Let's see if anyone is. Hello, hello. I know I want to see like that it's all going through yeah welcome to Las Doctoras podcast we are live on what is today Wednesday January 24th um we are just checking to make sure that we are in fact live on YouTube um are you able to see it I'm actually pasting another thing to say, hey, live now. Oh, okay. Let's see. Oh, yeah, there we are. Cool. There we are. We are live. Okay. I want to see. Hopefully folks come on. Oh, you posted it, right? On social media. I posted it again. Live now. We're here. We're excited to be here. think we should just head in dive in um we're here today to talk about um basically the strike that we were supposed to be participating in all week um so cfa the california faculty association right that's what it's called cfa um is our union represents um faculty staff different folks who work within the Cal State University system across the 23 campuses. We were scheduled to be on strike this whole week, which means that we had sent out emails to our students to say that we were not going to be holding class all week. And all kinds of different plans are made. Anyway, we can get into that. Oh, yeah. But I think that originally when we... So much. I just want to, like, emphasize there was so much work up to this. So much planning. So much, like, thought. The faculty, the union, our, you know, our... our classmates, our scholars, you know, our fellow scholars. And then from the university too, their pushback was so intense, you know? And so all of us were kind of on peak mode on Monday. Yeah. We were like, yeah, we were ready for whatever, you know, and, and, And I think that that's, you know, when we originally scheduled to do this recording, we wanted to speak to like kind of like create a podcast in solidarity with the strike, knowing that we weren't necessarily going to be out on the picket lines. But like this was our way to participate in the strike, you know, by kind of holding a conversation of why we were striking, both in terms of like the union, in terms of faculty, but also personally, like what are our reasons and motivations to strike. And then, of course, we get notification after day one. And I mean, we need to paint this picture for those who are not paying attention. But like, go ahead. Well, I want to admit to something, too. I want to admit I was nervous because I just have six more months left. of I don't know of of of working until my student loans are forgiven you know I was just there was I was I was trying to participate and I was trying to remind myself it's the end goal it's not like just this semester you know and but a lot of fear was coming up for me because I'm you know single parent I'm trying to provide there's all these things and so monday was like just intense you know for me to like yeah and I am I'm a bit of an addict when it comes to emails and things like that and so it took it took a lot of effort you know and I think you are not the only one I know so my brother who's a professor at san diego state he was feeling nervous maybe not in the same way for the same reasons but nervous nonetheless Because so he has grad students and grad students. There's a little bit more high stakes, you know, in terms of, you know, being available for advising and graduate work and all kinds of different things. And so he even from last semester was expressing feeling like he didn't want to leave his students out on the ledge, you know, if we were going to go on strike. And I mean, I think we all feel that to a certain extent. I have a class of 10 seniors this year, you know, and I'm like, they're like, am I going to, is everything going to be okay? It's going to be okay. I had the same thing. I had a senior was like, I'm trying to graduate, you know, at the end of the semester. I'm like, we're going to get you there one way or another. We're going to make it happen. And so it's like all of this like emotional work to try to wrap our heads around like what it would require to participate in this strike. And I think that it coming to what feels like an abrupt end on Monday. So let's let's paint the picture. Number one is Monday was raining, like raining everywhere in San Diego. Actually, it flooded everywhere. San Diego State, whoever was on there, including, I imagine, the picketers, had to be evacuated because it was flooded. Yes. We're talking, like, it was crazy. And, I mean, we were here. I was, you know, dropping the kids off in Long Beach. And so I passed by Cal State Long Beach. And the picketers are out there in the rain. You know, and I was, like, honking in support. And, like, all 23 campuses. If you're not here in Southern California, you might not know. But we... We don't get rain. We don't have a lot of it. But this was kind of you know, a ton of rain for us, you know, and it was just, you know, concrete jungle. People out there, you know, in the middle of the rain, starting at seven o'clock in the morning, like it was a big deal. And, and, and people were ready and willing to do that. So they're out in the rain all day on Monday. And again, we had completely prepared to strike all week, five days, right. Monday through Friday. And then we get an email from, Yeah, tell me what time. I remember receiving it and thinking like, what? It was, let me see. It was Monday at, I think it was like 8.51. Let's see, where is it? So yeah, I don't know if it's in this email. Anyway, it was 8.51. PM. Okay. Oh yeah. It was right. Like no one gets messages at eight 51 in the evening that actually 1 PM. And I was sitting down on the couch, like relaxing, watching, I was watching beef and, And then I get this email and it says, strike a success, three exclamation points, pushed CSU management to settle. And then it says, dear colleagues, and it starts with congratulations with your efforts. We have won a tentative agreement with CSU management. Strikes for the rest of the week have been called off and faculty will return to work tomorrow, Tuesday, January 23rd. Let's just pause for a second on that. Okay. 8 51 PM. And you know, I was asleep. Right. And you knew I wasn't going to answer. I knew you weren't going to answer. So in the morning, I'm also trying again, I have phone addicts. I'm trying not to be on my phone. I don't turn my phone on until 7 AM. It comes on. You say, check your email. I went to my email and, And I like my whole just like morning just went... what, what am I going to, what, what, what, what, what, you know? Yeah. I know. Cause then you were, I was like, so I get the email and you know, it, it says that first of all. So already I'm like, wait, what? We're just going to go back to work tomorrow. It's nine o'clock. That's less than 12 hours to, I mean, cause some classes I imagine start at 8 AM. Right. How many, like just how many faculty are notified in this? How many students are impacted by this? I mean, this must be like, they sent this email out knowing that it would go out to thousands, like tens of thousands, tens of, yeah, no, it's, And so that was, like, red flag number one. Okay, red flag number one is, like, oh, you have to go back to work. Like, this is in the first couple sentences of the email, right? So it doesn't even say what we've actually won in this tentative agreement. It's, like, we got something. You need to go back to work tomorrow, right? And I was, like, what the fuck? Like, one, like, I had already – anybody who has kids knows that, like – And it's not that simple because I had already like I hadn't yet figured out like who was going to do drop off and pick up around my like work schedule. Right. Because when I'm on break, I'm able to do all of that and usually like kind of figure it out like that. the week before, you know, anyway. So I'm like, what is happening? And then they go into not even, so we've been fighting for fair wages. They go in this whole, like there's, let's see, one, two, three, four paragraphs before they even get into what we quote unquote one. Now again, so let's pause there. And first of all, say like, I want to say before we get into the nitty gritty of these numbers is I and I feel like both of us have been really like ride or die for our union, really like gun ho. And the truth is, I'll probably still be like I think it's I think unions are important. I think they play a really important role. That doesn't mean that we can't critique them and we can't critique leadership. But I do, thank you so much for saying it because I do want to offer deep gratitude for those that are working in the union, usually without pay, you know, without compensation and then definitely- Although I think that's, I think, I don't know. I think there's, people have been kind of talking about like what, don't know I don't know what compensation they get I think they might get um friends in the union who are trying to get me to be a part of it and the exchange at that time this was like five years ago um with uh you know when I had a three-year-old I was just it's not I can't I can't give even if there is compensation it's probably minimal but so anyway so thank you so much for all your work And and and I think, you know, we've worked directly with the union. Right. And the people that we have worked with in the union have been super amazing, super supportive. And I think, you know, so and there's a we have to understand, like, this is a union that. um represents 23 campuses you know so we're not talking like this is a huge thing so there's a lot of people there's a lot of moving parts like we really want to acknowledge that and again I think it's important for us to be able to have like internal critiques and to look at like okay who is on the actual bargaining team because you can say okay you have representatives but they may or may not be on the actual bargaining team meaning the ones who are actually in the room with CSU administrators making these deals, right? And so I think for me, when I get this email at 8.51 p.m. on a Monday after day one of the strike, I, my feelings were, oh, if we are done after one day, we must have got a deal we couldn't refuse, right? Like we must have got like the ultimate deal, right? So, Renee, someone is posting that the vast majority of people in the CFA, us, are volunteers. Just so we have. Okay. Okay. That's good to know. Because like I said, I went into social media right after this. I was like, oh, what are people saying? And I think some people were alluding to like, let's look up like how much they're making, like trying to like look at leadership. And so I wasn't sure what the situation was. So that's good to know. And so, yeah, so I think it's, and still, right, it's important for us, like there's still a level of accountability, right, that needs to happen. We love that transparency, right? So 851, what led up to this? Where were they meeting? Like if we were striking all day, when did this meeting happen? And like, I don't know, it felt so... Again, I'm going to wait on the numbers, but when I saw the numbers, I felt so deflated. Like I felt so like, wait, if we're going to end after day one and this is what we're getting, like that doesn't feel worth it. Like it doesn't feel – and I thought maybe I'm not understanding these numbers. Maybe there's something I'm not seeing. And so I call my brother and he's like, I'm reading the email right now. Yeah. and I'm like I know christina's not gonna get you know read it till tomorrow so but I text you anyway and I knew I was like the next day I was like making lunch for the kids and I was like waiting for your text I was like when is she gonna read it um like I didn't even respond I was like what's happening I think I know and you were like We were all like, what the heck? And I, so anyway, so I think it was like, I wasn't even to process all that. Cause I was just like, it's good. You were trying to get your kids to school. Notify my 200 or so students about something that's happening today. Another post by the same person saying a chapter president can get a course release just so that's okay. That's so that's what I think I was, I was trying to figure out. I think there is like a course release. Thank you so much. Yeah. Yeah. No, this is really good context to understand, I think, because I think, yeah. And I know like people are really in their emotions right now trying to, what's the word? Like digest, process everything as, as that's, I mean, that's what we're doing. We're like processing out loud, like figuring out like, what does this mean? And I think I just felt like I mean, looking at the email. Okay. So let's talk about numbers and then we can continue like how we felt, but like, so the whole, from the very beginning, by the way, I'm really appreciative. I really love how your brain organizes things sometimes. And this is one of them. I'm just like, I'm getting all like, Oh, i want to make sure that we paint the picture so we're not just like like people under like I'm sure people who are watching are probably fellow you know professors but also people who are who support us and support other um educators can understand you know the picture and I think um And so initially from the very beginning, our union had always made it clear, like we're asking for 12%, a 12% raise, right? Like across the board, no 12% over so many years. Like it was like, we want 12% upfront. And not consistent. Not contingent. I mean, I heard that so many times like, oh, they keep offering. So the CSU offered like 5% and then another like 2% or something contingent on blah, blah, blah. And they made it clear like we're not going to accept any kind of contingent blah, blah. And I was like, okay, yeah, like we're going to stand firm. Now, mind you, we're talking – salary raises, but this is not including a whole list of other things that were being asked for, including things like more lactation rooms, more gender neutral bathrooms, maternity leave, more counselors, right? Because the counselor to student ratio is ridiculous. And so we kept hearing from the CFA, like, we are going to hold, you know, this 12%, like, no matter what, we're not going to, you know, we're not going to budge on that. And I figured they're going to have to budge on some level, so I figured even, like, What's the bottom line? Like, cause I think when they did the fact finding, the fact finding reports, it's something around like 7%. And I thought like, okay, like, That sounds like a cool, you know, middle ground. And so when they come back and they say, OK, five percent retroactive and then another five percent going forward continue. And let me read it. It says so. So the language is clear. It says a five percent general salary increase for all faculty retroactive to July 1st, 2023. And then 5% general salary increase for all faculty on July 1st in 2024, contingent on the state not reducing base funding to the CSU. Okay. All right. So people have pointed out that one hand it is a contingency and that anytime there's been a contingency historically that has not come through. So my brother who participated in a similar situation, similar strike close to 15 years ago, they got the same thing. They got this like, you know, retroactive and then they got a contingency and that the contingency never came through because the budget, you know, didn't allow for it. Well, this 5% that they're retroactively applying was already agreed upon, right? Was already agreed upon. Exactly. Exactly. We are getting some more comments in the comment section. If you have a moment to just push right over. Oh, oh, oh. It might be really good to see. Oh, people are going nuts. I mean, people are. Well, I think it's the most comments you've ever had on a live ever, you know? So, okay. So, yeah. So, they post on social media immediately. There are now up to almost 1,200 comments here. Oh, no. Yes. They're in those comments, but in our feed right now. Oh, in our feed. I didn't know. In our feed. Oh, what's the comments in our feed? Just comments about what's happening on Facebook in regards to the CFA and the... You know, I'm walking like so tentatively. Ooh, there's like chisme here. I know. Love it. Thank you. See, ooh, like, oh, man. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've seen some interesting, let's say, like apology videos. Yeah. I mean, I'll say this comment. It's from my friend Diane. It says one of our CFA leaders went on Facebook this morning to refer to their colleagues who are unhappy with the tentative agreement as quote unquote assholes and quote unquote douchebags. Who says douchebags? Gosh. That's a man, clearly. Clearly. I get they did a ton of work, but we have a right to question. And I think that's exactly, I mean, that's exactly what we said, right? Like, we're like, yes, we acknowledge the amount of work that the union, you know, leadership does at the same time. That doesn't mean that we have to just blindly, like, follow the Is this like the Trump era? Is it like we're not allowed to like be patriots and ask questions? Like, you know, this is kind of. I love it. Oh, I love that people are all up in here. Please. This is the video that goes viral every day. And that would be very sweet. See, I asked. I can't read the whole thing. I asked about the contingency language. Base funding for the CSU has historically remained stable. Oh, OK. Because maybe that's what it is. It's the base funding versus like adding more funding. I'm not sure. Well, I think that in and of itself is what people have been kind of confused about. Like, what is this language? And there's not a lot of clarity there. around what that language means. And I think still, right? Like still it's, so that's 10%. Although my brother pointed out that it means it's compounded. which I was like, huh? Meaning that because it's five and then five, it's actually like a little bit more than 10% because it's compounded. Yeah, I don't know the math on that, but he's the mathematician. So I'm going to believe him on that. Thank you, Hector. But like, yeah, shout out to Dr. Hector Limas who did the math for me. But again, I think, again, the vague language is still there and it still felt like, Yeah. It still felt like a heavier compromise. So and that's just the numbers. Right. There's still a few more points I think are important to make is that I want to like know the counselor situation that that's a lot of people are pointing that out. And then I still think that I would have appreciated from our union. Mm hmm. Um, cause I felt like, so I was talking to another parent at the kid at the school our kids go to, who's also a professor at Cal State Long Beach. And, um, she was saying, if this was the deal that was made after one day of strike, why wouldn't they have made that deal the night before? So we didn't have to strike at all. Cause what did 24 hours make? Yeah. They knew we were going on strike. They knew what that was going to look like. Do you know what I mean? Like it was, but maybe they were still surprised by no people being on campus. You know, I think the rain kind of helped us in that, but I mean, maybe I just, I mean, I think that's like, I don't know. Maybe, but I think, so she was, she made that point. She was like, why? And then for me, I felt like it felt, I was saying this to Tommy last night. I was like, we were prepared to go the whole week. Yeah. Why not let it right out and see what happens then after five days of a strike? Like why? What would we have to lose at that point? Right. As if they were going to say, take it or leave it. What what was you know what I mean? Like what was the leave it like? Yeah, that was the part because. I think what's happened. So what's happening now, right, is that there are your campus is having a town hall. My campus is having a town hall. A lot of other campuses are having a town hall to speak to union members, really trying to rally around how can we vote no on this tentative agreement, which I am in full support of and. It means that we are going to go through another cycle of bargaining, strike, this whole – like everything that we've been doing since last year, we're going to go through again. And I have – I don't know how – because I think it feels so disheartening, right? It feels so disheartening. Like we went through all of this, right? We prepared for a strike. We did all of this. And here's where we end up to rally everybody again, to go through this again, is gonna be a little bit more challenging. I'm not saying it's not possible. I'm saying, I think it's gonna be more challenging rather than say, we already have this momentum that we've built. We have the support. The students are out on the picket line with us. why couldn't we just hold out at least another couple days for the possibility that we could have gotten more? And maybe I'm being naive in saying that, but like. No, I mean, okay. So I'm going to, I would like to talk about the book we're going to read tomorrow, just briefly, because it's coming to mind. We're going to be talking about social change tomorrow. Here's it. Little Nut Book Club with Deepa Iyer. But this page is what it's coming to mind. If you can see it. You're wise. You're ready. And I'm just thinking after this, we are, we were, we were, we were ready before, you know, now we are like weary, like this. So, so it's like, I don't know. I want to think of waves or like birth, but I don't know if any of those like actually work, but there is just an exhaustion, you know, at hand. And it's, it was there before, you know, this strike because, you know, even though I had some job insecurity come up feelings and like, come up that has been there since the beginning of my 10 years teaching at the CSU where every semester, I don't know. I don't know if you're going to get rehired. I don't know if we're going to have the money for classes and it's coming heavier and heavier. Um, I feel like this past, you know, semester, it was the strongest language. We're going to cancel classes. There's, you know, you may not have jobs, your job might be secure, you know, and all these things. And then, um, We rally because we're already, you know, there's job insecurity, but also we don't make enough to really do much but survive with our, you know, with our homes and our families in California. And then we're rallying. We face all of those fears. We step up. And, and they, they did a great job of getting us together. Right. Like mobilizing, mobilizing. And, and I think this is, this is what I mean. Like, again, I was talking to other folks and they were like, there were people who, and I was, I've been watching like people, you know, kind of pushing back on, on this tentative agreement online and on social media. And, and, You know, there were people who've never marched before, never participated in any kind of social action before really stepping up for the first time. Right. Students were showing up. You know, other people were standing in solidarity with us. So and I think also this is coming. We have to acknowledge coming off the back of the mass mobilization around Palestine. Right. And in support of, so people are already in this mode of like shit needs to change globally. And here's how we can participate locally. And so there's this momentum, there's this, you know, and, and I feel like honestly, cause that's what I felt on Monday when I got this email, I felt very like deflated, like what, this is what we're settling for when we are, You know, like, and why wouldn't we just, we were, it was already planned. It was already, I guess I just want to know what the rationale is. Like I want union leadership and a lot of people are calling for that too, right? On social media, like, you know, they've posted these things and people are pushing back. We need to hear directly from the bargaining team. What was the rationale? How did this deal go down? What, what you know what why like what and and honestly they need to be they need to be campaigning why we should vote yes that's the bottom line I think they're so used to I don't think there's ever been somebody in the chat please tell me if I'm wrong but like I don't know if there's ever been a no vote to a tentative agreement you know because they only need here's the thing here's the number two so um the tentative agreement they only need 50 plus one vote for it to get ratified oh interesting you have to mobilize numbers essentially 51 of union members to vote no so we got a couple more comments one of them saying um sorry for blowing up the chat because this is you know people but I i also asked about the counselor portion the contract will have aspirational language that come came directly from the counselor's committee and then we will reopen the full contract in october I know and then someone else just hashtag vote it down vote it down so there you go um yeah I didn't know the numbers on that renee and so I appreciate that I want to say like as you're talking it feels like there was like a sucker punch you know like like uh yes like a punch in the gut, you know, around this. And I think that's why I'm saying like, If we vote no, again, which I am down to do, and I'm not sure if there's going to be the same kind of energy and momentum able to sustain another round of bargaining. That's all I'm trying to say. I'm trying to imagine this on the other end. Can I do this just real quickly? Is this too much? We have been on the other end of this, where we have been the ones doing the work. And We have worked really hard. I can imagine that there is a feeling from those who are doing the CFA work that they have worked so hard and they've made a decision. We've been in this almost exact situation, but different. Yes, I know what you're going to say. Well, you say it and then I'll say what I'm going to say. Because I know I have been asked so many times and I wish I was 20 or 30. I wish I didn't have a kid. Like I probably would have gotten on and been all for the cause, you know, in action. You know, of course I am for the cause. Like I think unions are so important and I'm so grateful. But like I can imagine them saying like, where were you? You know, like... We needed help. We need more help. And just to put that out there, that sounds kind of bad. Yeah. I mean, so you're talking about the book. So we're going to make a plug again. Tomorrow we have our book club. You can go to lasdoctoras.com, L-A-S-D-R-S dot com slash book club. We wanted to make it by the way, by the end, but not along the way. So this is totally just, we are being influenced, you know? So this is the book that we are reading and we're actually going to be having a book, a discussion tomorrow. And when the author is going to be joining us, we're really excited about it. But I was reading it as well. And I, I like what she says about ecosystems. So ecosystems of social change and what is so necessary in the ecosystems of social, social changes on one hand, like, the nurturing of relationships and community, but also she talks a little bit about ego and she talks about like, how do we build accountability within our ecosystems? Right. How do we check in with each other? How do we, and she, I mean, she says something about like, we need to ask for permission, right? Like there's all this language of mutual accountability. Right. And, and I think that, It's calling us out on our ego before too. This is good. I mean, I think it's okay. Like we're supposed to be, I mean, it's human nature to do all these things. And so it's, I think, I think like Diane was saying, we can acknowledge the amount of work we can acknowledge the, the institutional barriers. I'm sure they're up against a wall. Like I, I understand that. And I, the only way we're going to see, continue to see progress is not if we just be like, oh yeah, cool. Let's, oh shoot. I got to plug in my computer. It's like running low on battery. The way we continue to seek progress is not by saying, okay, because you did all this work, we're just going to accept this. It's to say, yeah, you did all this work and we still deserve more and we need to keep pushing that. That's the only way we're going to continue to see progress. I think it's just disappointing. I do think that it's going to be challenging if we vote no to then continue to rally again, but although I think that... I think I don't know, I think I'm still trying to figure out what I don't know. I don't know. I think it's hard for me to say like, oh, let's do all this all over again. But at the same time, it's also disappointing, you know, what we were offered. And I think I think here's what I will say is that until I see, you know, the official language of what is included in this tentative agreement, like the real give me every single line item. and I want to see it and look at it and then make an informed decision, then I'll back that. But until then, this is what's coming up for me, these trepidations around voting no. I'm just processing what I'm feeling. And until I see everything laid out, will I be able to make a much better decision? That's where I'm at. That being said, I think we're like in a similar place. Yeah, I don't know where it is. Before we move on, I do want to just say something about one. So, yes, the reopen, the full contract will be open in October. So I think we have, I think this is where there can, in all these town hall meetings, I think it can be a conversation for what is the best strategy? Is the best strategy to vote no now? Or is the best strategy to vote yes? And then when we reopen the full contract in October to push for those things, right? Like, I think this is where we need to have these open dialogue. I think we might need that time in order to like kind of regather our energy and things like that. I was going to say, I'm kind of left in a bit of like despair a little bit, you know, like, and so it'll, I can, I can feel like my body just being, you know, exhausted and wanting and trying to figure it out, you know? Um, The other thing I think it's important for us to say is the counselor situation. And I think this will be a good transition to what we want to talk about next. Because that's the thing that I've been hearing a lot of people who are pushing back on this is like, okay, we get this shitty kind of five on five, but the counselors were not addressed at all. And so we just need to name that the counselor to student ratio is... I don't know the specific numbers. So again, if somebody in her chat knows those numbers, but the need for more counselors is because of the dire need for more mental health services in general, right? Like our students are, I mean, we know ourselves as professors are struggling with our mental health and, you know, students are as well. And, and so, it's just, there's a dire need for it. Right. And this is, you know, when we talk about like retention rates and how people can graduate college. Yeah. It's not for, I tell my students that, It's not like people who drop out of college. It's not really that they couldn't hack the classes or they couldn't handle the intellectual rigor. It's often all those other things, knowing how to file the right paperwork, knowing how to get financial aid, struggling with mental health, time management, work, personal responsibilities, like how to like navigate all the outside. Sometimes the classroom stuff is the easiest stuff. But it's doing that on top of all these other things that makes it more difficult to be able to graduate. I saw a counselor at every institution I've been at. As a first year, you know, first gen student, you know, like I needed help. I needed to know what to do. Like, and I have had several students, you know, I actually, at the beginning of the semester, I'm always like, see the counseling center now, see them now, because in like a month or two, they'll really face it, you know? And so it is, that is just so, so real that we need those. Yeah. And the same poster is saying that the processing part is so real. It feels good to hear. When we gathered yesterday, there were many tears for the winds, the disappointments, exhaustion, and the abrupt ending. And I think that feels good. I feel like we're, we're, we are in connection with that, you know, I think across. Yes. Someone else chimed in. And this is, this one was really interesting. So we kind of put out a call on our social media for, for people's thoughts. And so Sophia, she's on social media, Sophia, Sophia Sangria. Yeah. Love that name. Awesome. I was trying to check the pronouns, but we'll say they. So they said, super disappointed. Honestly, in my perspective as a student, this was a low ball and simply disheartening. Union members were adamant on fighting for better than what bargaining team settled for. And on top of that, the board didn't even acknowledge the request for better mental health services for students to the CFA. It does not Take a day. This was a powerful movement that everyone participated in, and it was all gone in one single day. Just disappointed, and I hope the members vote no. Love to have that. Let's suit it in on that. Thank you so much, Sofia Sangria and Christina. Yeah, I think that's exactly. It's just disheartening, and it's going to take a second to kind of – Recover. Yeah. Like figure out what is the best course of action. All these things. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And that being said, I think this is an important, like, again, originally when we scheduled this, we wanted to talk about like why we were striking in the first place. You know, why has this, like you were saying, right? Like the instability of going on strike is actually a symptom of a larger, feeling of instability around the job in general, right? Because for anyone who doesn't know, we were legally allowed to strike, but they could dock our pay if we didn't show up for class. And there were some shaky emails going around. So administrators were kind of sending emails to students asking them to report if we weren't in class or we canceled class. We were also sent this email about make, you are responsible for reporting absences accurately. Like I got that email, right? Like, so there was all this like. You're getting a 2.75%. You're getting a raise, but if you do this, you won't get that, you know, was another one that went around. Mm-hmm. Oh, really? Oh, like, see, this is the anyway. So this is why it was overused throughout history. These are the same tactics, right? And that's why it was so scary for you. Because it's like, okay, if we get dark to pay, like even a day, or if we're talking about a week, like that's a lot, you know, and that could be the difference between paying a bill here and there, right. Or paying, you know, mortgage or rent or whatever, like it's a lot. So, and again, that, that is part of the larger system of the instant or the instability of the larger system. Right. So you mentioned that like, you know, as somebody who's not tenure, yes, we may be on a three-year contract because both of us are on a three-year contract. Yeah. Ooh, we are entitled, right, to classes. What a weird word to use right now, right? Entitlement. Weird word to use. But it does not mean... Again, it's contingent in our contract, in our three-year contract. It says contingent on enrollment and budget. So... it's not really like a guarantee, right? It's like this weird little like caveat that they can put in there. And I think that that's, so there's this larger instability that we've been dealing with for a very long time. And I think the other thing that we have come up against is the perception of what we make versus what we actually make, because there's this perception that we have doctorate degrees or professors, that there's a level of prestige or a level of respect or a level of maybe even class right like there's this perception that's not we got money that we yeah that's not um a reflection of what is in our bank accounts And I think we really like want to be clear. And that's because that's what I've been posting a lot is like, let's look at the reality of what salaries look like. Right. Especially being that we're not 10 year. We're not 10 year track. Right. We are what they call. temporary and you can have temporary full-time meaning you're teaching a full five classes so you're getting paid quote-unquote full-time or temporary part-time which means you're teaching less than five classes right and so you're getting paid per unit there's a 12-month lecture and there's a 10-month lecture and if you're a 10-month lecturer like we are we're considered part-time still even though we're teaching five classes um and so we don't actually get benefits like vacation time We get sick time, but we don't get vacation time. And again, contingencies all around. Contingencies. There was a lot of things that I was posting and it was like this FAQ, right? And there was one question like, don't college professors make plenty of money? And the answer said, The starting pay for a lecturer working full-time is $54,360 per year, but lecturers are rarely assigned full-time appointments. The vast majority of faculty who teach your courses are part-time lecturers who on average earn $27,200 annually. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And let me tell you something too, going back to like the mental health crisis, because of the lack of counselors, a lot of professors end up taking on... Six, seven classes, as many as they can. Well, no, but I think also we have students who have mental health crises and because we are... don't know we care we give a so I feel like there's been times where I've kind of tried to help and you know had to be like the advocate for students right and like walk them through situations that they're dealing with so it's almost like we're taking on the role of counselor because there aren't enough counselors and we're not getting paid for that labor We're not getting paid to answer emails. We're not getting paid to do all this extra labor. And our pay for what we are doing is very minimal. And again, I think that there's this perception that somehow because we have all these degrees, I'm like, first of all, like you were saying, we got to pay all that, all those student loans back. How much you said you have? How many? Six months? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Something like that. I still have like four years, I think. But still, I mean, I think you're like three years ahead of me anyway. Like it makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And thinking of those three years, right? We did the math on this. Those three extra years means I have a $50 extra. I get paid $50 extra. So I think that's the thing. So we get paid per unit that we teach over a semester, right? So it's not like per unit. It's like per unit. And yeah, you're getting we figured out that you're getting paid $50 more than I am a semester because you're you've been working three years longer than me. So we're like, wait a minute, $50, $50 raise after three years is like pennies. Right. And that's just per unit. And so, again, it depends on I mean, there have been times where I've taught. three classes and then there's been times where I'm taught five to seven classes and so in those semesters where I teach five to seven I'm like okay this is pretty cool but then I don't know if the next semester I'm only going to teach three and so I have to stretch that one semester paycheck out you know because I don't know what I'm gonna be teaching next semester Like, and we've been living that life for a really long time. It's very unstable. We directly feel all of these like economic, you know, ups and downs. Like, you know, we feel it because enrollment goes down, which means classes, you know, get canceled and, you know, all kinds of different things. Contingency plans don't work. Yeah. Oh, Renee, I have to take a breath right now. I am feeling so overwhelmed by this, actually. I feel like I have to – I'm, like, telling myself, but remember, remember what we love. We love working with students. Remember that we love, you know, teaching gender studies, that this changed our life, and we want to share that, you know. And I know – I knew from the beginning that that activist, you know, work was going to not – make tons of money and it felt, it feels good. And, um, but in this moment too, you know, I'm being triggered from like old messages of being disregarded. And, you know, I think all of that's coming up for me right now. And I just want to take a moment and maybe cry about it after this. Um, that's, that, that's a real emotion and that's, I think that – I mean, because I've talked to my students about this too. I go – because I'll always encourage them to follow the thing that they love, right? What are you passionate about? What is it that you love to do? And can you pursue that? Is that going to equate to a paycheck? Maybe not. But – you know, I've always said, yes, I've never, I've never chased the paycheck. I've chased the love of the work that I do and my passion at the same time that just because I love what I do doesn't mean that I should sacrifice my worth. Totally. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like just because we love, like, it's like, oh, well you love what you do. So that's the exchange. Fuck that. Like, no, we should be able to do what we love and get paid for it. and get paid what we deserve. Yeah. Thanks for the comment. Someone's commenting. Thank you for expressing your words and emotions right now. I'm feeling the same. Thanks. Appreciate it. Yeah. It's hard because like you said, we're, we feel so undervalued. And so what's the word disregarded. And we have to remind ourselves. Like I always say, I love what I do. I love what I do. I love what I do. And. You know, I, I'm not going to lie that. You know, for me, the most challenging part of my job is the commute. It's I don't like driving. I hate driving. I know people have worse commutes than I do. Yeah. But when I'm driving home. At the end of a day, at the end of a long day, and I've got to come home to kids and make sure they eat and do their homework and all this stuff, it feels like such a waste. Like I have to sit in stressful traffic for an hour on the way home when I'm like mentally exhausted from the day. And then I get home and it takes me about an hour or two to like decompress from that. And so it feels like such a waste. Yeah. It feels like such a waste and we're not getting compensated for that time. You know, I'm barely getting compensated. We've asked for more online kind of, not kind of, we have asked for more of these online courses that were so prevalent during COVID because they worked for us and for our students mostly. And that has been also questioned, you know, and. I mean, I'm not like, I felt like during COVID when I was teaching exclusively online, like that was the, my best quality work. I mean, yes, there's something to be said about being in the classroom with students and having the interaction. But I felt like it was easier for... The time wasted in the commute, it could be the time to plan lessons and do more reading to give more quality instruction. It's such a waste. And I think there's also this sort of narrative of like, well, why don't you just work closer to home? And it's like, yeah, that's... Yeah, that'd be great. But that's not always available. Yeah. And honestly, I want to name that that is a systemic oppression. You know, that is like an abusive relationship, you know, set up by the state to separate people and isolate them and make them commute, you know, provide housing that's further away, separate them from their families, make them make that commute, like the labor of that. It is, it has been intentional, you know, historically. Yeah. And, um, so yeah, so even though there's, I can hear it, these counter narratives, like, why don't you just live like, you know, in downtown LA? Why don't you just- we know that most people historically can't live close to where their work is, you know, like, so, and you're right. People commuting from San Francisco, people who keep commuting. Oh, I have cousins who commuted from Corona to downtown LA for like their whole lives, you know, like, so. Talk about mental health crisis. Like that's a lot. Like all the influence of like road rage or like that, like, you know, it's, it's big, big. It's good. I'm so glad you're addressing it. Yes. Yes. Yeah. I was actually listening to NPR and they were talking, there's this conversation now in the workforce around getting compensated for the commute. So whether that's like people who take the bus and then their work would pay for like a bus pass or actually getting paid, like for the mileage they use, you know, in their gas or whatever. And it was interesting to hear those who are like supporting those kinds of efforts. And then those who are, not supporting those efforts. Again, this sort of narrative of what I heard was, well, usually the salaries in particular areas account for the local cost of living. So if you can't you know if you want to live somewhere if you want to live somewhere you know that's more than that then you know kind of rather than saying no actually the cost of living of where I work is more than where I live and the reason why I live where I live is because I can't afford to live where I work I think it is known that actually csula and csudh pay at the minimum You know, like, so like, of, of the, cause there's a, there is a spectrum. You can, you can be paid that 54,000 or you can be paid like, you know, up to a certain amount. I don't know. There's like the thing there. And historically, or my understanding is that, and, and we just proved this when we looked at our money together, our contracts together, that we are paid at the minimum of this spectrum already. And this is in two institutions in the heart of Los Angeles that, So, like, you know, little study, like, we are not paid enough. You know, if we were being paid the rate that this other, you know, you were saying, like, that would allow us to live in those places, it would be at least twice as much, right? Like, it would – there's just not – Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I wanted to acknowledge, like, you know, I think this is it's really important for us to understand the nuances of all of this. And I never want it to sound like we're just complaining and that we don't have points of privilege. Right. I think we absolutely do have points of privilege here. Just to name social, you know, social change again. We talked a lot about that, right? We need to, she does a really good job of like naming her privileges. I love it. And so I think, you know, we do want to acknowledge that we do have doctorate degrees, right? And we do have, we do have jobs, right? As much as they are in stable jobs. With our doctorate degrees. Right. Right. And to do what we love. Right. Like there's a certain level of privilege there. There's a lot of people not doing what they love to do. Right. We do send our kids to a private school. And I want to say something about that, though, because it's always been some because I went to private school. Right. For first through 12th grade, I went to Catholic school. And there was even then like there was this perception of like, oh, you go to private school. You must be rich. I'm like. It's called tuition assistance, you know. And two, it was great sacrifices. Great sacrifices, right? I think that was the idea that somehow, because you go to private school, it means you're in this, I don't know, class thing. position, because that you can afford it. And it was like, no, my parents like really made a lot of sacrifices, like not being able to do other things so that we could go to private school. And I think the same thing is said for myself, right? So me and Tommy, like, you know, I don't know, sometimes I see people buying nice, like new things. And I'm like, Oh, I can't do that, right? Or like, And it's not to say that we don't, again, we have nice things, but us sending our kids to private school is not like, I don't know, it's a privilege and our kids are on tuition assistance and it does require a lot of sacrifice, a lot of juggling our budgets in order to make that happen. And so and again, I know there's other people who can't even do that. Right. So I want to acknowledge that. Like, we know that there are people who can't even make want to make those sacrifices. Right. I completely acknowledge that. And again, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't make what we deserve. Right. Like that we that we're not like. This is I think this is this capitalist idea. Actually, no, I think capitalism is sold to rich people with generational wealth as like your wealth is based on all this hard work that you do. Right. The bootstraps mentality. And those of us who don't have that generational wealth are made to feel guilty about our luxuries. Right. So when rich people do things like fucking go to space and shit, it's like, oh, you're so smart and you work so hard. You deserve that. But when people who are who are not rich spend money on luxuries, then it's like, well, you're poor because you're not spending your money correctly. like a car that actually like, you know, lets us get places. Yeah. Anyway. So I think again, just like there's all these nuances to this thing. The other thing that was interesting, I was, I listened to NPR in the car all the time. Okay. And my commute, my longest commute. I can't listen to it in the car anymore. Right. I mean, I couldn't before when he was very little and he didn't understand. It is the time to catch up on the news because when are you else going to do it? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. They were talking about it was a really weird conversation. They were talking about they were talking to some like Republican pundits, I guess, you know, in lieu in light of the upcoming election, which is a whole other shit show. Anyway. So they came into these Republican pundits and they were talking about who are the Republican voters and who are the Democratic voters, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it was interesting because they kept sort of positioning... They were talking about... college graduates in um as opposed to working class people so they were kind of saying like oh college graduates are over here in this particular class level and working class are somewhere below that and I was like whoa this gives no space for working class college graduates and Yeah, there's a clear assumption when you say that, that somehow there's white privilege in that. There's some class generational wealth. inspirational wealth. And yeah, there's been a lot of studies. There's a couple of good books, cool, good articles I can send your way, because I think that is the prevalent idea, you know, and that academics are like the elite, which, you know, elitism is an ideology. But like, yeah, again, that coming back to this perception that we've often got like, oh, you're all doctorates, so you must be. Yeah. Raking in the dough. There is privileges, right? Like, and so I appreciate that, like going back to like the numbers thing, you know, we are on like a certain range along that spectrum. But it is still not, you know, enough to live and, and like create, you know. and take care of other beings often. And I think the other thing I want to mention when I talked about the different things that we have, like tuition assistance and sacrifices, we have community and we have family, right? That we lean into. We have our, we have some, some cultural traditions that like really help us that are undervalued or not valued by white culture, you know, too. So yeah. Yeah. I mean, I really love that you're speaking to that, Renee. I do that, that like, there's no conversation for the working class, you know, college student or college graduate, which I mean, I think it's like, I don't know if there's anything else, you know, like, you know, I had to work. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Or there's this historical notion of like, if you get a college degree, that means upward mobility. But we know that that doesn't ring true, particularly if you don't have generational wealth, right? it's college graduate or college degree doesn't equate to paycheck. Right. And so I think that like, that's again, this like false perception of, of things. And, you know, I think, I don't know where I would love to land. Cause we do have to, I do have to go to work. It's my first day back. Yes, we do. Wait, can I say one more thing? I want to thank you. the extra or the hyper, the hyper work that we did that, you know, recently I was listening to Alok and they were talking about how much, you know, they've had to do that. And it's not just, you know, us, of course, but like, i want to name just yes all the work all of the connections all of like the all of the things we did in order to make it this far like um and I think that that that just has to be there too I don't know maybe that's my ego but I'm like we're so dang hard oh like much more than our white male counterparts right like oh 100 oh much more okay Yeah, no. Well, I mean, this gets into, like, the mediocre white men, and I don't even want to get into the Oscars, but anyway. And that Ryan Gosling was nominated for Barbie, but not Margot Robbie and not Greta Gerwig. I mean, I know there's all kinds of problematics about the Barbie movie. Okay, I get it. And... Did people not watch the movie? Anyway, anyway, anyway. Okay, okay, okay. This is good stuff. What I want to land on, and I think that this is always a challenge for us too, because it is difficult for us to be transparent sometimes around like finances and economics. I remember when we did our episode years ago around our like student loans, we were like, oh my God, do we want to say that number out loud? Like how much we owe? Because there was so much like, shame around like we owe all this money and you know in student loans because we feel guilty anyway like all of that and I mean I think we've been able six months away from having 120 000 dollars Yeah. That felt good to name actually. And scary as you know, but, but good, good to name. Yes. Yeah. I mean, God, God bless when that day happens. But I think it's always hard for us, right? That's definitely money has always been a, something hard for us to kind of talk about openly and publicly, but then we always find that if we don't, You know, we continue to internalize shame and all kinds of things. So I think the other thing we have to speak to is that, like... we do this, this podcast, the work that we do as Las Doctoras out of the kindness of our hearts. There was a few years, I want to say like two years that we were able to bring in money to sustain it, right? That we were able to pay for the website and we were able to, you know, we were able to like fund this work and, But because of not only the economy, you know, at large, but also because during those two years, we were doing a lot of hustling. And I think it put us into a place of burnout because we still have day jobs because our day jobs sustain us. all of this, this sustains this, right? Like, and now we're in a position where our day jobs are sustaining this too. And so it is, it is, it's, it's becoming very difficult to sustain. And I want to name that, like we are in season six and theoretically we are in a position to be able to find funding and But it also requires time and effort that we have been very mindful of because we've done it before, right? We've hustled, we've brought in money and we've been able to sustain it, but that required sacrifice. It required, you know, like grading and editing, grading and trying to be with our kids and also like holding weekly workshops, right? Like, it was a lot of work and it at some point something had to give and so we were you know we've not we've had to pull back on a lot of our offerings so that on one hand we don't burn out and on the other hand we can sustain some level of it and so we've been able to sustain the podcast on some level but at this point we are paying out of our own pocket for everything and if anyone has their own podcast you know and if you don't Um, it, it, there's a price tag to it, right? Like we have to pay for a website that holds everything, right? We have to pay for this streaming, you know, platform, right? Like we have to, there's a lot of money that goes out there. So I also just want to be transparent again, because I think people think like, oh, you're in season six, you know, you gotta be bringing in something, right? And it's like, no, we are sustaining this. And again, we love to do it. So we're going to continue to do it. It's our activism. It's our heart. It's our offering. But it doesn't mean that it's easy to financially sustain. So if you would love to like... financially help us out you we would love that right we are having a book club tomorrow and also right it goes to um sustaining the efforts to end you know the sea in to call for the ceasefire too. Right. And it helps the children. Yeah. So our book club tomorrow, we're asking for a 25, we're asking for $25. Half of which will go towards, I think the Palestinian children's fund and half of which will go to sustaining our podcast. And all of the work that we do out in the world. So, yeah, I want to be transparent about that, too, that we would love to call in more financial support for the work we do as Las Doctoras. I'm celebrating you and the bravery of this moment. You know, thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. And thank you. I'm really trying to have this year be like the year of being unapologetic, but I also am a people pleaser. And so I'm like, I feel like I cut you off a lot today. I want to acknowledge that. I do that so often. And it's like, I've been really trying to like, stop and like pause and listen. But sometimes my, I guess, you know, my verbalness, my talking too much gets the best of me. Well, I was going to text you and our friend that we were with yesterday that my phone addiction and trying to find like a place to live got the better of me when we were together. And I was like, we were together for like an hour. Why can't I get off my phone? You know? So I, thank you. Thank you. We're human. We're just trying to do our best. Yeah. And yeah, let's go do our best today. Yeah. Love you. Alrighty. Thank you everyone for being here. You didn't apologize for posting so much. We love the questions. Oh yeah, we love it. This is, oh my God, this is our girl. All right. Thanks everyone. Bye.
