has another article out there that says Audrey Haile, twenty eight, who police say

was a transgender woman, quote unquote. So we will get into that here in a sec But the shooter entered the Covenant School via a side door, according to the Metro Nashville Police spokesperson Don Aaron, and was armed with at least two quote unquote assault style rifles and a handgun unquote. It looks like it's an ar rifle and

an air pistol and then also a handgun. Nashville Police Chief John Drake has said, quote at one point she was a student at that school, but we are unsure of what year unquote, and that Hale shot through the door to gain entry into the school. The shooter made their way through the first and second floors at the school, firing multiple shots before Hale was killed by police on

the school's second floor. So it's assumed by the police at this point, and they may have evidence that it's not been like made public yet that the shooter did attend to school, but they are unsure for like exactly how long and what years specifically. I think it's it's important to mention a few things about the school just because this is a very unique mass shooting in a lot of ways, mass shootings at private schools, let alone private Christian schools is very rare. And this is also

like a preschool through sixth grade school. So the Covenant School is a pre school through sixth grade private Christian school founded in two thousand and one, and it shares the same location as Covenant Presbyterian Church. The website states it has thirty three teaching faculty and around two hundred enrolled students per year, with tuition at around sixteen thousand

dollars a year. According to the school's website, to quote, the Covenant School is a ministry of Covenant Presbyterian Church created to assist Christian parents and the church by providing an exceptional academic experience founded upon and informed by the Word of God. So, I mean, honestly, this this is something that's pretty similar to the type of Christian school that I grew up in. It's the school that's attached

to this church. I also had around two hundred fellow students, so that this seems seems to be relatively pretty similar and not super uncommon for this type of private Christian school. That's kind of all I'm going to get into that here. I mean, I've I've looked around the school's website a lot, and it seems pretty pretty basic in terms of these

types of Presbyterian private Christian schools. But now we're gonna start getting into some of this stuff regarding the identity of the shooter and a lot because there's a lot of information going around. NBC News is now claiming that the shooter is a transgender woman. I don't think that's fully accurate. Um, but we're gonna effect quoting directly from the car. Yeah. This is to be fair, I mean, partly NBC's fault, because more they should have done as

much research as you did, Garrison. Yeah, but they are quoting the police. Yeah. Yes. The gist is that the police identified this as a transgender woman. They have a manifesto. We don't know what's in the manifesto, but yeah, police continue gare Yeah, and I guess I guess one of the things that's reported is after police said this was a transgender woman, they also talked about how Hale had conducted surveillance and prepared for the attack with detailed maps. Um.

And then also the aforementioned manifesto. But yes, we're gonna we're gonna move on to some of the stuff that we do know using just basic open source research stuff. So there is a LinkedIn page for someone named Audrey Hale in the Nashville area. They list a lot of various like illustration jobs they've had for the past few years, and they do have a little pronoun marker next to

their name that says he him. Hale appears to have had a website for their graphic design portfolio called AH Illustrations, so just their initials AH. They have posts in they're being tagged from twenty twenty three from twenty twenty two, so it's been at least up for two years. I tried to do like metadata stuff on some of their artwork. I did not really get much in terms of what year they were posted, but we may be able to

learn more about that later. The website has an about page that introduces the person as Audrey Hale, but it also directs you to a now vanished Instagram page called at Creative period Aiden. So we're we're going to go through some of the rights initials a bit later, because they were already calling us a transgender shooting before any information came out at all, as a part of the Sam Hide joke. Yeah, for reference, Sam Hide is kind of a right wing comedian who had a show on

Adult Swim. For the last several years, it has been a meme to every time there's a shooting, there's a specific picture of Sam Hide holding a rifle that people will post and say, I'm getting this picture that you know this was the shooter at whatever. It's been at Parkland, it's been at El Paso, it's been at Duvaldi. Every single shooting this happens. And with this shooting, someone photoshopped some ladies head onto sam hide and claimed immediately that

it was a transgender person. This also ties into the Highland Park shooting, where the shooter wore women's clothing at some point to try to escape, and the right continually tries to claim that that makes it a transgender shooting. Anyway, please continue, gare yes. So, by going through their online portfolio dated as far back as twenty twenty two, I found a self portrait that has a has a different social media user name titled at cree dot tiv Dre.

I think Dre is for like Audrey, and this also appears to be an old Instagram handle before they changed it to at Creative. Aiden Hale's website also has another self portrait just tagged with the name Aiden and Aiden Creates. That one appears to be from maybe slightly after, but it's kind of unclear with how the website is laid out. So although the Instagram page for this person appears to be taken down. It's unknown if they took it down or if Instagram took it down, but it is gone

and there's no archive of it. It appears that Hale did have other social media accounts that are still online besides the aforementioned LinkedIn. A TikTok account by the name of I am Underscore Aiden ten shares a profile picture with Hale's own website, and it also links to Hale's Instagram page, which is mentioned on Hale's website. The TikTok was seldom active, but their first visible post is from

March fifteenth, twenty twenty two. There are two other posts from that month, and all three of these posts are like about late nineties early two thousands video game nostalgia, and thanks to TikTok's user name embedding feature, we can see that the account used to be called Audrey Video Game Nerd Underscore ten before being changed to i am Aiden ten sometime between March sixteenth and April fifteenth of

last year. Hale's last visible post is just from over a month ago, February ninth, twenty twenty three, and yeah, just as a note kind of I've gone over less of this than you. But I've I've combed over what's available. I don't notice any of the normal red flags. There's not even like pictures of this person posing with firearms. There's not threats. There's one video where they seem to be mourning a friend or a relative, but it's a pretty normal, like in memorium style video. None of their

art strikes me as disturbing in any way. No, it's at least one red rum one they have. They have one piece of Shining fan art that the Right's been using. It sticks out, but also like the Shining is one of the most popular movies of all time. Yeah, no, nothing nothing. As someone who's looked through the social media accounts of a lot of shooters, this account is relatively normal, like they there's nothing in here that would be immediately red flags. They did a lot of like corporate work.

I think I think they did artwork for the city of Denver. Yeah, it looks like it. They were being commissioned to do a graphic design for a lot of businesses,

a lot of like local events in Nashville. Um. There is one other thing from their website that I will mentioned, uh, part of their bio they have this sentence that says, there is a childlike part of me that loves to go and run around on the playground, and the rights using this in like a like a weird like a groomer way, being like this this kid wants, this adult wants to go around with two playgrounds and their childlike this is this is a completely normal thing to say.

This is like, this is not a red flag. This is I also enjoy going on the playground. This is not a red flag either. This is just part of weird culture war stuff. Yeah, yeah, I have another thing about being a kid forever and ever as well. It just seems that they connected with childhood things and those kind of things. Yeah, and like psychologically, maybe being kind of stuck in the past or whatever is a part of how they describe or justify this in their manifesto.

We just don't know. But the point of the matter is if you had looked at this person's social media prior, and this is very different from most shooters, you would not have thought, oh, this is a person who is of danger to people. There's there's just not signs in it. I mean, the one thing that is the kind of last thing I'll mention is the I think the two other adults that were shot. One was a custodian, There was a was a I think it was like a

substitute teacher. Um. They were all in their sixties. Um. It's unclear how long those two other people have been with the school of the head of the school has been been there for a while. Um. But I mean because because it is a preschool through sixth grade school, UM, Hale would not have been at the school relatively recently.

I can try to I'm trying. I'm trying to do like quick math here to be like if you would if you be in sixth grade and you're now twenty eight, seventeen years ago, yeah, eleven years old, right, American's five yeah, yeah, yes, yeah, So it's it's it's certainly it's it's started in two thousand and one. So yeah, that's that is that is that is possible. Yeah. I do want to note a couple of things before we move on to the right

ring wing reaction. One of them just kind of again to to sort of boil it down based on what is available publicly, we know this person seemed to have been born and raised as Audrey Hale, started going by Aiden at the latest sometime last year. Their LinkedIn shows them at that point as using he him pronouns, but still but still with the name Audrey, but still with the name Audrey. It is actually very much at this point still unclear how they exact precisely identified what pronouns

they used. We certainly don't know whether or not they were on any kind of like hormones, not that that would have an impact on any of this, but we have very little actual information. The police are saying that they identify themselves as transgender in the manifesto. At some point we might learn more as a result of that, but but it is. It is a lot of what's being put out as either unclear or you know, wrong

in one way or the other. There's just a lot of information that is kind of missing about this person. People are jumping to conclusions on stuff, So we will probably learn more there later. One more note on this. The police are the ones that initiated the use of the term manifesto. Of now, there was no manifesto published by the shooter. We do not know if this is

a quote unquote manifesto like at all. The police have claimed that they found writing when they rated this person's house, So this writing discussing things around their gender or what they were doing this This could be anything from like a suicide note to just like a diary or a journal. So by using the word manifesto, they're kind of trying to tie it into that. We simply at this point do not know if this was a manifesto at all, Like we just that is that is a very loaded

term in this context. I think it's notable that the shooter did not publish anything. Whereas usually when there's like manifestos, they are they are published online, right the shooter, the shooter themselves will publish it online and that is kind of part of their entire attack. That is not the case here. The shooter did not publish anything about this attack online that we've or that we've found, or that

anyone's found. So I think that's an important thing to note when we're talking about the use of the word manifesto here in terms of like the importance of a manifesto, you know, speaking as someone who has written professionally about a number of them, Manifestos are obviously useful, especially when trying to analyze why someone did something, what their political goal may have been, if they're indeed there's a political goal,

what their radicalization pathway has been. But a crucial thing is to never ever take a manifesto purely at face value. Manifestos are political writings by terrorists, right, That is what a manifesto is, And they are writings that are kind of calculated to achieve a goal. And I don't know what this person put in their manifesto. Their manifesto muld just have been a perfectly like accurate summation of their feelings of why they did this terrible thing. That's possible,

we say, we don't know at this point. But manifestos are a part of understanding a shooting and what the goal was of the shooting and what the individual hope to accomplish. But they cannot and never should be taken at face value. And that's what a lot of media are going to do if this every does get public.

So please always show care and skepticism of directly reading from a manifesto, like even in the case, you know, there's just a lot, like in the christ Church manifesto of like bullshit, shit posting, jokes and stuff thrown in there with the real stuff. It's generally possible to us to get to gather and understand motive from a manifesto, and I am you know, I will read it if

it becomes available, but be very careful with such things. Yeah, speaking of not being careful, let's talk about the right wing response to this, because I think broadly speaking, it's fair to characterize it as they are claimed, this is part of a line of terror attacks by transgender people. There's a lot of folks saying that this is reason to ban gender affirming care, to ban hormone therapy, to ban trans people from purchasing firearms. This is a pretty

rampant on the right already. It became very quickly, so I actually want to go over one thing I just came up and saw while Gare was talking that I think is interesting as Candice Owens. Candice Owens is a right wing commentator, unfortunately quite influential and has a sizable platform. I want to quote from her response. Her initial response, this was the immediate response when all the information was out,

was that there'd been a shooting at this school. I live in Green Hills, and I'm positively devastated for the families impacted by this tragedy, Please suspend your politics and instead do what these families at this Christian school would want. Pray. That's a perfectly reasonable response, at least for somebody who

believes in prayer. Within a matter of like an hour or so, it became clear that or information began to come out that the shooter was likely transgender, at which point Candace suspended her statement about not making it politics. She posted shortly after, transgenderism as a mental illness. Keep your children away from transgendent individuals and their parents. People that support and encourage as air monsters and should be

kept away from children. They yelled at. Matt Walsh made a statement, why haven't would be given the name of the mass shooter yet, and Candace responded, because they're wiping the socials so they can make things up about the person. She noted as to a post by Matt Walsh being like, the question is why this culture is producing so many people who want to carry out attacks like this. Take the guns and you'll still have a country infested by

homicidal sociopaths. Where they're coming from, what is creating them? Candace responded, I would start with the fact that we now celebrate clinical insanity while we admonished normalcy. People are aspiring to mental illness because they receive attention and off times are awarded for perversity. She is essentially taking the stance of like, we have to blame this on the fact that this person was transgender and being transgenderism mental illness, right,

That's the stance Canvas is taking. That's the stance a lot of folks are taking. One of the most widely shared posts from a right winger on this was by a guy named dc Underscore. Draino notes himself as a husband, patriot, lawyer, constitutionalist, and anti woke. He has six hundred eighty six thousand followers on Twitter. He has been relentless in posting about

this as an act of transgender terror. He has spread at some of the information that Garrison added on this podcast about this person's social media posts, and his posts are some of the most widely read and like that I've seen. One of them reads. Unconfirmed reports identify the Nashville shooter as Audrey Hale, a biological female that identifies as he him on their LinkedIn. Authorities believe the transgender

shooter previously attended the Christian school. He then follows, we will not let this story be swept under the rug. Trans terrorism must be confronted head on and stopped. Tennessee just passed laws restricting sextualized drag shows for children and banning the genital mutilation of children. Was today's mass shooting at a Christian school by a transgender killer and act

of domestic terror? And when will we start talking about transgender mass murders targeting innocent school children in our schools? Enough as enough? And in this they posted a link to a reader's story about a shooting from last year. I think it was in Colorado in Denver. This was a shooting where two people, one of whom was transgender, walked into a school in Denver and shot at several classmates, killing one. They claimed it was revenge on classmates over bullying.

The McKinney, the transgender shooter, has been sentenced recently, so it's been in the news. This is being built as like a transgender terrorist attack because spoiler, there's very few cases of trans people carrying out acts of violence, so they're kind of grabbing what they can in order to try and make an argument that this is part of a trend um. In the absence of any kind of manifesto,

people are claiming that transidentity motivated the killings. The police seem to have helped to jump start this, all right, So first off, we're going to play before we continue, We're going to play a clip of the police press conference where the police chief of Nashville talks about what has happened um and talks about the information that they have about the shooter based on the apparently the manifesto that they have in the maps that they have. So

we're going to play that. Now. Our investigations tell us that she was a former student at the school. I don't know what great she's attended or great, but we do firm the delite she was a student there. She does identify as trends. Yes, history, no history at all, and no motive of disappoint anything just go in the apartment or house. No, we have a manifesto. We have some writings that we're going over that pertain to this day, the actual incident. We have a map drawn out of

how this was all going to take place. Uh, there's right now a theory of that's that we may be able to talk about later. But it's not confirmed, and so we'll we'll put that out as soon as we can. There any reason to believe that how she identifies is as any motive order targeting school, we can give you that at a later time. There is uh some theory to that. We're investigating all the leads and once we know exactly, we'll let you know. As a target at

a time, it was a gender man or woman. Don't know any history of mental illness at this time, but we are looking at that as investigation is ongoing. And I'm sorry, or woman a woman? All right? So yeah, prison you want to start off here? Yeah, I think giving like the most charitable reading of that, I think it's possible that this police chief does not have as

a as a full art. I don't think this police chief has as an as an in depth understanding of gender theory as some of us or the listeners do. So it is just confused by that question is it a transman or a trans woman? And he answers me by saying, yeah, they're trans, but they are a woman. So I think that that could be what's going on.

And then we have outlets like NBC News saying that the person's a transgender woman, because they also are, for one, not doing like very basic digging online and are also just making are just usually enjoy repeating the police's talking points when stuff like this happens, because it's just easier. Hey, everybody,

Robert here. Shortly after we finish this, the police chief of Nashville, John Drake, went on Lester Holtz NBC show and gave another statement that was much more accurate than the previous statement that we just played you, which the right wing is making a lot of hay out of. In the statement, they note that the shooter attended the school as a child and was resentful of the school and of being forced to attend it, that the school was the target and not any specific individual, and that

the victims were random. They also owe in this statement to Lester Holt, the police chief makes a lot less of a deal about the fact that the shooter was trans It seems like the first statement that they made was based on either incomplete information or in the heat of the moment. But I'm going to play you this statement and then we will continue the episode. It sounds like things are moving very quickly. You describe this as

a targeted attack, and you elaborate absolutely. So. The person we know as Audrey Hale, she's a twenty eight year old NATSH Fillion. We have believe or feel it's very strongly that she went to school here in the natural area, and she went to that actual school, and and so there's some belief that there was some resentment for having to go to that school. Don't have all the details of that just yet, and and that's why this incident occurred. Did Hale target in your mind, did Hale target the

school or someone in the school? She targeted random students in the school, just whoever, and and persons whoever she came in contact with, she fired rounds. You recovered what you've described as a manifesto. You've also said that Hale identified as trans. Do you believe there is a connection to that. We feel that he identifies as trans, But was still in the initial investigation into all of that, And if it actually played a role into this incident.

As we know more, we'll definitely make that known, but right now we'll unsure if that actually played a role. But does the manifesto point you in a particular direction that you can reveal that has in the initial investigation we've turned it over to the FBI. We've looked over it as well, and it indicates that there was going to be shootings at multiple locations and the school was one of them. There was actually a map of the school detail and surveillance entry points and how this was

going to be carried out on this day. Yeah, I mean, I think a big part of this is that after a mass shooting in any national paper or other media outlet, you're always trying to be first with something, and that creates a situation where like, you don't fact yet, you don't do the basic ocin looking up right, You just like cops have said something, get it out, get the most, get a ton of clicks, And that leads to disappointing

sort of repetition of half well in falsehoods that we're seeing. Yeah, and it leads to it provides a lot of So one thing that the right has always understood is that the immediate aftermath of a story that breaks into the news is you call it the wet cement period, where if people are talking about it, if you can, if you can lasso a narrative and drag it out in

front of everybody and get momentum behind it. Then that effectively becomes reality for an awful lot of people, and it's very important, which is why they're all immediately falling into line on this. One of the posts that I just ran across is from Benny Johnson, who's a right

wing media guy. So Benny Johnson says, the Colorado spring shooter identified as non binary, the Dinver shooter identified as trans, the Aberdeen shooter identified as trans, the Nashville shooter identified as trans. One thing is very clear, the modern trans movement is radicalizing activists into terrorists. Elon Musk responded to this with an exclamation point, which is great. Um, the

Colorado spring shooter was not non binary. The Colorado springshooters lawyers made that claim briefly while they were trying to cobble together a defense after this person killed two trans people and shot up an LGBT nightclub. The Dinver shooter

is the person we just talked about. Um well, I mean also they also could be referring to that to that, yes, probably yeah, yeah, and um yeah, it's uh like it's it's it's frustrating, like what they're doing with this stuff here, Like it's very obvious, especially in trying to wrap in the attack of a right wing terrorist on an lgbt UM club to part like to an act of like

claiming that it's an act of transgender terrorism. UM. A lot of this is spreading, particularly among people who paid for blue check marks on the new Twitter um, because that's like, yeah, this is kind of the first mass shoot we have had in the new Elon's kind of new check mark thing, where like people are able to kind of verify themselves for money, and we're about to

see all of the old verified accounts. Loves verification. We'll talk a little bit more about how well that's actually working for them later, which is actually less clear, so that's possibly a positive thing. But yeah, I mean it's pretty obvious. Andy knows posted about this. He's another He works for a place called The Post Millennial. He's a right wing gooul. He says the shooting comes amid a surge of far left death threats in Tennessee over the states,

you know, anti trans laws. He provides no evidence of this. He does quote or cite an eminem's ad that Audrey Hail made that is like a Pride ad that says born this way you know, it's like a rainbow of Eminem's that says born this way appears to be something that they may have done for money. I don't know, isn't really relevant to the situation. One of the uglier posts that I found on a right comes from a guy who identifies himself as an American dissident, Stu Peters.

He's the executive producer Have Died Suddenly, which is one of these right wing attempts to connect every single death of a person who got vaccinated to the vaccination, which is a ghoulish thing to do anyway. And yeah, they they initially leapt into there's a lot of like ugliness in here. Stu is one of the more open folks, calling them a tranny named Audrey Hale who is a

former student of Covenant School. They kind of interpret the police statement, which is at least very warbly, as the police saying this was a direct attack on Christians, which the cops have not yet said. Stu posts police admit this was a targeted attack on Christians by a demonic tranny for some context. Another one of his posts is

arguing that Zelinski is waging war on Christians. So you know this is a should be seen with guys like this in addition to being the troubling thing that it is part of kind of the broader like echo chamber that the right has set up for itself. Like this is troubling and problematic and to a degree frightening, and they're going to continue to try to push for disarming trans people as a result of this. I suspect we'll see states introduce bills that are red flag laws just

for trans people. This is the kind of thing that I am worried about, but it also is kind of worth seeing this as this is very much in line with the other kind of right wing echo chamber panic stuff that is everywhere, and so far, while this is deeply concerning, I'm not seeing evidence that it's breaking out of the right and like that doesn't mean it's not a problem, but it is kind of worth noting. The actual trending tags right now on Twitter are not what

you'd expect. The Tennessee shooting is not trending on its own in a particularly high position. It's substantially lower than the Uvaldi and Highland Park shootings, both of which you're trending right now. This is based on a Twitter account I use that is not my Twitter account. It's just a blank account, so I'm hoping to get a little bit less of a biased thing. When I looked at my own accounts trending, it was Uvaldi and Highland Park as well as Columbine was trending. Sam Hyde is trending,

you know, because he always does after a shooting. As a result of this stuff, guns is trending. I think a R fifteen was trending on one of my accounts, But I'm not yet seeing evidence that this is anywhere like that. The ant trand stuff has made it outside of the right wing fever swamps. Yea, you are getting

like again. That does not mean it's not troubling. It is deeply troubling, but it's also not when I'm looking at sort of liberal and centrist responses to this, it's noteworthy that what is trending is Uvaldi and Highland Park and Columbine because what's common is people sort of putting this within the continuum of America's nightmarish problem with mass shootings, particularly at schools, which is the right way to see this.

This is part of an ongoing series of island acts and a mass shooter culture that exists within this country, and obviously it's tied to the availability of guns. It's tied to a number of things. But it is kind of worth noting that when it comes to what most people are seeing as a result of this, it is another mass shooting in America, and not trans people are carrying out terrorist attacks. That is so far, at least just like a thing I'm seeing in the right wing

fever swamps. Yeah, I think. I think Marjorie Taylor Green is one of the first, like sitting politicians to make a statement focused on the shooter's gender identity, saying how much hormones like testosterone and medications for mental illness was the transgender Nashville shooter taking. Everyone can stop blaming guns now, and like this style of messaging is just blaming the shooting on like HRT and and health medication. But there's no indication at this point that the shooter was taking

testosterone or was on any medication. But this is just a clear attempt to like tie this shooting into the campaign against trans healthcare that that Green has been doing for years now, and to make trans healthcare seem like the reason that this shooting took place. Yeah, this person has kind of already become like like Schrodinger's like gender affirming care right where like and you know, suggesting they're

doing attacks because they can't access gender affirming care. Marju Tela Greens is acting that the gender affirming care they did access made them become more violent, like the same thing with Jack Sobiak, who was saying that testosterone increases aggression. Yeah. Jack Posobik is an influential Republican advisor and commentator. He's a fat he's a fascist, Like, he's a terrible person. He's the guy who initially spread the Pizzagate conspiracy theory.

But he is influential on the right because of his ability to get stuff to go viral on the base. And I guess one thing we should mention that that kind of ties into is that Sobiac's been repeating some talking points that Tucker Carlson focused on a few nights ago during his show. There was an NPR segment about trans people who are purchasing firearms to defend themselves that

interviewed somebody on a number of folks. One of the people they interviewed is a person who goes by queer armor on Twitter about why they've chosen to be armed and like advocate other trans people arm themselves for self defense. Tucker took quotes from that person and made a very fearmongering piece about how NPR and the liberals want to create an army of trans stormtroopers and disarm regular Americans. Right, that's the piece, yeah, talking of, like, I guess Americans.

One thing that's also twending is just an incredibly crass photo that the representative for that fifties fifth district, which the district the school was in, who's called Andy Ogles Ogules maybe posted for his Christmas photo. I guess which is him. It's a classic Republican politician photo, right, entire family, everyone holding a different variant of an AAR fifteen, and it's Yeah, look, I think, regardless of what you think about guns, is kind of crass to be parading them

as like culture war tokens like this. And I've noticed that's been trending across a lot of at least of timeline I'm seeing. Yeah, this is this is at the nexus of a number of things that are like fucked up about this country. I'm just enjoying Ian Miles Chong's timeline unfortunately, and who is he emails shop? Right we engagement provocateur. Yeah, he lives in Thailand, Right, Malaysia. I believe Malaysia, Malaysia. He has like he has like half

a million to followers, influential on the online sphere. His telegram is Culture war Room, which is, you know, giving you what you need to get. I think so I'm just going to read this tweet and obviously, like all the sort of content warnings you'd expect, today, a mass show to murder three children and three adults at a

Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee. The murderer pronouns were, was transgender and had written a manifesto detailing their intentions, which come days after Tennessee passed child protection laws and tended to curb children from being subjected to trans surgeries and other irreversible procedures. Their heinous actions follow a month of media driven rhetoric about a transgenocide and calls for a

so called trans Day of retribution. In the United States, it is conceivable that much of the conservative public derided assists. It's now open season for gender extremists who have been terrorizing women who dared to speak out against a woke ideology. When they tell you what they intend to do, believe them. So Hale has posted nothing about a trans Day of Retribution, has posted nothing publicly about being trans. Really, there's not

a single post discussing their gender identity online. This is just they're just trying to weird political points by purposely like making it sound like this person was writing about this stuff online. And there's no evidence that they had writing about this stuff, nor is there any of it online that we can find. And yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's it's it's basic stuff that people like him do in the aftermath of like any type of

event like this. Yeah, you know, we're gonna end now because anything pretty much anymore we said would be getting into speculation or just belaboring the point about these fucking right wing goals. But I do want to end on a post from a follower, a Twitter personality who I consider to be pretty pretty savvy. They go by Juniper

on Twitter. They noted this fifteen years ago. Anytime a shooting, the would blome it on Muslims, and if it were a Muslim, they would go Hogwhile trying to indict all Muslims. They're doing that right now with the Nashville school shooting, and we'll try to indict all trans people. Just don't engage. See a Matt Walsh take that is incredibly aggravating. Ignore it. See a politician tweet miss gendering the shooter while simultaneously

trying to blame all trans people. Ignore it. Anyone with a brain and a shred of empathy, we'll see right wingers as the psychopaths. They are a lot of trans people are rightfully scared in the world right now. People hate us without even knowing us, and how amazing we are. Just know that you are loved and we will win.

The world cannot hate us forever. Hey, everybody, Garrison and I are going to put together a post, a substack post sort of synthesizing their research and what I've got so far in the right wing response, and we will be posting that up. It'll be at shatter Zone dot substack dot com if you want it in an easier text version that you can kind of share with people. Welcome to Dick it happened here. A podcast for the Thing is Not Well, We're Here has temporarily been relocated

to the UK once again. Oh what I'm awful place to be. Lookay, Yeah, I'm your host, Mia Wong, and today with me to talk about things in the Kingdom that is united for some reason, is Nick, who is a resident nurse there. Nick. How are you doing? I'm doing all right? Um, A lot better for being a holiday right now. Yeah, yeah, getting getting getting to escape the sort of dismal swamp of rainy Rainy Island. Yeah.

So on the other hand, there are things that are in motion on Turf Island which are interesting and cool and that is on that Okay. So I have no idea once again when this is going to come out, Like this could be coming out like four weeks from now, like there could be six more prime ministers kudos, what's going to happen? Um? Yeah, I six could be Richie's outlasted the letters unlike our last one. But you know, sorry to anyone who's up to British political memes, that's

going to be arcane and inscrutable. And I'm not connecting that. We we we we we ran them through a like two hour British politics boot camp a couple of weeks ago, so hopefully they still remember. Yeah. But so the reason thing is so on on on the day we are recording, there are a bunch of strikes going on in the UK. There have been a bunch of strikes going on in

the UK for a while. They keep doing this weird okay, this is my this is my, my, my, my, my, I'm gonna I'm gonna do my one bit of what what are you guys doing strategically thing, which is okay. So they keep having these strikes and then they'll like go off strike for like three weeks as like a quote side of good faith for their negotiations, and then nothing happens and they go back on strike and it's like, well, okay,

like you could just not do this. Yeah, so straight strikes have been continuing, and yeah, I wanted to talk to you about some of the nurses strikes that's been happening and about the sort of organizing that's been going on, because that's what's been really cool and not reported on enough. I guess the place that I want to start with

this is with the last rit of deck. Well. I mean, I guess there's been a lot of usteria the UK, but I want to kind of start with the last sort of decade of austerity and the damage that's been doing to the healthcare system and what what that's looked like on your end. So there's a couple of ways it's manifests. One is like there's been a centralization of healthcare services are closing down of hospitals and making larger

hospitals and contain more and more specialties. So for instance, my hospital that I work in as a result came about the clothing downs about I think three smaller hospitals. She is, I mean each hospital that was lost, we lost about at least a hundred beds for each one that was created. They're centralized into our one. There's been massive cut back in like lack of funding and preventive

healthcare and community healthcare. One interesting example of that manifests is like they shifted the provision of community healthcare and social care for new mothers to being run by the local council that's like local either county or city, even larger cities level government, and then they would put out the process where rather than just it goes automatically to the NHS, it needs to be put out to tender and give like charities or nonprofits or even private healthcare

providers an opportunity to bid on providing the service. That's and that's a terrible winner on the system. Oh no, it's absolutely insane. It's absolutely insane. And what this And then the end result of this is the NHS service gets it because they're the only one that can actually

credit credit provide the service. But they have to essentially massively underestimate how much it will cost to run in order to run to run the service, because they have to they have to underbid the other services that are not going to do Yeah. Wow, and that is a

terribly designed system. Yeah. And then there's also like introduction of like trying to in order to cut back on the backlogs that like the cutting down and services have created by like outsourcing some healthcare, some surgeries and stuff to private healthcare, private hospitals. But then they're able to just pick and choose the easiest, least whisky, and most

profitable ones. And of course, any any complications that result of the problems with surgery, issues with treatment, adverse reactions, the surgeons fucking it up because they were working overnight in order to get extra in order to get some extra money after doing a shift in the NHS hospital, which is often the case, then falls back on the NHS proper and then in terms of workforce the average

on average. This isn't just nurses. There's a universal pay scale using the NHS for everyone called the Gender for Change. There's a pastry defined that confusing name, but the reason for that is it was a very much it was a less unified system before, like the early two thousands, everyone knew it was messed up. There was a big pushed by unions and also by government who wants to rationalize the whole thing to make it make more sense in theory, tie people's wage to what they were actually

doing more directly in a more consistent way. Hence Agenda for Change because there was an agenda for changing off what's happening, but it's been in placed over twenty years. And also the name doesn't make sense, but basically everyone on Agenda for Change has on average in the last ten years had a twenty percent pay cut in real terms.

Then doctors and dents because they're special boys love them, but you know, have on a different pay scale, and junior doctors on average have had an even worse paycut of about twenty eight percent. Then there are strikes. There are on strike like right now. Yeah, they're on strike right now, And unlike my union, they haven't pissed about

the government. They've gone straight to a full three days no. Derogation is the term for agreeing to not provide services for life or in order to protect patient safety, which the RCN went in for in a big way. In some ways, they've got it a bit easier, and that they can just say, oh, the consultants will do all of this, Like that is do you to translate into

America to American healthcare that would be attending. And so this strike of junior doctors includes everyone from like their first two years post medical school what we call foundation years. Possibly that'd be equivalent to internship in America, and then our registrars, so people residing specialty training equivalent of a

like a resident. I believe the government tried to persuade them to call off in order to go into talks, but they hadn't made a big show on promise of like we will in good faith, we will call off strikes and go into negotiations if the government agrees to have serious formal talks. So they were able to just say to the government, no, you're putting too many preconditions

on these talks. We're not doing it until you make until you stop messing us about, whereas unfortunately, in my union, the RCM is addicted to protecting the image of nursing and like acting in good faith even when they're dealing with someone who have no intention of dealing in good faith. Yeah, which, yeah, that that that I don't know as a strategy. It's really frustrating because you're just didn't get ent, like you can just get locked in endless negotiations, which is nothing

is happening, And yeah, it's really frustrating. So provide some stir called contact with this RCN. In England, Wales and Scotland Northern Ires a slightly different story, had never had a strike until last year. Historically the RCN was an anti strike union. Wait, yeah, yes, that's the thing in the UK. Yeah, like I know, I know, like the US has a lot of weird, not very good unions, but like I don't know, i'much ever heard of really, that's yes. Wow, So that changed either in the nineties

or the early two thousands. I honestly can't remember when I tried to look it up, but whenever you trying to search this stuff, just your search results are like flooded by stuff around the latest round. What you're going to understand is the RCN. It's one hundred and six years old. It only became a union though about fifty

years ago. So the RCN is both the union and a professional body in that Okay, it also does stuff around developed, developed the nursing best practice research and that kind of thing, and that's what it existed as originally. So yeah, like a like a professional association, Yeah, okay, exactly, And so it still has a dual structure of its union side, it's professional body side that like develops nursing practice and stuff like that. Yeah, well I guess, I guess.

I guess that that raises the sort of question of like, like what was so like unbelievably like what what what what happened like such that for the first time in like one hundred and whatever years they finally went on strike. So it's partially a matter of breaking points. The nursing turnover in the UK's absolute dog shit. Um, thousands of people leave the profession every year. There's this massive pay cut that's happened over the last ten years. Nurse and

nursing was always underpaid in the UK. To be frank there's also then there was the cut in the nursing bursary about five years ago. So it used to be the government would pay for you to train as a nurse. It would also give you not not not like enough to be equivalent of the ways of the work you were doing. Nursing in the UK has a far higher amount of practice hours than it does in the US.

I believe it's part of the degree and like a lot of that time you're sensibly working as a as a hate c A or CNA as you'd say in America. Can you explain what that is for people who don't know like medical stuff, so hate a healthcare systet or what was it CNA certified nursing assistant. I think what stands for is essentially a healthcare worker who does a range of like what you describe as nursing tasks button

but not the role of a registered nurse. So they would assist with mobilizing patients, monitoring observations, hygiene, potentially taking blood, and some investigations such as setting up an ECG, but they wouldn't do more advanced investigations ristanizement, care planning, medication management,

assessing of patients and that kind of stuff. So yeah, like about five years ago, the nursing bursary was cut, so then it's became as with every other degree having to take out a student loan in order to pursue it. And then in twenty eighteen there was a particularly disastrous pay deal where the RCM in a number of ways just absolutely fun. Not just the RCM, the other healthcare unions representing unions representing healthcare workers also messed up hugely,

but like they really fumbled the ball. It resulted arguably some people describe it as the leadership setting up the membership. And then after that there was a general an emergency general meeting called the RCM. What's resulted in the entire executive being booted. Wow, And around this type leading up to that, they're being like increasing like grassroots militancy around nurses recognizing that this was an awful situation we were

in there. This also then resulted in like there were various grassroots campaigns started such as like a Nurses United UK. We started employing organizing the UK to like act to take nurses. There was a concerted effort to put pressure on the RCM by like I would say, a radical minority, but one that represented like a genuine, genuine feeling among nurses on the front line to push for the RCN

to take a more radical stance. Then at the same time, I don't know if this was covered in your talk in about English politics you're like to our deep dive, But Northern I didn't have a government at this point because as they are now, the DUP and shin Fain had fallen out and legally it has to be both of them together as the largest republican and largest unionist party Unionists in pro the United Kingdom Party after form of government, which meant it was impossible legally for any

for any pay rise in the NHS in Northern Ireland at that time. So there was not a government that could legally enact one great and this was and this resulted in the twenty nineteen the first strikes by the RCN ever and also like the first nursing strikes in the NHS in a very long time. I might be wrong about this. I think the last ones were like

in the eighties or the seventies. I might I might be wrong about this though, And this was both called by the RCN and one of the other biggest trade unions in the probably the biggest trade union as it's a generalist trade union in the NHS Unison. They both called strikes at this time and they were magnificant factor in getting the Northern Ireland government back meeting alongside other things. I'm not going to give ourselves all the credit, but

it was a significant factor. It off it gets overlooked and actually having any pay rise and acted at all on the in Northern Ireland. Just to clear for every second this this strike was a specifically like a strict that was happening for nurses in Northern Ireland. Yeah, in twenty nineteen. I think it's very important. I think that

triggered something of a sea change in the RCNA. That was kind of the culminating point of like trying to push for a more militant attitude on the RCN, and it really like wrote the thug gates open and made what's happening now possible. Even though a lot of nurses in England particularly I can't come on the situation in Wales and Northern Ireland, like how much people know about you about what was going on, But like a lot

of nurse in England didn't even know about it. And when I was going around the wards pushing for people to vote in favor of the strike action, a lot of people didn't weren't aware that that would been a thing that had happened until I told them about it. Because people in England, as must as England is determined to keep Northern Ireland, don't know what's going on, not

in to any degree, to a terrifying degree. Sometimes I would say, yeah, that that sounds like that sounds like a thing that happens when you're a colonial power, et cetera, et cetera. Well, like I mean like like there was I feel like, well, our equivalent isn't the right term. But like around the same time, like people in Puerto Rico like ran out their government and almost no one in the US, like like in the commental US has

like ever heard of it. So yeah, yeah, I would say if yeah, if there's not forms going off in Northern Ireland, people in England aren't paying attention, I would say, yeah, that makes sense. It is also really depressing. Yeah, I would like I would say Northern Irelands in the sub maybe in some ways of bets an in Puerto Rico in that it actually has a degree of political representation in the main in the Westminster and starts, even though

it obviously should have its independence and might. But yeah, HBO doesn't even have that as my understanding. Yeah, And I mean there's a whole there's a there's a whole thing there, Like the Puerto Rican statehood people are like weird reactionaries. The independence people are cooler. But also there's this whole sort of I don't know, there's there's a

kind of like there's a kind of paralysis anywhere. It's like that, And it's like DC is kind of similar, where there's this whole sort of there's this kind of paralysis where like nothing's ever going to be done about it other than the US just like basically imposing whatever random colonial governor that they've decided to bring in as an emergency manager or whatever. Yes, sorrykay, but we are getting we are getting far afield from it as I

want to start before I put my foot in it. Yeah, something about Norman on the whole pistol everyone, Yeah, it's like I didn't even know even less about Bull's got about Puerto Rico. Yeah, yeah, I would also say, okay, like so so so people don't get mad at me, like all of the US is a quality. It's the like the substitute of difference between New York and Hawaii and Puerto Rico was when like when when we took

it over. But yeah, yeah, okay, so what we're we're turning, We're turning actually, well you know, okay, all right, I will I will take this complete interruption of the flows as a point to do an ad break. So do you know what else is an extensive colonial power that who's might cannot be checked. It's it's the products and services that support this podcast. Yea, all right and we

are back. Yeah. So I wanted to move from the Northern Ireland strikes to talk about the sort of broader strikes that I've been happen in the last like my understanding about a year or so, yes, okay, yeah, yeah it is is it picul go longer than that? Yeah? I would you talk about like that? It's like what happened to move from the Northern Ireland strikes to the current situation so do you mean with specifically NHS strikes or like one in the UK specifically with the NHS strikes.

But I guess we can talk about the broader way you want you or two. So obviously all the ship with COVID happened. Yeah, and then we came to the payoffer of last year. And at this point they've been general building of an attitude that we don't just need a decent pay guys that keeps up inflation, we need

one that goes towards restoring loss to pay. And the RCM leadership after the kicking out of the entire executive in twenty eighteen kind of on the back foot, kind of like wanting to appiece the membership go along with

it a bit more. Also, we had knew General Secretary Pat Collin, who was the Secretary of the Northern Ireland SEC of the RCN during the Northern Island strikes, took a more militant position in the pain negotiation in the Joint Union pain negotiations with the government towards the end towards the beginning of last year, where the RCN took

a position of we need inflation plus five percent. Now this is a bit of inside baseball, which like I don't think I've ever seen officially, but what I know from various people involved in these things and like statements by different unions, what my understanding it is the biggest of the trade unions in the NHS in general. The Unison put forward line it was only willing to go for a generic significantly better than inflation paid back like pay demand from the government, which the RCM was due

to like changing attitude of its membership. What happened when it accepted ship a bad deal last time, was not willing to go for a result of the RCM splitting from the Joint Union Like Pay Council like the Joint Union Council over this issue, which then the offer the government's pay thing came in. It said we will do a flat one thousand, four hundred for everyone, like on all bands, so not a percentage like it normally does.

And you know, to be honest, if it was a significantly higher amount that was better, bigger than inflation for the lower bands, like the lower page works in the NHS, wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. But this one thousand, four hundred isn't good enough for anyone and while I'm talking about this, I'm talking about specifically in England. It was slightly different in Wales and Scotland. I think generally slightly better, but it's still far lower than it

should have been, than it needs to be. And so the RCM was the first of the any unions in the NHS to say it was balloting, it was doing a paid ballot, and this kind of sprung on the other unions like a week, two weeks, three weeks later all said that they were doing it as well. The RCM also, at the same time hired a load of organized like paid organizers to support the paid ballot effort. And what I'll say is obviously paid organizers. There no

substitute for rank and file militancy. But it was very helpful, to be honest, because I think there was a lot of like militan, a lot of militant sentiment of the RCM. But although there were some like rank and file initiatives which had had a massive impact on like pushing the RCM to a stronger position, I don't I don't think that could have materialized, and there wasn't enough people like actually who had an idea about organizing about what it meant to go and push through this kind of thing

to get what we needed in that time frame. Sadly I wish that wasn't the case, but I do think these paid organizers much is not what I think the correcting model for workplace organizing is. Did help a lot, and this then resulted in the RCM strike ballot passing in one hundred and seventy six NHS trusts across the UK. Let me just yeah, check that I've got that right, yeah, which is huge. It's not all, but it is. It's

over fifty percent. It's pretty much all trusts in Scotland, all trust in Scotland, all trusts in Northern Ireland, I think, all by one or two in Wales, and the majority in England. It's also worth pointing out the ones that didn't pass it. They didn't pass by less than a percentage. Wow, they they didn't pass by like ten votes in all cases. I think the one in Wales that didn't pass it

was literally by three votes. And it's also worked. I think in two thousand and sixteen or two fifteen, anti union legislation was passed by the Conservative government which raised the bar you need in order to have to have legal strike industrial action, and under the law as it existed a decade ago, every NHS trust that the RCM ballot didn't would have passed the ballot. Also unfortunate timing.

It was happening at the same time as the posts, as postal strikes were happening, and in the UK industrial ballots for industrial actions to be legal have to happen by post. A little bit sad. Yeah, it's like guys, yeah, full power two of you. Oh God, I wish the timing had been slightly different. Yeah. Yeah. And of all the of all the trust, of all the unions in the in the NHS that were passing ballots, the RCM was the most successful. We passed it in significantly more

places than other unions did. Um to my shock, to be honest, because like when I was going around balloting or like um talking to people, like on my days off, like going on the wards talking talk to people while I was at work, everyone was like, yes it was in other unions like yes, I'm voting for it. I'm waiting on tender hicks, have my ballot. When's my ballot arriving? Why is my union not opened their ballot? Yet and so like when particularly like other unions didn't pass in

my trust, I was really shocked. I was really confused, and it seems like a lot of them didn't actually want to fight to a degree in that like they were opening it because the RCN had opened it. I'm certain people in those unions might discrib me, but that's really I find it really hard to understand how these unions that have historically they're all none of them are that that militant, you know, but they all have a history of strikes and other sectors or organizing for this.

They'd never had been anti strike unions unis in particular. It was there came about like several unions being collamorated, like joining together, including unions that have been founded by nurses in the seventies in reacting to like the RCM being anti strike and going on like that was the last big wave of nursing strikes at that time. So that really shocked me. This has been It can happen here.

I join us tomorrow for approchu of the interview, and in the meantime you can find us on Twitter and Instagram. That happened here a pod and you can find us Twitter and Instagram at call Zone Media. Welcome to it can happen here a podcast increasingly about nurses strikes and yeah, this is part two of our inter of you with Nick,

a nurse in the UK. Enjoy. We've entered the tafty turfy land where the RCNC used to be the people who are like leading on the militancy in this in this front where yeah, yeah, and I think part of it comes down to us because the RCM was historically a sneaking part city was not a union, became a union later in the day for then eight was for

ages anti strike. A lot of unions because like we could talk about the John critique of unions and particularly like institutional unions, how they service providers, how they build up like a protective bureaucracy against merchants ruggle or against like glass roots militancy. Then it's not a particularly democratic as these things go, but it doesn't have that kind of built up institutional inertia in the trade union side because historically hasn't needed it. And that meant I think

it was actually far more susceptible. It's two grassroots pressure and militancy then some of the other more established unions were and that's sorry no, and that kind of like was the thin end of the webs for the rcenter takers boastrong stance over the pay rise in response to like glass roots organizing and like a demand from the grassroots to do that, which then results in them like bad tip strike action first, which then meant other unions had to and then we got the and then the

cascade of like strikes in the NHS have occurred since then. So this this is a very very broad question to be asking, But how have the strikes been going. That's kind of a difficult one to say. So Scotland, for instance, has not been called out, has not actually had any strike dage because the Scottish government went into negotiations to begin with and then made an offer, it was rejected, strikes were announced, they made another, agreed to come back

to negotiations. So like it's been effective been getting something moving in Scotland. Their current offer of fifteen percent over two years, so six something this year, five something next year is currently being voted on by the RCA membership. It's not it's not a good but it's a significant movement of what came before. Wales the Welsh government after saying no, we can't have any more money. We can't

we literally cart because Westminster controls our budget. Westminster work give us any more budget for this has now made an improved, an improved offer. It's crap, but it's like something it's foresome to shift when they were claiming it was physically impossible for them to do it, which every single time, Like I can think of exactly one time ever where I've seen an employer make that demand and it was actually true. But this is not like that.

That was that was like what Norfolk Southern in like like the nineteen seventies, and it's it was only true once and it's never been true ever since then. Like you will hear this from every fucking employer who you attempt to go on track against, and they're always lying, like every single time. What I will say is like in the case of Wales, it is very true. The Welsh Government's budget is set by Westminster, by the central government.

So it's a lie, but it's a plausible lie. Yeah, And Wales is generally massively Wales is like some of the highest rates of child poverty outside of Eastern Europe. In Europe, the reasons. Part of the reasons for this is because the Welsh government is chronically underfunded. Yeah, yeah, due to political decisions made in England, but it's still

not true. And then in England, right, it's got to the point where a government who are categorically opposed to any negotiations with trade unions have actually come to the negotiating tables. So from that, although a suspectible loads of preconditions that haven't been publicly talked about, and they're going to not make a credible offer in my view and as a stalling tactic, but the fact they even chose

to come to the table atol. I hate saying this because it makes it's the kind of thing that makes people complace ship. But that is actually quite big that the Conservative government actually agreed to do it, to come to negotiating table. Stopped hiding behind oh there's an independent paybody that decides these things. Stop saying it's we can't afford to fund the NHS anymore. Actually just coming and sitting at the table atoll to negotiate. It's like a

big movement of itself. Now, if we talk about numbers of participation in strikes, there's been a lot of difficulties, a lot of nowhere near as many people have participated

into strikes as should have been. I will be frank and say so now we're going to talk about the delegations, the situation delegations, which is like the RCN voluntarily saying we will allow this many people to continue working day these days and these areas in order to maintain patient safety, which is, on one hand, we don't want any patients to die obviously. On the other hand, it's a very

easily abused stance to take. And there are just nurses who are in other trade unions who who aren't a trade unions as well, and ultimately, if they want that not to happen, they need to just come to the

table earlier. And so this result in a process where so I to you, and like time sensitive chemo and pediatric A and e'es were derogated by default, and then there was an agreement of if the wards had less than like nighttime numbers, we would agree for a small amount of our of our membership to go in to work on those wards to maintain nighttime numbers for the sake of patients safety. But that had to be applied for them on a case by case bas basis. But

there's a couple of problems with this one. Trust just not taking it seriously, lying and not trying to establish these things to make accurate requests, leaving it to the last minute, and then asking for blanket derogations. We don't

know if it's going to be safe or not. Managers like ward managers not actually knowing what was agreed and to giving incorrect information to their staff, people not understanding what was and wasn't derogated, And just generally it was a system that was very open abuse and so like a lot of a lot of things were just left

open in general or like that shouldn't have been. But at the same time, I know that it didn't happen in every case, but like there was a lot of success in like going memps, the strike committee going around wards and saying no, you're over number, you need to

come out, and people doing it. Of like surgeries being canceled, like elective surgeries, nontime sensitive surgeries being canceled due to it, of like really making hospital managers sweat over like proving each thing needed to happen, they wanted and needed to

happen those days. All of it's built up. Even if we didn't get the full amount of people we should have had out on strike, on strike really built up the pressure significant degrees on them to them, put the pressure up the chain of the NHS to the governments,

like we can't keep on going on like this. And at the same time each set of strikes, the where people participating did increase, so like for instance, I've just got the government statistics from that the fifteenth of December, I think it is, so this was the first strike day that was called. It was nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine absences due to industrial action. Then on the twentieth it was eleven thousand, five hundred and nine.

Then on the eighteenth and nineteenth of January, and just one important fact that they didn't call all hospitals out at once again I think a mistatus. Strategic mistakes should have gone hard, gone hard fast. But the ivory was we just we don't have the facilities to organize all of this effectively on all of these last amounts, because like it was a huge amount of trusts they needed

to do that with. But then on those days it was then eleven thousand, three hundred and sixty three and eleven thousand, two hundred and nineteen across those two days. Then in February it was fifteen thousand, nine hundred ninety eight, and then I'm fourteen on the second day, fourteen thousand and then fifty eight people, which is far lower than

it should have been. I can't remember how many people there are nurses are on the NHS, so I should have had that statistic relity, but it's not an inconsiderate amount. It meant lots about patients appointments being canceled, a lot of surgeries being canceled, a lot of chaos and stress for managers of the NHS and therefore for the government. Are looking really bad for them, And it's a clear upwards trajectory, which meant that when they are seeing announced

we're going to do two days consecutive, we're not. We're going to keep it going through the night, which they hadn't done previously, and we're not doing derogations. It to you, we'll be staffed, nothink, we're not doing anything else. I think no, even it tou wasn't staffed. We'd considered on a case by case spaceis we won't be considered what sorry intensive care? I see you for America? Okay yeah. Um. So that meant that at that point the government prob like, okay,

we need to move to a new delaying tactic. They're not just going to give up. And I think with that, as it went on, like people were itching an itching to go further. And so for instance, like A and E was derogated, So which is the area I work in? But like a lot of people and this is reflective of like most areas that were derogated. When I spoke to people, we weren't them like, no, we need to be out, we need to be out the picket line.

And like after the first two rounds, there was also a growing effort to like try and find out from the membership what the actual situation was so there on like staffing on the wards, because all wards are chronically understaffed. So when they said, oh, well we need this are people say, no, we know that's alive, we know one nights there's that's the only three redisted nurses. There's not

the four you're claiming, and stuff like that. It's again I think it was a really positive move in like embedding a kind of like workers inquiry of workers knowledge about their workplace into the organizing of the strike that had been quite a top down process. But yeah, and I'm kind of worried about how this delay and break in the strike action will affect that momentum that had

been building up. I think, like to a large degree, people are like itching to go again, and I think that desire to go again is building as it goes.

Like when it initially happened, when this starts initially called off, there was a lot of like trust, like in like the big WhatsApp groups and stuff and talk to people, there was a lot of like people thinking of at least I don't know if this was represent general opinion, but people being quite vocal a because I know, we need to trust like Pat knows what she's doing, they

wouldn't have called it off of this thing. It's like it's getting more and more those people being like, no, we need to, we need to go, we need to

we need to get back on the picket line. And there's been a petition that's been going around that's been getting quite a bit of news, like setting out some hard lines like four to the end R and c leadership about what kind of stuff is should accept, like saying, no, we need to stick to the above inflation busting, we need to not compromise on this, we need to not compromising this, which is I think got eight hundred and

eighty signatures at the moment. It doesn't sound like a huge amount, but like again you're going through quite a lot of immersial of like attitude of like you've got to leave it to the leadership among the membership, even when they were unhappy with it. And it's only a thousand signatures that are necessary in the RCNS where the RCM works to call an extraordinary general meeting, which they

can do pretty much whatever it wants. And that's how the leadership in two and eighteen was kicked out after the bad pay deal. Then, But that's really interesting. Yeah, so like the RCN very undemocratic except for this one particular thing. Yeah, is it Is it a normal thing? That? Is it like a normal thing for unions in the in the UK? Or is that just like a most most I think all unions have an amount of people, a set amount where if like memberships calling for an

extraordinary general meeting, they have to do it. The RCNS one is really low interesting essentially, and like there were some moves were like people in the r C leads to say, oh, we need to change it, we need to give into that, we need we need to raise it to be more in line with other unions. But that again is something that will have to that if that does happen, that kind of change we'd have to go to like a membership wide vote. It's not something

the executive leadership could just impose that's good. Yeah, Yeah, So like there is a process of like these strikes were like a result of like increasing general level of militancy were among nurses in general and among NHS workers, and I think particularly because everyone knows it's awful the situation, and then with like a slightly more organized than spear and if they're resulted in that in that petition in twenty eighteen arguing for stuff at like congresses and things,

and then that's what actual strike has like got the membership feeling like they should have a more active role. And I think it's pushing things in a positive direction, even though I think the rc and leaderships has gotten to a point where by mistake, it ended up way ahead of the other unions and it's now trying to bear battle. But I don't I think there's a lot of potential for like more grassroots organized by the membership to prevent that happening. Yeah. We are in a difficult

position though that the time is running out. Strike mandates in the UK only last for six months. We are and the government that Greek negotiations were at two and a half months left of the mandate, it's now two months left of the mandate. You have to give two weeks notice before strike action. Oh so that's that that that's that's what to sort of like run out the clock strategies about on their side. Okay, that makes sense exactly. Now, nothing's to stop us from reballoting. Yeah, but it will

be a whole process. It has to be a month. You have to go through the mail. Yeah, it will be drawn out. We'll buy them a lot more time. Yeah, that's post. The workers, I think are on strike again today too, I think maybe I think so, let me, I've got the strike calendar up on my computer. Let's see who's on strike and absolutely fraud. I have it on my other computer, but I don't have it on

this one. Yeah, so it shays the fifteen today, Amazon's on striking Coventry, the BBC's regil services, the civil service, which it would kind of be equivalent to like a federal stuff um in America. So like fince, it's my dad, who's a health and safety inspector is on strike today, h MRC, which is the tax officers on strike, junior doctors on strike, offstead. The school has structs on spike strike, the l the two main rail unions on strike, teaches

on strike, and university stuff on strike. Not the postal service today. But yeah, yeah, well, I guess I guess I wanted to ask a bit about that too, about sort of just what what's been happening. I don't know what what what you see as sort of the potential of the of the broader strikes have been happened, because this is this is a I don't know, I mean, it's not it's not it's not like a like it's it's not like a nineteen seventies style like strike wave, but it's it's a lot of strikes for the UK

in the last decade. It's it's big. There isn't the level of cross union cooperation and talks that you would want. There's a lot of like people turning up to each other's picket lines. There's a lot of like solidarity present, but it's not coalescing into like a into like a unified movement which is hoping to be. Although I do think if something doesn't change, it is moving in that direction. And like the Conservative government is at like an all

time loan it's popularity ratings. Yeah, I think. I don't know if you're aware from this quote from Margaret that's yet about how her main political goal was remaking the soul of Britain away because like up until that period there was a very strong trade union movement in the UK that it had like one of the best social democracies in the world, like comparable to Scandinavia today. It was it was far more like active attitude in the UK.

And like Margaret factor is explicit, I kind of the exact quote, but explicit project and the project or the Conservative Party at the time. Let's not put it all on her, great woman theor of histories as bad as great man of history to move the soul of the like general social attitude and personality of like people in Britain away from that like orientations like community and the

collective struggle and action. And there is a part of me that feels like this is a move away from that because like everyone you go to there's winging about like an inconvenience cause by strike, but pretty much everyone is like, yeah, those they have it, it's awful for them. It's all the strike drivers. Good on them for standing up for themselves. Good on the teachers for standing up for themselves. Good on postal workers were standing up for themselves.

Good on nurses were standing up for themselves. Like the amount of like stuff I've been brought by people on the picket lines has been in credits, Like I each day I've just been like rolling down for hill from my hospital to my house like a bloated stomach from like stuff members of the public import and drop top of the pick it line. It's um. It makes me feel like it's there is the optimist part of me.

It does feel like there is a reorientation in general of British public to the idea that we don't have to put up with this, yeah, and you don't have to struggle and try and get it on your own. And like it's early days yet, but I do see something positive moving in that direction in the UK. As to this strike wave, Yeah, that's a that is I don't know that that is great news from a place that does not usually generate great news. This is like

the this is the deeply optimistic part of me. On the other hand, you have like bad a lot of bad news coming out of the UK. Yeah, like this strike wave is good news. It is the fact that it's happening in the NHS in particular, which has been so resist to industrial action historically, and also just because of how what significant part of the economy it is as well, because like you know, the NHS is the eighth biggest employer in the world. Wow, you know it's

in the world. That's that's wild. Yeah, Like it used to be like the fifth biggest in the world. Wow, it's yeah, it used to only be that the American Army, the Chinese army, mcdawns of Walmart would be it would

be overtaken by Amazon and such. Now but yeah, yeah, like like strike action, so like from like a workers' perspective, like strike action of like the largest section of the workforce, nurses in the NHS, the biggest in plowing the world, leaving aside the situation for everything else in the UK, leaving aside their history of the opposition, like the active opposition to the idea of striking within nursing the historically in the UK is huge news and something to be

hopeful about. And then put into context of the more broader strikeway in the UK and within the NHS in general, this is huge and it is a sign I think, or positive change and like reontation towards workplace struggle occurring. I think. So I've now heard two different places do this, which was I heard this in Chile in twenty nineteen, and I heard this also on my picket line at the University of Chicago in twenty nineteen, which is, I like, I this is the place dear liberalism was born, and

we will kill it here. And I mean those are the three places, Yeah, Chicago and the UK. Yeah, I think. I think also arguably Germany, although that has a whole other rdal libs are all the libs. From my understanding of it, from listening to some things about years ago, it's it's more of a family resemblance than the exact

same thing as near liberalism. Yeah, I mean, I think if we're gonna I think they got absorbed into the neoliberal bubble so far as like like they're they're the order libs are where the neo liberals got the sort of like we need to have like an international bureaucracy, like the legal bureaucracy from like hyak is also like heavy of all. Yeah that that's that's the whole of this, right,

But yeah, like it is. It is encouraging to me that it's like, I don't know, like like the it really does seem like in the places where the liberals was bored, it's like it's starting to come apart. Yeah, And you know, I know people people have been predicting the death of neoliberalism for like long, well almost as long as I've been alive. But I don't know this this like the fact that it's happening in these places seems different than it does seem. I think it is significant.

I think I'm I am cautiously excited every time I hope something bad happens, but I am hopeful now. And you know, my brain is a magic so it can't be a cause of effect there. Yeah, but I don't know. I mean, like you are the second person I've interviewed from the UK who actually seemed to be like somewhat optimistic above the direction you could possibly be going, which is the first time I've heard that in Like, I mean, I guess you're people who are optimistic about Corbin, but yeah,

I don't know. This is this is the first sort of like signs of that since I don't know a long time, and I think, yeah, look like if I was host of the American listens, like, if turf Island isn't doomed, then we're not doomed either. I don't know. Here's what I gonna say, Well, you're taking us on that it's true. Yeah we have Yeah, I am Yeah, I don't know when this is coming out, but I'm gonna I'm gonna be honest man. Like, there's a lot

of ways the UK is better than the magic. Yeah, the US, like is it's a it's a real disaster, like it's it's yeah. Yeah, I mean I think we're both equally banned a lot of ways. Yeah, I think the things and the things that like people in the US look at England say this is awful of the things people in the UK look at the US and say this is awful. It's it's kind of a a child looking at their parent and being pissed off at them, and a child and a child and a parent looking

at their child and being disappointed in them. No, no, you both suck. It's family resemblance. It's we hate us for It's a narcissism of small differences like yeah, between the US and the UK K a lot of the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess do you have anything else do you want to say about the strikes? I think the fact it got this far is incredible. There's so much supermor that needs to go. Um. I'm really excited and I'm really scared.

I think this is the potential for like a turning point around, both for the NHS but for my profession for nursing and also like in general in the context the wide strike bastion for the UK. But you know,

the higher the stakes, the higher the perils. Like this is our I think this is our fight to lose, essentially, Like I think if we do it, if we go seriously and like the membership takes controls of it from like the leader, from their union leadership, which is very cautious, which has been put put into position of being more miller of like unprecedented millings to see almost by accident, we're trying to appease the membership. We can achieve something incredible,

but it's really the book's open. It can go either way, and like I'm excited and I'm terrified by it. Yeah, if people want to support the strikes, where can they go? Is there a strike they can donate to? The RCM has an open strike fund. I would invite anyone listening to donate too. I would also like find the articles about the petition that've been going around, like the mind of the rcmle ship takes a stronger stance, and like

just share that around generally create more visibility on that. Yeah, well we'll put links to both of those in the description. Yeah, those are the main things I would suggest. Again, the national nature of this struggle and the fact that it's not even really against our direct employers makes it harder to talk specifically about this thing or that thing in

some ways. But yeah, those are the two things I would ask, Like, the big our strike pot, the easier it is to argue for more aggressive action, and the more visibility goes on that petition, the more you'll take a lot more than a petition to like shifts things to the roots, to being in the forefront and the leadership position of this. But it's something that will make people feel more empowered to put more pressure on the leadership. It's like a small stepping point towards what we need.

I'd also like to recommend a book to anyone who wants to find out more about the history of the NHS and the current situation. Some comrades of mine like from a group called the Ambi Workers and also revolution. I always forget the other group. They did it with

his name, This is embarrassing. Yeah, anarchist communist group wrote and Healthcare Workers United, which is like a network I'm involved in, put together a book called Sick of It, which is like a collection of workers inquiries and reflections on the NHS. It's history, it's potentials and what and stuff. That's really a great book. Sadly not available as any book, but it's it's an excellent read and like it will

tell you. We'll give you a real insight into what the NHS has been historically and what it is now for anyone who's interested in that. That's awesome. Yeah, the angry workers are really cool. By the way, they're on Twitter. I probably should have. It's probably just angry workers. Yeah, yeah it is. Oh wait, no, I'm wrong, it's it's workers. It's at workers angry I think wait, no, no, it's yeah, it's at work. Is angry? It is? Yeah. Yeah, I'm

not on Twitter. I don't. I don't know about these things. It is. It is a cursed place. Um yeah, getting works. Oh god. Yeah. If you want to want to find us at Twitter, we are at cools one Media. Um yeah, we're also on Instagram. I'm told we're on Instagram. I don't have one, so I don't know. This is what I've been being told from many years. If we don't, don't tell me. Uh yeah, And thank you all for listening. And yeah, go do your own strikes at make boss's lives, mister. Please.

The more strikes are going on, the more people want to go on strike. Hey, okay, hello, and welcome to it could happen here a podcast. It is about today, about labor organizing and about what happens after a strike in a labor organization. I'm joined, I'm James. If you hadn't guessed and I'm joined by several people from the UCSD Dollar Lunch Club. We're going to talk about the UC strike and we're going to talk about mutual aid organizing in the wake of the strike. If you would

like to introduce yourselves, that would be great. I'm Alex. I use she, they pronounce I'm Matt and I use he him. Hi. Everyone, my name is Maria. I am a PhD student at UCSD, and I use she her pronounce I'm anna and I use the pronounce amazing. Thank you very much, guys. So I think people probably haven't heard much from us about the uc strike since we last sort of had some episodes around December and January, and obviously it's been a couple of months since then.

So the resolution of that strike was kind of contentious, right, And a lot of the organizing that you guys have been doing came out of the campaign to vote no on the I guess the ballot after the strike right

to vote no and the tentative agreement, which ultimately didn't succeed. Right, the tentative agreement, there was a yes vote, and I wonder if you could all explain kind of like it's obvious how the yes vote was organized right within the structure of a union which which exists, to which I had obviously made disagreement with the you see in this case, and then it's a job of the people who made that agreement to then get a yes vote on that agreement.

But can you explain a little bit about how the no vote campaign came together and maybe if someone could also made some of the substantive issues that you felt would satisfactory resolved in that intensive agreement. Yeah, the no vote was the end of a very long process of us feeling like the bargaining team was making progressively worse and worse decisions and basically using submission as a tactic to improve gains in bargaining. We felt like that was

not a great tactic. So the upshot of the no vote campaign was that fundamentally we felt that the bargaining

team had not fought hard enough. They had made repeated U sacrifices of our core demands UH drastically cutting our fifty four thousand U wage demands are cola, and that we felt, particularly since it was during the winter break and we had his home time to you know, stretch it out a little bit further, that if we had gone back to the bargaining table at that point, that we would have been able to recoup some of those demands.

I don't think there was like a consensus that it was like obvious that uh, like union resources would exclusively be used for yes vote stuff either maybe partially, but that was one part of like the major conflict was that, like when some of us were trying to do like a text banking campaign for like, uh no vote stuff, I know of at least one person who like feared for their career because like their colleague was like, you're misusing like per personally a personal information that like this

isn't why people like agreed to give it to the union, and like you can't just take it and use it for like, you know, campaigning for your no vote stuff.

But then we were like, this is for a union purpose, why can't we like contact people on the same topic that all of us are getting a bajillion mass texts about um and so like I do think that was also a point of contention within that like like the union does not share resources amongst, like amongst people who are campaigning for different sides of like ballad issues, right, yeah, yeah, So it wasn't like there wasn't like a like an open channel where like people could have an open discussion,

but at least using the text banking function at least. Yeah, we we have been old um that in the event that a variument chain did not have a unanimous vote in favor of TAA, the agreement that both sides would have the opportunity to use union resources learned to campaign for their their preference, and that that didn't turn actually

the case. Yeah, that's that's upsetting. And so how did you organize because it was it wasn't like the nervote campaign is only the four people here right, Like it was a very substantive campaign that the large number of people supported and voted for. It wasn't like this is a kind of ninety nine percent yes situations. How did you all organize for the nervote campaign when you didn't

have access to those resources. It was a pretty distributed network of for instance, signal chats, so a lot of signal what'sapp discord groups, and it was it was very grassroots. So if you knew someone in one of those groups, they would add you. M Yeah, I'm sure Matt and Allison have more to add, I think they were in

some very large group chats. Yes, and those group chats on were both on the UC San Diego campus as well as statewide, so you know, this this wasn't just something that UC San Diego was voting on, right, this was all of the California campuses. We also had a strike Center which involved in towards the end of our active picketing before winter break, a number of people from

all different departments migrated from their pickets. Who was more central location And although it was not synonymous with and it was unofficially kind of seen as the dissidents side, the vast majority of people who participated in the strike center were I ended up being no voters when the time came. I think Anna is pretty right in saying that a lot of the organization was like a distributed,

decentralized thing across signal chats. Like in my experience, there was, for example, the Disability Justice Coalition, who've done a lot on you know, accommodations and disability rights and things like that, and so they were approaching things from different angles than other chats that were like, you know, doing like oh, here is a list of emails from you know, uci of grad students in this department, please feel free to email it. And you know, like so there was like

a diversity of tactics there, if that makes sense. So it was like a lot of like petitioning emails, talking one on one with people, so me personally, and several people that I know like set up meetings with like their labmates and just be like, hey, how are you doing, so have you heard of what's going on? Things like that, which I think are very normal union things to do.

I did find that like official, like not maybe not official, but in my department, we had two people kind of take up like union liaison roles, and they tended to be more like yes voters rather than no voters, And I found that their form of communication to us never had that kind of like reaching out to other people. They would say like, hey, there's a campus oc happening at five pm, but they wouldn't reach out to members of the department to get everyone's opinion until like week three,

week four of the strike. So you know, I think what no Voters did excel at was reaching out to people individually and like actually like going out to different labs, two different departments and talking with people like either one on one or within small groups. So me personally as well as another member of the Dollar Lunch Club actually

canvassed around graduate housing. So we during the ratification, but we were literally like holding stacks of paper and saying like, hey, this is kind of the layout of what you'll be paid for each month that the union, like the UAW is not showing you, Like if you're in you know, in this year, you're going to be getting a barely like two hundred dollar raise for these several months. That kind of thing, which is like very you know, that information just was not made accessible or made clear by

the UAWN. For me, that was purposefully done, at least in my opinion, that was purposefully done. So I think the diversity of tactics there that the no voters incorporated. And it was only after we started canvassing around graduate housing that we started seeing yes, voters also canvassing around graduate housing and tearing down the posts that we had

put on other people's doors. Yeah, so it got contentious, but I think because we didn't have those official resources that the UAW usually or at least our chapter of the UAW usually can depend on, such as like oh, an official mailing list, and then we'll just like send

you or basically spam you a bunch of updates. We had to work around that by doing more personal meetings by, for example, in the last week of the strike, facilitating group lunches right where multiple departments would come together, bring food, cook like nine ten in the pots worth of stews for everyone, and then that would be an opportunity for me to talk to people that I have never talked to in my life, from like completely different departments and

tell them like, hey, I don't think this is looking really good for us, especially like we have very different conditions, very different working conditions, and just overall you may be part of the SRU, I'm part of two eight six five, here's how we should talk. So again, that was because the UAWU was not utilizing those avenues of getting people

to talk to each other. So I'm not sure I kind of went off topic, but I wanted to like really hammer home that because we didn't have all those resources, we had to rely on kind of these like how should they say, like very distributed, piecemeal strategies of like oh well let's do something here. This isn't going to work. For this department. Let's do that for this department. You know, if that makes sense. It does. I think it's really cool because I think that's how there's a lot of

people can learn if they're interested in organizing their own workplaces. Right, whether it's organizing for a vote unattenative agreement, or it's just organizing to form collective bargaining in the first place, or to deal with a particular issue with your bosses, whatever it is, there's grassroots things work, especially when you don't have the this giant, sort of massive union apparatus.

I wanted to say, like, um, just with like what it feels like like to be in like all of the different chats, um, because like, at at the peak of everything, I was like probably sending you like a dozen different Google docs a day. Um, it was all just like like, we'll start a different group chat for It was all just we'll start a different group chat for the specific purpose of like nobody's talking about disability justice, and so we want to talk about disability justice in here,

and we've decided this forum is not good. And then somebody in the chat goes like, well, I'm with people who are also interested in like furthering this topic. And I don't see them any of them doing something like you know, um like analyzing uh like reanalyzing the like housing market data and not just like taking the uaw's word for it, or like like doing a little bit of like forensic accounting on the university and then posting the Google doc and saying like, hey, I did some

like forensic accounting on the university. This is something that we can use in arguments and also is like evidence of X or YU. So yeah, just a lot of people. It helps. Also it helps to be any union full of grad students. Yeah, you do. You have a lot

of useful skills. It can also be very taxing organizing that way, Like it can be really I know, it's a lot of being on your phone, and it's a lot of like your phone vibrating and and you're having to switch your focus from some like in depth discussion of disability justice to a discussion of like why the rent is so damn high in Santa Cruz and so like it can be really like I guess, I don't know, I'm not a person who does well with that kind of shit, and so like I wonder if there's anything

because this happened a lot in twenty twenty two. Right when we look at how the George Floyd uprising or the uprising for back Lives, whatever you want to call it, was organized. There was also a whole lot of signal chats that I know for a lot of people I spoke to like they just couldn't handle the signal chats. So I wonder if there's anything that you learned during that organizing process that you would like to pass on

to people who are interested in organizing going forward. One thing I'll say is it became pretty clear that, you know, the people who had created the signal chats or the WhatsApp chats were the ones who were able to monitor, manipulate, shut it down, which happens to our campus picket leaders organizing chat after the no vote had already failed. Was a couple of weeks later during the Joint Council meeting

of the aw and UM. You know, the the discourse and the arguments that were happening there, while certainly very painful and vociferous, were also you know, very connecting to

the campus. Lots of different departments were on there, so we still got a lot of ideas about you know, what other departments were thinking of, UM And with the locking down of that chat, which was kind of a unilateral action on the part of one of the moderators, that just really ended a lot of campus discussion and in my opinion, further the divide between the two sides.

And the other thing that I'll say is, you know, it's really hard from a historical perspective, from a communications perspective to see like that people who are typing slower are not getting their opinions out. People who are in multiple chats are getting certain types of information that other people are not getting. And my words of advice to any any mass movement that is attempting to use these kinds of chat applications are one to be sure that

you are monitoring for accountability. I've realized very late in the game that you can actually download WhatsApp transcripts, So I download the entire strandscript just in case you've got newt screenshots. Also, you know, people would so why I said this, and you know to this persons who know you know, somebody took screenshot at out before you've deleted it. UM. And the other thing is, you know, to always have backups.

Always have back channels, because there were so many instances of of you know, moderator lead or UAW sanctions chats that did not permit discussion. And yeah, since you know we were talking about that ship in our in our back channels. Yeah, I think I think that's that's good advice. Kenn has just joined us, and I'm just going to allow them to introduce themselves before we go forward with discussing these organizing tactics. Go ahead, Ken Hi, I'm Ken.

I am a graduate student in the literature department. UM. So I've been organizing with Dollar Lunch Club from day like week zero before the strike started with um with anna and yeah, and well that was from day one, that's true. I wanted to say, um, with respect to

the question about like, uh just on my phone fatigue. UM, I think a large like part of like why we are now like this group of us here is Dollar Lunch Club is because we were just like we all have on my phone fatigue and we want to do something actually like community building and like meaningful, uh, for like ourselves and other grad students. UM. And yeah, getting off the phone and making soup together has been very h very good. For that. Yeah, Ray, do you want

to add to that. Yeah, I I was going to say the same, like, because I think I think phone chats are vital, right, Like I'm thinking about how important Facebook messenger chats were to the teacher strike a couple of years ago, So those were like really important, and

they were really important in our strike as well. But I think because of the limitations of like as Matt mentioned, someone can just unilaterally say none of you can reply only I can post updates, people can like erase their messages, they can nuke the entire chat, disable it. All of that.

Because of that, it really tells you like, oh, you can't just rely on online organizing a lot of times You're going to have to do in person organizing, which, again, as Alex said, really well, part of that is just

community building. Like to me, what Dollar Lunch Club is, it's like a continuation of that community building so that we maintain contacts, so that we maintain having conversations with people that generally we wouldn't really be meeting every day, or maybe wouldn't even be meeting like like once a quarter, that kind of thing. You know, there's people that I talked to in grips that I never would have talked to if we weren't doing some of these lunches together

and finding out their situations. So they're in a kind of tough situation that I think would be good to talk about in soon. But I guess what I would say as advice for other people who are trying to unionize their workplace is to get people kind of engaged. You have to start with some of that community building, and I think food is one of those really good places to start community building. It could be also other

types of activities. So all throughout the strike, there was you know, times when people would be like, hey, let's do yoga by the beach, you know, or let's do yoga on this picket, or let's do a dance on this picket, or let's do like a fashion show on this picket. Those are all like fun activities that I think people who do not want to be at their workplace all the time, people who just want to catch

a break. You can engage those like disengaged people that are just not paying attention to politics by offering activities that are important for community building and forgetting to meet people that you wouldn't have talked to before. So I think that's kind of like vital to a union functioning

is building all of these contacts. And then when you have talked to someone several times, when you have had lunch with them several times, then you can really get into the nitty gritty of like, well, how do you feel about the contract, how do you feel about you know, unionizing, how do you feel about so and so. I think that kind of community building is something that like our the UAW two eight sixty five at least, really just

like neglected. So my example here is on one of the pickets, not the picket that I was on, but on one of the pickets. I later talked to a guy who was saying like, oh yeah, our picket is really militant. We're supposed to be like shouting at people the street the entire time. And you know, our picket leader, she's like going all out and she you know, has lost her voice because of that and all of that. And I was thinking, like, okay, but what do you

don't you want to arrest? You know, like what like do you do anything for fun to keep people going to the picket Because his picket had dropped in numbers so much that they had to combine numbers with another picket right, And to me that was like you are making this really really stressful for people. That's not to say that you know, like preventing people from parking there

isn't important. It is, but most people can only do that for a couple of days and then they're like stressed out and they do not want to contribute to that strike situation anymore. They just want to sit at home and not do work right, which is kind of what a strike can be. But to keep people on the picket lines and to keep in contact with them because they're coming on campus or you know, at the workplace every day, you have to make it like pleasant

to be there. And so that that was one of the things that I learned from one of those pickets, where like you aren't doing any community building, Like your community building is a single basketball hoop that you brought and you put on the parking lot, and like that's not enough. You have to do like food, you have to do some kind of rest, you have to do

some kind of art. So in one of the other pickets that I participated in, there was like chalking everywhere we were playing we were making like you know, like a monopoly board, but like you would just be losing two hundred dollars every time you passed a step and things like that. Right, you have to let people express themselves in this way for them to keep coming back and back and being engaged, for you to be able to facilitate conversations as to ask like, hey, what do

you think about the contract? Hey, what do you want to do? I think community building is the most important thing, and that can be online, but it also should have an in person component to it. Yeah, I think that's pretty well said. Fun is a way like like intentionally making time and space and energy for having fun as a community and just like doing things that are just like like this is because all of us need to

eat and all of us need to break. Like that is a way to like keep up your to like keep up your stamina and like help people keep up your stamina for something taxing like a strike, and also like to help people find the kind of meaning that helps them like want to come back and continue devoting

energy to the thing. And yeah that I just wanted to echo that like that, like it was only through like finding this group that I was able to like find people of similar minds on It was not in the like UAW department organizing committee meetings that I could find like minds on this our picket, I don't think ever like like died off like other pickets did, and our picket I'm referring to, like most of the other

people here, we were together on one picket. Part of that is because we were allowing like space for so many different activities to do. Like there is one person in my department who kept coming despite my department being like really politically disengaged, because we had like a button maker and we could make buttons, and he was like, Hey, this is fun. I'm just gonna like continue drawing buttons

for people. I like doing that. And it was like, go for it, you know, like as long as you're here, as long as we can communicate with you and like hear your opinions and see what you want to out of the contract, and you keep on coming, Like we

love that. You know, Like if you allow space for different people to do different things, if there's like a diversity of tactics, I think you're going to get people a lot more engaged than if you have this like top down, like, no, we should only be preventing people from parking here, we should only be shouting at students to not go to class like they has to be a diversity of tactics. That will be a good time I think for us to explain exactly what dollar lunch

club is and what it does. So does someone want to take take on explaining that a dollar and lunch club is very much like I would say, ground up organizing tactics. I guess it's it's everything is sort of collectively decided in a weekly meeting, and in the past quarter it's it's been lunch. It's we've been providing lunch

for UM. It's targeted at grad students, but really welcoming all of all community members regardless of like affiliation with UCSD, although it's mostly UCSD students, been grad students that have been attending. But um, we've been doing lunch for a dollar two to three times a week in different places on the UCSD campus, sort of like a Some of

it is just lunches. Of it is sort of like ad hoc catering I would say, of different kinds of organizing efforts, or like interdepartmental lunches, So it's not it's not totally fixed in terms of location or affiliation, and all of the members are doing this totally voluntarily, and the one dollar that we collect for the lunches, or or greater donations if community members want UM go straight into UM just sustaining the lunch project and groceries and

but mostly Yeah, there's been a lot of efforts to sort of diversify and make the make our lunches as sustainable cost wise as possible. So this last quarter, folks have been working with the Food Recovery Network to sort of supply some of the ingredients. It is very much donate what you want. As Ken said, we generally suggested dollar donation, but it's I think one of our signs says eat first, donate maybe, So it is very much

pay what you want, pay what you can. Yeah, And I wanted to say, and like Matt was most directly involved in this transition, but what it grew out of was the fact that like the Humanity's Picket started doing daily lunches together and after the strike ended because of ratification vote UM, Uh, Matt and UH some other folks who had been doing those lunches were just like we should keep doing this. This feels good and right. And um,

more of people like me jumped on afterwards. Um, and we all have been making it into this mutual leid thing for like we need to like you know, humanize ourselves to each other and like you know, shore up the like community bonds that we noticed we're missing. Um, so that way, maybe in the future, like people will care a little more about like people that maybe they couldn't care less about this time around. I want to just jump in and give credit where credit is due.

Or An and Anna actually were the original eights of the strike food and I jumped on in day one because I knew for I used a professional cook for a while, I'm really in the food and I wanted to do that. And so I guess you could say it was the three of us, and then it expanded her fair fair, I don't I don't have my origin story nailed down. Yeah, you got to get it on, Pat.

It's it's something I missed greatly from like leftist organizing in certainly in like southern Europe, which is you know where I spent a lot of my life, Like you're always well fed at anything where you're in Spain or Italy or even in France and like American labor organizing black set, so it's cool to see you guys doing it. Yeah. Kind of to summarize what Alex was saying. For me, the goal is very much too from one is food justice. Um so food for everyone. I think everyone should have it.

It's great to hear that that's kind of a building thing in Europe. I didn't know that, but it sounds pretty on brand. Disappointingly, that is not the case here. So yeah, everyone needs food, So that's that's one goal. And then for me, the other goal is to get people talking across departments. So I think a big issue in the strike was that some departments were paid much more than others, and I think for that reason, the ones who were paid more were often less radical because

they were kind of already slightly more comfortable. Of course, no one has paid a huge amount as a grad student, but they had. I guess you can say more to lose, and maybe we're less pressed to urgently start earning more.

And of course accessibility needs and there are many other considerations. Basically, if you're already somewhat comfortable with your living situation, you're less likely to be super radical, and so I think just not even being in the same spheres together, people in those more comfortable departments kind of did not really have any reason to interact with people in the less comfortable departments, and they just didn't see them at all.

And so, just like what Alex is saying, that food is a way to humanize us all to each other. It's very hard to have everyone in the same room together without you know, seeing and talking to each other. So food was away for us to do that, and I thought that that was a really important, continued, slow moving goal. So weekly lunches are away for us to invite people from across the campus and say, hey, there's free food here and it's also really good, so you

should come by and eat them. And while you're here, talk to some students from the Humanities department and recognize that they have real needs and they are people too, And maybe next time you vote you should keep their thoughts in mind, UM and vote a little bit less selfishly if you can. UM. So that that's what it is for me. I think getting a little deeper and dig a little deeper into the origin of like how

this all started. My department has been like very suspicious, I guess of the the UAW previous efforts for fair for fair reasons, you know, um, And so in terms of getting folks out to strike and then also to be on the picket line, it was definitely a struggle, not just not really so much in that folks didn't believe in the cause, but they were like pretty aware that, um, you know, as as literature students, you're not the university

or the union's priority. Um, you know, because humanity's you know that, you know that trend, right, And so there was also a lot of the whole strike pay systems scared a lot of folks, and it was like I have to switch from this, you know, like different kind of labor, which is not really about me physically being in a place for twenty hours a week, into this labor that is like me walking around for twenty hours a week in order to make sure that I am

not going to go broke. And basically there was not a funded There wasn't funded snacks or lunch by the UAW. And I had actually Matt and I or yeah, Matt and I had asked at an early meeting. I guess about getting a sort of like seed fund of like maybe fifty dollars to just get us rolling on the lunch, and the UAW staff was like, Nope, lunch is just not included in our budget. Sorry about that, Like, if you want to do that, you'll have to figure out

how to get this organizing going on your own. And so part of doing the fundraising from the beginning was about that, and actually the strike food funds that I also want to throw some credit to Anna also as like one of the people that was like most focused on building sort of the fundraising materials and actively fundraising in different places and making sure that then ultimately in terms of being able to supply food lunch funds to

other pickets. That was something that we started doing about midway through the strike because we had had some fundraising success and it was kind of crazy because it was I remember just like the last day of the strike itself, just being at another pick get where you know that had sort of developed more of its own like lunch culture, like using some of that like that fundraised cash and like also using efforts from other folks, but um, just

the picket being like somebody at the picket being like Damn they got to get on that lunch thing next time. This was key And I was just like no, yeah, um, but yeah, like exactly the lunch is key, Like how you how are you going to expect to have people building community, you know, and you know the cheapest, the cheapest like lunch you can. I mean outside of basically during the strike, people were eating all of the food out of them the food co Op, which is another

community group that supplies food on campus. Um, but outside of that, pretty much there is not a meal to be had on campus for less than like thirteen dollars without packs. So yeah, that's that's about that, Alex. Can I add something like before you just like a tiny thing? Based on Ken's point, I was going to say, at one point, I think it was week two or week three of the strike, we were making so much food.

We were feeding like probably one hundred people, and then we would have leftovers and we would literally walk the leftovers or to the other pickets, and it surprised me so much that the other picket would just be eating like chips and donuts, and here I am like dropping off like cooked you know, like being burritos or like salads or things like that, like actual food for them. So like, to me, this was like not even a

failure on the uaw's part. It was like very intentional of like, well you're kind of on your own, you know, So that's like the power of food to me is like, well fed people are going to keep coming back, you know, people that don't have to spend like a bunch of money on getting like donuts. I don't I don't think

they're going to keep coming back, you know. Yeah. What Ken was saying earlier about props to Anna, nobody moves a second hand insta pot in San Diego County without Anna knowing about it is one of our group jokes. Yeah I love you, yeah, um, but yeah, I wanted to offer some contrast to like, uh, how uh like the other folks's departments have been, um, like have been responsive to things and like what the attitudes are. Um.

So I am in the computer science department. Uh, we have plenty of money comparatively, um and we are I think steps with the previous steps were like steps eight and nine, um, and we organize a lot with like the Electrical engineering department, which is like step like also

like steps seven to eight nine, um. And I remember very vividly this town hall we had before the ratification vote got announced, where like, uh, there was some temperature checking about like how does everybody feel about this, um, like if we if we put this up for a vote, um, and everybody was just like, uh, you know, it looks all right to me. I think, I, uh, this like you know, not not incredible, but like I'd be able

to handle this. And then I come in and get my turn and go like, guys, Um, everything I'm hearing from the other side of campus is them panicking and very upsets. Um. I don't think we should do this if the rest of the campus is panicking and upsets And I was just like not heard and kind of ignored U. So yeah, UM. A lot of the community building stuff, like when we talk about like trying to get people to like humanize like other people that they

didn't seem to care about. UM, we're talking about like the departments that didn't need as much help like some of mine. And like the strike for me personally was like it definitely transformed a lot of like my friendships or that reason, because like I don't know how to be friends with people that are like I see and hear that the people that you're talking to, I see and hear that you're talking to people who are absolutely freaking the hell out because like, we'll have struck for

six weeks or so and they'll still be poor. But like, I don't know how to be friends after that. I just wanted to catch a little bit more on the idea of feeding strikers and the massive logistical boon that that was for a movement. Does anybody we call offhand how many weeks to strike went on? Oor, say six u AW rules who were in order to twentify for strike pay, we needed to have twenty hours of striking

a week, So that boiled down to three ships. You could do them every you know, you could do two in one day and one another day. But by and large, at least most of the people on I Paint were there, you know, five days a week. But let's just say

you got three ships. Lunch, as we've already established at the UC San Diego campus, is around thirteen dollars a person, right, So that's thirty nine dollars you're spending just on lunch, not on gas, which for me is quite expensive because they live somewhat far from campus, So thirty nine times six is two hundred and thirty four dollars. And when we struck for for these these high wages, you know

that was worth it. We put in our effort and I sweat, But at the end of the day, those of us in the arts and humanities and the ass are seeing this year two hundred dollars base for a month, So just in our lunch that would have obviated the raises that we got during the strike. So I think, you know, this show's really the necessity or a mutual aid in workers' movements like this, because you know, we we if nobody else is going to beat us, we

have to beat ourselves. Yeah, I think that's pretty It's good to put numbers on it, like it's a serious expensive it's not getting any cheaper. Another way that I see this is it's not just for workers, like the way that I see what Dollar Lunch Club is doing biased saying hey, we will provide either free or very cheap a dollar, you know, for lunch on these days of the week, basically every week. Whoever wants to come can come, whoever wants to help can help go for it.

That to me is basically like a soup kitchen, like it is a The way that I see it is it's like a communist anarchist type project of like I'm not sure if I can say it's building power, but I feel that it's not just building community, but like allowing people to worry less about expenses, which means that they can put their energy into a lot of other things.

Like the way that I would want Dollar Lunch Club to continue to evolve is that we would be able to offer lunch for, you know, people who can't afford the like twelve dollars campus lunches every day of the week, all week. Like imagining the difference of you know, like, okay, there's ten weeks in a quarter, five days in a week, so like fifty days that like you might be buying

lunch at least half of those days. The difference of one dollar lunch versus like ten dollars lunch is like hundreds of dollars, right, So to me, if we can provide that, you know, as we grow in time to all five days of the week, you know, on several locations on campus, and we provide that for a couple of hundred students or community members or what have you.

We will be making a material difference in these people's lives, and we will be showing them a different way that like organizing or not even just organizing, but like that accessibility to food can be organized. If that makes sense that it doesn't, you know, like getting food doesn't have to be this like capitalist project of like I am ordering this sort of thing and I am getting this back.

It can be like the more along the terms of like what we're doing, which is like we are seeing what food has been donated to the pantry that we work a lot with the Basic Needs Hub, the food pantry and so on to get a bunch of like donated produce out of which we make foods. Right, so

we're reducing food waste. We're trying to you know, contribute to like food justice, making food as free as cheap as possible and allowing people to be like, hey, actually the cafeterias that you see on campus, you getting lunch doesn't have to be this way. It doesn't have to you know, like you pay you know, like two bucks for an apple or things like that. And then another

thing that occasionally we've been doing is also foraging. So here in southern California, there's a lot of edible non native species such as like mustard, curly doc wild radish, things like that, and so we can like forage those and even make food out of them along with food

from the food pantry. So, I you know, not that we're really doing this right now, but my dream would be to really kind of revolutionize the way that food culture is in UCSC and show people like, no, it can't be a food kitchen where you don't have to like expressly worry about where you're getting your your meal the next day. You don't have to pay three dollars for a banana, you don't have to do any of that.

You can have like a better future you can't have like a better experience at the university or just like in life in general. Yeah, yeah, I think that's a that's really no. I know, like I teach the community college sometimes, so it's a little different from the UC

but maybe not as different as people might imagine. And like one thing that I've noticed, like I always have food in my office and a lot of my students are in food procarity and have been for a while, and like certainly around like the time of the fucking travel band when when people's parents were stuck outside the

country and they defend for themselves. It's a way that like we can move from this moment of alien nation, which is like you know, your interaction with pandor express where you give money and you get a box of food you eat by yourself, to like a moment of solidarity, which is cool. Um, yeah, it's great. You're foraging too. I want to do a foraging episode one day, so I'll have to have you back for that. I want to like finish up maybe by just talking about some

logistical stuff. And anarchists have been feeding people communists or leftists or whatever like for quite a long time, right, like I can. Some of my best food memories are like eating beans with people, you know, like food not bombs things. At the I do a lot of work with refugees, so like food not bomb things in twenty eighteen with a migrant caravan, or people making pancakes at the G eight protest in the early two thousands. Like some of my best memories not of just food, but

like of forming community around food. So like when you're doing this stuff, like it's there only if someone wants to someone here is they say like, hell, yeah, I want to do that on my campus, at my workplace, in my town whatever. Like logistically it sounds like you guys have a corner on the insta pot market. But like, aside from that, like a cooking vegan food so it's it's more accessible for more people. You know, what kind

of stuff like that would you advise for people? I can jump in on this, ye, cooking cooking to scale is an entirely different beast than cooking for yourself at home. And um, you've already identified beans as being really legumes and grains bought in bulk machine kind of a surprise to anybody who who's thought about it for ever a hot second that that when you buy in bulk, it's far cheaper, but it also comes with downsides like when you're soaking beans, you often you know, have to soak

those beans a long time ahead of time. Um, And what we have been doing, which I think that my my comrades have touched on, is sourcing from a great variety of local food banks and barns and donation both during the strike and afterwards. One thing that I would say we struggled with in the initial phases of Dollar Lunch Club when we were still actively striking, was that you know, the absolute best of goodwill in the world.

Everybody wanted to donate foodstuffs, um, and that meant that our meal planning was was significantly harder because you know, we have half a can of tomato paste and we have twenty five cans of pinto beans and you know, ten bulbs of pentel and three crackers. Like definitely, we found that it was easier to solicit both cash financially, you know, setting up what's what's it called a venmo um and also you know for people who can't give money, um,

we put them to work. And and that was you know, because people want to help, and we felt kind of bad after while turning people away, who are you offering to go to the store. And at one point in the strikeway, I think we got like twenty five prepackaged Indian meals which we ended up giving out to people

for lunch. But as far as feeding people on site, you know, being very specific about what kinds of things you're looking for ahead of time, meal planning in a well in advance with a sort of basic framework of okay, we got a bean and we got a starch what

we have to throw into the bean pot. The last thing I would say is as as Anna has rightly been champion for the actual cooking devices are super important too, and that was one of that has perpetually been one of our biggest struggles because you know, we don't have a call ender, so we can't drain the beans. And we have four insta pots, but they're different sizes, and the lives for two don't work with wear and tear. Stuff is you know, breaking right when you need it

the most. So you know, if you are getting money donations, I think it's really important to budget for the pots and the pans and can openers and these kinds of things that really make a difference in getting Blue hot and out on time and large numbers. Yeah, I think

that's very good advice. Maria had something to add. I have actually a lot of things to add logistics wise, because in our meetings we talk about some some some parts of this, and so one of the big things that we talked about over the strike but also after the strike when we were like, hey, let's let's continue this project, is how much of our things should be

like reusable versus like disposable right. That was like a big topic of like, well, okay, we're using disposable forks, and we don't like that environmentally because we're putting like a bunch of plastic into you know, the trash, right, and we have to buy plastic each time. But then like we don't know, okay, you know, like should we should we buy like, you know, a bunch of metal spoons, but they're going to be a little bit more expensive than the disposable ones, but you know, maybe the costs

will even out after a while, and like that. That kind of you know, discussion has to be had about like everything, so you know, about like bowls, about like the pans in which we cook in like mixing bowls, like all kinds of things like that where we're thinking, you know, like based on the funds that we have, based on our usage of some of these products, is it worth it getting you know, like reusable things, which unfortunately will have to like clean afterwards, so they add

to the labor but thankfully they don't you know, pollute the environment and the way that disposable things do so for us, because we do care a lot about lowering our usage of plastic. We did pivot to using more reusable things. So I think for a group that may be interested in, you know, like facilitating something like this in their workplace or in their university or something like that, I think that is one important discussion that you want

to have. What is the time course that you see of this project continuing and is it worth it getting you know, like reusable versus disposable tools for the people that possibly you're going to feed. Another thing that is related to this is when you're first starting to cook,

really you're trying to borrow things from other people. So a lot of the things that like during the strike, we had just borrowed people's instapots, Like people brought in their instapots, they labeled them like, oh, this is you know, Dana's instapot, and then we use those instapots. After the strike, we couldn't do that anymore. But there were some people that were willing to be like, Hey, I'm actually like moving out and I'll donate all these tupperware to you.

And so we took the tupperware and now we have like a little tupperware program where if people don't forget to bring their tupperware to put lunch in. We just like label it. You see a Z dollar lunch club, you see a mutual aid and we just give away the tupperware and oftentimes you know it's brought back to us that kind of thing, and that again facilitates food usage. So there's a lot of places where you can find things that you might need in this kind of thing,

so can openers. I have found a bunch of jars that people you know, after they're moving away, they lead for free around graduate housing. So like there's a lot of things that you can get which don't really require funds for There's also buying nothing groups on Facebook that I think are particularly effective for this. So a lot of people that are just like, oh yeah, I'm like updating my kitchen, I'm throwing away a bunch of these

utensils that you can just get for free. So that's been really helpful for us as well, and as someone who does a lot of sourcing as well, so we tend to shop from goodwill and other thrift stores to make sure that you know, are buying in the consumption of some of these tools is as ethical if you

can call it that, as possible. And then a third thing that I would like to add for anyone who wants to, you know, start a project like this is I think you have to make it be fun for you, the person that's cooking and cleaning and organizing, apart from making it fun for everyone else who gets you know, like free food, cheap food, tasty food. Right. So, something that I really like about Dollar Lunch Club is that we've been really allowing our members to like run wild

with the ideas that they have. Right So, for example, we Anna and I have been talking about utilizing all the frozen bread that has been donated to us and

making French toast vegan French toast out of that. So we're really excited for doing something fun like that because usually in a lot of like Sue Kitchen places, you you have foods that are like, hey, this is nutritious, but you know, like I don't want to eat beans all day, and someone who like does like beans, but not everyone else wants to just eat you know, like

mashed beans all day, that kind of thing. And so having a like a variety of things that we cook, like we pretty much like cook all kinds of curries, a lot of like rice dishes, a lot of stews, pesto and spaghetti like pasta, you know, just like all very different kinds of meals that make it fun for the people who are arriving. So, like I mentioned pesto, I made pesto a couple of times, and like a lot of people are like, ooh, pesto basil, that's gonna

be great. And that was with like the forge mustard that I was talking about before, And like when you have that kind of variety and when you have like interesting fun foods, when you can like make boba in an install pot, or you could grab a toaster oven and make garlic bread, which is things that we've done, you make it a lot more fun for the people that are cooking as well, and it just becomes like a community building thing, not just for the people eating,

but for the people doing that labor. So that's like, that's what I would advise people, Like, yes, you are under very tight budgetary constraints. We try to like for some meals, like because there's so much donations, sometimes there's zero dollars. Sometimes we have to buy things and we try to have it be less than twenty dollars so we can like feed thirty to forty people, and you can like have that you know, money that's donated for

like one dollar. Have that be for like next time that kind of thing, did I Yeah, so like make it fun for yourself so you can like continue doing that work and you won't burn out in the way that you might otherwise even as you are trying to budget. Yeah. Yeah, I just wanted to say, um, Like, in terms of roles, Um, so we always have like somebody who like knows how to like pull a recipe together. More Um, we always

have to have somebody who like does dish washing. And like each of these roles can have like one or two or three people in it in it and then there's always like people who just like do the like labor of prep um and um. Like, yeah, that could be all the same person and or it can be multiple for each um. And I want to say, usually I am a person who either like like I show up to peel veggies that people tell me need to

be peeled, and I show up to wash dishes. Um, because I'm not a person who is like I have trouble making decisions about food. I do not want to be in charge of food stuff. And that has been like okay, And that has meant that like I do not have to like get nervous and worked up about like I don't know how to make decisions about food. Here I can just show up in peel carrots and it's like kind of helped me, um, like maybe get

a little bit of a better feel for like cooking stuff. Um. So that way when I am like just cooking for myself, UM, I do just think of like, okay, if I was like if I was in you know, like dollar lunch prep mode, Um, I know I have rice, and I know I have beans, and so I'm set, um and uh yeah, and a lot a lot of times just like taking away the like the dirty dish bin and sort of like leaving out maybe like a few washed bowls by the sink along with a sponge and a

bit of soap. People get the queue and they'll wash their on dishes. It's yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that's great. Actually having space for different skill sets and different preferences within your organizing is always key, okay, guys, And where can people find like if they want to ask you for bean recipes or follow along cepages whatever it is, like a dollar lunch club social media they can find or do you have individual ones you want to share? Uh so, I think Alex can talk about

the website. I have a website. Yes, I made us. I made us a website. Um. So we are most active on Instagram. Un can put our handle in the chat is Dollar Underscore Lunch Underscore Club on Instagram. Um and yeah, the website is Dollar Lunch Club UCSD, separated by dashes and then dot get hub, dot io because you can get free domain names if it's your get hub user name. Hot tip of the day, but uh yeah, primarily on Instagram. Nice. Yeah, it's great. All right, Well,

thank you very much for your time, guys. I already appreciate it, and yeah, I hope more people do the same, because, as you said, I think this is really important way to organize. Thank you so much. We really appreciate it. Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the universe. It could

happen here as a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, you can find sources for It could happen here, Updated monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.