Lauren Kuby Video Interview Transcript

"I’m State Senator Lauren Kuby, I proudly represent the people of Legislative District 8. That includes the entirety of Salt River Pima Caricopa Indian Community, Central and North Tempe, South and Central Scottsdale, parts of Mesa, parts of Phoenix. It’s a very large, expansive, progressive district. I’m also a proud union member. I’ve been a member of United Campus Workers of Arizona Local 7065 since its inception. I’m especially proud to be endorsed by the Local and endorsed by CWA in this election.

I was proud to join the union in 2020. Arizona State University and the other state universities need a collective voice and vision and we need to represent the voices and perspective of students, staff, and faculty. And it’s the only organization that brings us all together as a community.

Pro-labor voices are a minority in our current legislature. We have a legislature dominated by Republicans and sadly we have not been able to push through pro-worker reforms and pro-worker legislation. I’m very excited about the potential when we flip in November. It’s really important to have that union vice because union voices represent working families. They represent the core constituency that we are trying to elevate. We need to create an affordable Arizona for all and that begins with workers, that begins with unions, that begins with work protections. 

I was proud to have my union and CWA, Communication Workers of America that parent union, with me in my primary fight where I was really fighting air-bnb industry money, I was fighting utility money. And we wanted to have a progressive leader who would stand up, stand up to corporations, stand up to oligarchs, and stand up to the Trump agenda. So I’m excited that this general election campaign I don’t have a tough fight, it’s a very strong Democratic district, but I am focused on flipping the legislature. There are many districts that we really need to attend to. We have multiple pathways to winning a majority in both the House and the Senate and that is my main focus.

Project 2025 and the Trump agenda has been to destroy higher education, destroy public education in fact. I think it’s really important that we stand up as legislative voices but that as we stand up as union members and stand up as ASU or university staff, students, and faculty to the Trump agenda. Representative Brian Garcia is my seatmate in the house, we’re called the dynamic duo, and any opportunity we get we go to campus we stand with our workers we stand with the students. We stand with Aramark workers who are fighting for fair wages and dignity in the workplace. It’s important that we bring the Trump agenda to the voters and explain what this is gonna mean for academic freedom, what this is gonna mean for our DACA students, for students that are in the shadows and getting an education at ASU. It’s important that we also embrace our international students. We’re losing international students by the score - that hurts our university economically. It hurts our region economically. It’s very important that we fight this Trump agenda and speak out at every opportunity that we can because the intention is to destroy public education, to destroy freedom of speech on our campuses. We can’t let that sit.

Please join a union. If you're a public university employee, whether you’re staff, student, or a faculty member, please consider joining United Campus Workers of Ariona Local 7065. It’s really important that we speak up. Together we’re strong, united we’re strong. We need to collectively bargain for fair wages for dignity for all workers. You can be a part of that fight."